Uploaded India 1967-68
Led by it's charismatic, movie star like captain,
Tiger Pataudi, (the Nawab of Pataudi Jr), India had begun to make a name for themselves, though beaten by England that same time period 0-3, they began to move away from dour defensive cricket to carve under Tiger an identity of their own. Under Tiger India revved up a new brand of attack, one laden with spin. They beat New Zealand 3-1 for their first away series victory.
Tiger, backed his spinners. A quartet of spinners would emerge (Venkat, Prasana, Bedi, Chandra) to give India a lethal spinning weapon. They would with the 67-68 team not play the quartet but just two of them, the scheming,
Erapali Prasanna and the dreamlike
Bishen Bedi.
Tiger did however have
Bapu Nadkarni, an excellent left arm spinning allrounder who was legendary for his accuracy. There were very good allrounders in this side besides Nadkarni, , hard hitting allrounder
Chandu Borde, who would be an IPL star today,
Rusi Surti another exciting allrounder known as the "Poor Man's Garry Sobers". The batting opens with wicketkeeper,
Farouk Engineer who would go onto to have a excellent county cricket career, and the versatile
Syed Abid Ali.
Ajit Wadekar later to captain the 1971 team
, and stylish
Montganhalli Jaisimha backed up Tiger with their batting skills.
It was this series triumph that gave India more confidence to play their brand of cricket which they would in just three years, beat West Indies and England away in 1971. Indian cricket owes Tiger a dept for giving it's cricket it's identity at the time which would last for years.
Thanks to
@Llewelynf for the uniforms and the host of creators for bats, logos,
@wasteyouryouth for the inspiration and all the retro creators and other creators for the support.
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