An Indian cricket centenary
2011 is the centennial year of the first tour of England by an Indian cricket team. The All-India team was captained by the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, writes Subroto Sirkar

The All-India squad led by the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, who is centrestage in this group photo

We in India like anniversaries and love cricket. The two come together right now, as it is the centennial of the first tour of England by an all-Indian cricket team. The opening match of this historic tour began at Oxford on June 1, 1911, with All-India’s openers Keki Mistry and Rustom Meherhomji going into bat after A.J. Evans led the university out to field. The photograph, which is in the MCC collection, has the two teams posing outside the pavilion.

All-India were captained by the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, though he was just in his 20th year. He takes centrestage in the group, and if there seems an aura around his head, it is really the glitter of jewels studded in his turban.

On his right is the varsity skipper. Son of a Madras-born cricketer, Evans was the only one in this group to become a Test player in 1921. Next to Evans is All- India’s most experienced batsman, Jaya Ram, 39. He had played first class cricket in England before, while doing postgraduate studies in geology. But on this tour he was not much of a success.

Meherhomji, seated extreme left, was All-India’s biggest run-getter, with 1,227 runs and three centuries in all matches. The handsome Major Mistry (sitting, second from right) was noted in the 1912 Wisden as "unquestionably a high-class batsman." But as private secretary to the Maharaja, he was unable to play much as his skipper soon showed little interest in playing and busied himself with political and social affairs.

It was common to imagine the tour had come about at the Maharaja’s initiative and with his sponsorship. But recent research by Leicester University lecturer Prashant Kidambi and his article in the newest Wisden shows the team was chosen by a seven-man committee and the tour financed by donations from several ruling princes as well as merchant houses.

All-India lost this opening match by eight wickets and then the next ten. It was only in mid-July that victory came, at Leicester, where Dr Homi Kanga and Meherhomji began with an opening stand of 178 and the doctor went on to score 163, the highest by a touring player in first-class matches. Yet All India’s real success was its left-arm spinner, Balakrishna Palvankar, a Dalit and better known as P.Baloo.

He took well over a hundred wickets on the tour, including 75 in first-class games, at an average of 20.12. Baloo, whose brother Shivram was also on the touring side, is standing at extreme right.

Next to Baloo in the group is all-rounder Salamuddin Khan, one of three products of Aligarh’s M.A.O. College, who gained selection. The bespectacled man along side, in the floppy hat, is the left-handed all-rounder Jahangir Warden who, in the tour’s final match, took eight for 91 in Gloucestershire’s first innings at Bristol. On Warden’s right is the Bombay physician, Dr Kanga, who captained All-India when the Maharaja "deserted" the team. The only century in this Indians-Oxford game was scored by the tall man on the doctor’s right, Punjab-born Ian Campbell, who was to spend much of his working life in India.

Standing at extreme left is the team’s no. 1 wicket-keeper, Kilvidi Seshachari, while third from left is burly Maneksha Bulsara, born in the Portuguese enclave of Daman but a Delhi resident, reputedly the country’s best swing bowler. In between these two is Shivaji Rao Gaekwar, second son of Maharaja of Baroda. In this game he was on the Oxford side, but after the university term he appeared for All-India. This was a unique happening — till 1959, when Abbas Ali Baig, another Oxonian, first played against and then for the
touring Indian side.

The 12th Indian in this group is the Bombay batsman Mukundrao Pai, sitting second from left on the ground, who had a poor tour. Incidentally, the O.U. man on his right is Harry Altham, whose A History of Cricket, first published in 1926, quickly became an authoritative volume.

Five tourists did not play this opening match and are not in the photo. Aligarhis Syed Hassan and Shafqat Hussain apart, these were Shivram, Bombay wicket-keeper Homi Mulla, and another Parsee, Manekji Bajana, an ADC to the Maharaja of Cooch Behar. Bajana, who got a century against Somerset, later returned to England to play for that county.

Clearly, All-India did not have a team blazer. All the same, had this not been a B&W photo, there would have been a riot of colours on this page.