1952-53: When India first toured the West Indies to play Test cricket

In 1950, Sonny Ramadhin of Trinidad became the first Indo-Caribbean to play for them. (Photo: Facebook)

Slavery became abolished in the United Kingdom in 1833. To keep up with the demands of the sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean, the British planters recruited “indenture workers” from India.

Between 1838 and 1917, about 450,000 Indians arrived in the Caribbean to work for — to quote the Museum of London website — “a minimal wage and some basic provisions.”

The early West Indian Test teams consisted of cricketers of African and European origins, and were invariably led by a white man. In 1950, Sonny Ramadhin of Trinidad became the first Indo-Caribbean to play for them.

In 1948-49, the West Indies had become the first team to play Test cricket in Independent India. The return tour, in 1952-53, was even more special, especially to the Indian contingent in the Caribbean.

The Indian cricketers flew out of Bombay and spent the Christmas of 1952 in London. Then, they set sail for the Caribbean in the tiny, 80-passenger ‘banana boat’ Golfito, along with Frank Worrell, Ramadhin, and other West Indian cricketers based in the UK.

It was a turbulent voyage. Captain Vijay Hazare, vice-captain Vinoo Mankad, manager Cotar Ramaswami, and Worrell all suffered from sea-sickness, as did Berry Sarbadhikary, the accompanying journalist.

‘The happiest tour’

The initial cheer from the fans at the Bridgetown dock was for local hero Worrell, who was returning home after several years. The Indians then sailed to Trinidad for the first leg of the cricket matches.

Trinidad, with its 50 percent Indian population, was different from Barbados, which had a more pronounced British influence. Many of the descendants of the indentured workers had never seen people from their homeland, whom they referred to as the East Indians.

And these East Indians were not ordinary people: they played a sport that held the Caribbean islands together. “The pier was a sea of people, mostly Indians. We were received with great warmth and affection,” recollected Madhav Apte, one of the youngsters on the tour.

The oldest among them still spoke reasonable Hindi. The Indians were pleasantly surprised to find dal and Indian food cooked with Indian spices that were referred to by Hindi names.

The tour started off with a two-day match against the Trinidad East Indians, which fizzled out in a draw despite excellent bowling from Subhash Gupte and Mankad. Against a full Trinidad side, Hazare batted for eight and a half hours for his 153, becoming the first Indian to score 50 first-class hundreds.

India drew the first Test match as well, on a coir jute wicket at Port of Spain, before sailing back to Bridgetown. Here, Everton Weekes made 253, and Barbados declared on 606-7 and bowled out the Indians for 209, but the tourists saved the match.

A Barbadian teenager called Garry Sobers debuted in the match. He made only seven not out, but he did bowl long spells in each innings to take 4-50 and 3-92 — the first of many memorable performances.

The Test match that followed at the same venue marked the Indians’ first defeat on the tour. They collapsed against the home spinners, Ramadhin (2-59 and 5-26) and Alf Valentine (4-58 and 2-53).

Incessant rain forced the West Indian board to change the venue of the third Test match from Georgetown to Port of Spain. This was a blessing in disguise, as the Indians sailed back just in time for the famous Trinidad carnival.

Apte batted for nearly 10 hours to make 163 here. This was no ordinary innings. Renowned cricket statistician Charles Davis calculated that India batted for about 200 overs while Apte was at the crease, which almost certainly made him the first Indian to face 500 balls in a Test innings.

The Test match was drawn, but not before Jeff Stollmeyer, the West Indian captain who had been “jumping in the streets in a woman’s nightie” during the carnival a few days ago, made a hundred.

The Indians now sailed to British Guiana (now Guyana), where once again they were received cordially by their once-compatriots. As with Trinidad, the doors of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora were always open for the touring cricketers.

The Indians played thrice here — tour matches against the British Guiana East Indians, and British Guiana; and the fourth Test — and drew all three. They then moved to Jamaica.

The cricketers had been hit by injuries on the tour. Datta Gaekwad injured his shoulder while fielding in the second Test match, while fast bowler Frank King broke Ebrahim Maka’s left hand in the third. Both had to be flown out of Port of Spain.

Now, in Jamaica, a local Indian offered to drive Apte and ‘Nana’ Joshi to the team hotel from a party. Excited at the honour of driving the cricketers, he focused less on the road than on singing to them — though alcohol played a role in that as well. The Citroen drove into another car. Joshi got away with bruises, while Apte received a deep cut on his chin.

The Indians had little option but to field a depleted side against Jamaica. They conceded a first-innings lead of 54 runs, but Gupte (7-43) rose to the occasion: he bowled out Jamaica for 89, and the Indians registered their only win on the tour.

The tour marked the arrival of Gupte, one of the greatest Indian cricketers of all time. He finished the tour with 50 wickets at 23.64 apiece. From the five Test matches, his 27 wickets came at 29.22.

On this tour, Gupte also approached one Carol Goberdhan at the Queen’s Oval Club with the line “yours is the kind of face that I would like to see every morning at my breakfast table.” The two would get married.

When Gupte’s career ended in a fiasco — largely due to BCCI’s unprofessionalism — less than a decade later, he left India for good and settled down in Trinidad. That story is better left for another day.

The tour concluded with the fifth Test match. Here, all three Ws — Worrell, Weekes, and Clyde Walcott — made hundreds, but so did Pankaj Roy and Vijay Manjrekar. Chasing 181 in three hours, the West Indies became 91-4… but time ran out for India.

Despite the injuries, India’s lack of success, and sea-sickness (he took no chances and flew back home), Hazare would later describe this as his “happiest tour”.

When Len Hutton’s Englishmen arrived in the West Indies a year later, the locals would not be as welcoming.