MCC/Lord’s
MCC, LORD’S & INDIA – A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
“When I was young I used to imagine I would play for India one day and score a hundred at Lord’s.”
So did Mihir Bose open his preface to A History of Indian Cricket. That boyhood dream is a common one among children across the world, but the relationship between MCC, Lord’s and India is a particularly long and fruitful one.
The first team of Indian Parsees made their debut at Lord’s against MCC in 1886. It was not a happy occasion for them as they lost by an innings and 224 runs, WG Grace scoring 65 and taking 11 wickets in the match. Forty years later, in 1926, MCC sent its first touring side out to India, under the captaincy of AER Gilligan. Gilligan’s side included players such as Maurice Tate, Andy Sandham and Bob Wyatt, but found itself tested by strong Indian opposition in the major matches.
India’s time at cricket’s high table was about to come. In 1932 a full Indian side undertook its first tour of England, playing its maiden Test match at Lord’s. The team played three matches in total at Lord’s, captain CK Nayudu notching centuries against both MCC and Middlesex. The bat he used on that tour now resides in the MCC Museum.
Even during the pre-Test era, Indian cricketers had been prominent at Lord’s. The great Ranjitsinhji scored more runs at the Home of Cricket than anywhere else apart from his county home of Hove. A total of 3420 first-class runs including 10 hundreds flowed from his graceful bat, although he was less successful in his two Tests for England at Lord’s, scoring 8, 0 and 0.
Ranji’s nephew Duleepsinhji was another Indian who played Test cricket for England at Lord’s, scoring 173 against Australia in 1930. The Nawab of Pataudi, who made his highest first-class score of 238 for Oxford in the 1931 Varsity match, played three Tests for England in the 1930s, then returned to captain India in the Lord’s Test of 1946. His son, “Tiger” Pataudi captained India at Lord’s in 1967, and it was in honour of this famous family’s links with cricket in both countries that in 2006 MCC commissioned the Pataudi Trophy to be played for in Test matches between England and India.
In 1986 India achieved its first Test victory at Lord’s, spurred on by Dilip Vengsarkar’s masterly 126. Vengsarkar managed the astonishing feat of scoring hundreds in each of his first three Tests at Lord’s. He is one of three great Indian cricketers whose portraits were commissioned by MCC in 2007, along with Kapil Dev (whose all-round skills were to the fore in the 1982 Test, in which he bagged 8 wickets and smashed 89 from 55 balls), and Bishan Bedi (whose marathon 64.2 overs producing 6 for 226 at Lord’s in 1974 must be one of the greatest feats of bowling endurance ever seen at the ground).
But undoubtedly the highlight of India’s great history at Lord’s came in 1983, when a seven-over spell from medium-pacer Mohinder Amarnath bowled India to a surprise victory over Clive Lloyd’s West Indies in the Prudential World Cup Final. It was a day that changed the face of cricket forever, placing the one-day game at the forefront of cricket both in India and worldwide, a permanent reminder of which can be found in the MCC Museum where the Prudential Cup resides to this day.