T
endu LKar stood uP to his tag
of prodigy by scoring a match-saving
century at old trafford, which was also
the debut test of anil Kumble. his un-
beaten 119 and his partnership with Manoj
Prabhakar was the highlight of the test
series, which india lost 0-1. after Graham
Gooch batted india out of the first test, it
was azharuddin, shastri and tendulkar’s
batting that helped the team draw the next
two tests. india hit back in the odi series,
winning it 2-0. the series is also believed
to be the first that was played in the altered
english weather in which the summer
remained mostly dry, accounting for the
high scores by both teams.
to recap the hundred in the words of the
master batsman, “We lost the Lord’s test by
247 runs and needed to tighten our game
before the second test at old trafford a week
later to remain competitive in the series. in
a three-test series, it is always a difficult task
to come back into the contest after losing the
first test match. at old trafford, we had to bat
the whole of day 5 to save the test. there was
a substantial cloud cover over the ground
and the ball was swinging around for the fast
bowlers all day on a worn out fifth-day pitch.
unfortunately for the team, azhar fellwith the score on 127 and Kapil dev got
yorked to eddie hemmings with the team
total on 183. Manoj Prabhakar joined me in
the middle and we knew it was an extremely
vital partnership in the context of the match.
i had been lucky at the start of my innings
with eddie hemmings dropping me when i
was on 14. in trying to save a match, the im-
portant thing is to set yourself small targets
and go about meeting them. these could be
as little as the next five overs, the next hour
or even a session. the first time the thought
of the hundred came to me was when i was
nearing ninety. i reminded myself of the
mistake i had made in new Zealand a year
earlier and was conscious not to repeat the
same mistake and lose out on the opportuni-
ty yet again. there was still some time left in
the day’s play and england could still press
for victory if i got out. eventually, i played a
punch off angus fraser through mid-off on- chris Lewis chased down the ball and by
the time he had thrown it back to the bowler,
i had run three completing my first test hun-
dred.... More than thrilled, i was relieved at
having saved the game for india. But i wasn’t
adept at showing my emotions in public. it
was a result of my upbringing and people
may have considered me socially awkward.”
S
O uraV ganguly
and rahul dravid
arrive on the scene. in
a spate of days, things
had changed. india
was no longer syn-
onymous with sachin
tendulkar. two play-
ers, who ruled world/
indian cricket for more
than a decade since
and went on to captain
india with distinction,
had arrived. While
dravid went on to
establish himself as
one of the best test
batsmen in the world,
ganguly could right-
fully claim the mantle
of india’s best captain.
though the indians
lost the test series
0-1, the highlight was
the two consecutive
hundreds by ganguly,
including a debut hun-
dred at lord’s. dravid
just fell short while
sachin continued his
imperious run scoring
two hundreds in the
three test-match se-
ries. despite the loss,
indian batting was
gradually becoming a
force to reckon with.two to tango
A timeline of
India-England
encounters at Old
Traffordthe Young Prodigy
at Old Trafford
cricket
1990
1996
44 6 august 2018