On this day in 1971: India win its first-ever Test series on English soil. The date of August 24, 2023 marks 52 years of a historic feat that saw the Indian Cricket team tame the British cricket lions in their own den. The Ajit Wadekar-led Indian side defeated England to seal India’s first Test series triumph on English soil following their landmark series win in the West Indies earlier in 1971. The triumph on English soil established three firsts.
India won its first Test match in England with this victory. It was the first time England had lost in 28 Test matches dating back to June 1968, and India had won both of their series after earlier defeating the West Indies.
But it wasn’t easy to register a historic victory. At the very end, before Abid All made the winning stroke a square cut for four off Brian Luckhurst—India had to battle for it inch by inch. India and England went into the third and final Test after drawing the first two matches of the series at Lord’s and Old Trafford Manchester.
Batting first, England posted 355 runs on the board, and India, in response, put on 284, courtesy fifties from Dilip Sardesai and Farookh Engineer and valuable 40s from Captain Ajit Wadekar and Eknath Solkar, who also scalped 3 England wickets in the first innings. Bhagwath Chandrasekhar then turned the game on its head for India in England’s 2nd innings. The legendary leg-spinner ran through the England batting line-up and returned with figures of 6/38 as India bowled England out for 101.
While Srinivas Venkataraghavan picked two wickets, in addition to a sharp catch, and Bishan Bedi got a wicket, Solkar grabbed two outstanding catches at short-leg. India, who needed 173 runs to secure a win, then held their nerve as Wadekar, Sardesai, Gundappa Viswanath and Engineer scored crucial 45, 40, 33 and 28* respectively and went on to seal a historic four-
wicket win.
