CALCUTTA (PTI): India overcame a long drought with a convincing eight wicket victory over England in the first Cricket test at the Eden Gardens here Feb.2 to go once up in the three test series.
Resuming Tuesday at the overnight score of 36 for no loss, the home team cruised to victory in 67 minutes of play.
The victory, achieved after a gap of 10 tests of which India lost five, could prove a watershed for Indian Cricket as the team was struggling for long to get a morale boosting win after their disastrous campaigns in Australia and South Africa last year.
The greatest beneficiary of this remarkable victory was Skipper Mohammed Azharuddin, who not only proved his critics, wrong but also regained his brilliant form with a vintage innings of 182 and was rightly named the man of the match.
CALCUTTA (PTI): India, starved long for a victory, put themselves On the highroad to a thumping win against England Feb.1.
Needing 79 runs to win, they scored 36 without loss at the close of the fourth day’s play of the first fest al the Eden gardens here.
Earlier, England resuming at the overnight score of 128 for two wickets, failed to withstand the continuous on slaught of the Indian spinners and were all out for 286 in their second knock thus taking an overall lead of only 78 runs.
At the close of play Monday, Mano) Prabhakar was batting with 12 and Nayjot Sidhu was on 20 and they need to score another 43 runs during the whole day’s play Tuesday, the last day of the match.
Following on after conceding a 208run first innings lead Sunday, England started on a promising note Monday . Mike Gating, who was unbeaten with48 Sunday evening, however, had a good partnership with Graeme Hick as both the batsmen looked in fine nick and were playing the Indian spinners quite well. But Azharuddin, searching for his second victory in 18 matches as Indian Skipper, persisted with the spinners who finally obliged him by removing both Getting and Hick in consecutive overs.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 5, 1993
