LAHORE: The 44 day tour of Pakistan is perhaps the best thing that has happened to Indian cricket in the bitter, competitive years of world cricket.
Branded as underdogs by the media, experts and veterans on either side of the border, the young Indian side did itself proud by drawing the four match test series while new finds and metamorphosis marked the horizon of the country’s cricket.
Confined to the dooms of also runs after the West Indies series early this year, the 24 year old Sanjay Manjrekar followed his father Vijay Manjrekar’s footsteps to help India match Pakistan in the four tests.
Manjrekar was one among some to prove beyond doubt that the oft-reported Indian fear-psychosis about pace bowling is only a myth as the Bombayite scored a chanceless 113 to save the first test for India at Karachi and then maintained his brilliant form to make Pakistan think twice.
Manjrekar after brilliant double century in the penultimate test at Lahore, now only cut a niche for himself in the unforgiving world of contemporary cricket but also restored India’s pride as a test playing nation after the country had been at the receiving end for most of the time in the last two years.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 5, 1990
