For all those who are criticizing the Nagpur Pitch, all I have to say is to watch the video of the India vs Pakistan Test 1987, Bangalore, especially the 4th Innings.
The pitch was a square turner, worse than Nagpur. Pakistan batted first and scored 116. India replied with 145, only Vengsarkar scoring 50. Pakistan replied with 249 setting India a target of 221. Till then Spinners had a field day, and had taken 27 of the 30 wickets to fall. They will go on to take another 8 wickets in the final innings. Pak spinners Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed were turning the ball square. But they had to content with one man, playing the last innings of his illustrious career. I had the fortune to watch it on the hostel common room TV.
Sunil Gavaskar, the greatest batsman (in my opinion) India has seen walked out intent to win the match single handedly. The devils of the pitch did not matter. Not a single ball beat him and he played 320 balls and all the others put together 342 balls. He scored 96 priceless runs. He was right forward, or right back. He left the ball spotlessly. He played with Soft hands. He punished the loose balls. It was a chanceless innings.
The legendary Imran Khan put Rizwan uz Zaman and Mansoor Elahi, two young batsmen on Silly point and Silly mid on. One of them asked "Skipper where can we expect a catch?". Imran replied "Oh Don't bother, you are not going to get even the semblance of a catch. I put you there so that you can just watch from close up how to play spin bowling. You wont get another chance"
He brought India tantalizingly close to victory. As I said it was a chanceless innings. And it was in reality as he was wrongly given out at 96, caught by Rizwan of Qasim, when the ball had gone off his forearm.
We were about 12 who were watching the innings. Some of them strong anti Gavaskar guys. But everyone had a tear when he got out. He got out when still 40 short, having scored 96 of the 180 till then. It was his greatest innings. He defied everything Qasim and Tauseef threw at him and blunted all the tactics of the wily Imran. It was his swansong, but what a song! He never complained about being given out wrongly. A mild look of surprise and off he walked, just 4 short of a most deserving century.
If I were the South Africa coach, I would get a copy of that video and ask Amla, Du Plessis and even ABD to watch it for 3 days non stop so as to drill into them what and how it is to play spin on a vicious track. (what the heck! even Ravi Shastri, the current Indian Team Director, who was a part of that 1987 team, should play the video over and over again to the Indian Batsmen)
To put that innings in perspective, I give below the score card.
Pakistan in India Test Series - 5th Test
Pakistan won by 16 runs
Played at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
13,14,15,17 March 1987 (5-day match)
| Pakistan 1st innings | R | M | B | 4s | 6s | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rameez Raja | c Vengsarkar b Kapil Dev | 22 | 42 | 27 | 4 | 0 | 81.48 | |
| Rizwan-uz-Zaman | b Kapil Dev | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Saleem Malik | b Maninder Singh | 33 | 99 | 60 | 5 | 0 | 55.00 | |
| Javed Miandad | c Shastri b Maninder Singh | 7 | 49 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 21.87 | |
| Manzoor Elahi | c Azharuddin b Maninder Singh | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Imran Khan* | c Amarnath b Maninder Singh | 6 | 23 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 31.57 | |
| Wasim Akram | b Maninder Singh | 0 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Saleem Yousuf† | c & b Shastri | 0 | 12 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Iqbal Qasim | b Maninder Singh | 19 | 40 | 28 | 3 | 0 | 67.85 | |
| Tauseef Ahmed | not out | 15 | 89 | 72 | 0 | 0 | 20.83 | |
| Saleem Jaffar | c Vengsarkar b Maninder Singh | 8 | 53 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 16.00 | |
| Extras | (b 2, lb 1, nb 3) | 6 | ||||||
| Total | (all out; 49.2 overs) | 116 | (2.35 runs per over) | |||||
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N Kapil Dev | 11 | 2 | 23 | 2 | 2.09 | ||
| RMH Binny | 3 | 0 | 25 | 0 | 8.33 | ||
| M Amarnath | 3 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2.33 | ||
| Maninder Singh | 18.2 | 8 | 27 | 7 | 1.47 | ||
| RJ Shastri | 11 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 1.72 | ||
| NS Yadav | 3 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 4.00 | ||
| India 1st innings | R | M | B | 4s | 6s | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SM Gavaskar | b Tauseef Ahmed | 21 | 91 | 73 | 2 | 0 | 28.76 | |
| K Srikkanth | b Tauseef Ahmed | 21 | 44 | 29 | 4 | 0 | 72.41 | |
| M Amarnath | b Tauseef Ahmed | 13 | 87 | 78 | 1 | 0 | 16.66 | |
| DB Vengsarkar | c Manzoor Elahi b Tauseef Ahmed | 50 | 94 | 84 | 7 | 1 | 59.52 | |
| M Azharuddin | c Manzoor Elahi b Iqbal Qasim | 6 | 30 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 20.00 | |
| RJ Shastri | c Saleem Malik b Tauseef Ahmed | 7 | 28 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 46.66 | |
| N Kapil Dev* | c Saleem Malik b Iqbal Qasim | 9 | 20 | 18 | 2 | 0 | 50.00 | |
| RMH Binny | c Tauseef Ahmed b Iqbal Qasim | 1 | 23 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 3.44 | |
| KS More† | not out | 9 | 22 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 69.23 | |
| NS Yadav | b Iqbal Qasim | 0 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Maninder Singh | c †Saleem Yousuf b Iqbal Qasim | 0 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Extras | (b 4, lb 4) | 8 | ||||||
| Total | (all out; 64 overs) | 145 | (2.26 runs per over) | |||||
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Imran Khan | 5 | 0 | 26 | 0 | 5.20 | ||
| Wasim Akram | 2 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 4.50 | ||
| Iqbal Qasim | 30 | 15 | 48 | 5 | 1.60 | ||
| Tauseef Ahmed | 27 | 7 | 54 | 5 | 2.00 | ||
| Pakistan 2nd innings | R | M | B | 4s | 6s | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rameez Raja | b Yadav | 47 | 112 | 94 | 4 | 0 | 50.00 | |
| Javed Miandad | c Srikkanth b Shastri | 17 | 60 | 37 | 2 | 0 | 45.94 | |
| Rizwan-uz-Zaman | b Shastri | 1 | 13 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 11.11 | |
| Saleem Malik | b Kapil Dev | 33 | 74 | 62 | 4 | 0 | 53.22 | |
| Iqbal Qasim | c Srikkanth b Yadav | 26 | 69 | 47 | 3 | 0 | 55.31 | |
| Imran Khan* | c Srikkanth b Shastri | 39 | 129 | 100 | 3 | 0 | 39.00 | |
| Manzoor Elahi | c †More b Maninder Singh | 8 | 54 | 53 | 0 | 1 | 15.09 | |
| Wasim Akram | lbw b Maninder Singh | 11 | 14 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 91.66 | |
| Saleem Yousuf† | not out | 41 | 107 | 90 | 4 | 0 | 45.55 | |
| Tauseef Ahmed | c Yadav b Shastri | 10 | 75 | 62 | 1 | 0 | 16.12 | |
| Saleem Jaffar | c Gavaskar b Maninder Singh | 0 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| Extras | (b 7, lb 8, nb 1) | 16 | ||||||
| Total | (all out; 94.5 overs) | 249 | (2.62 runs per over) | |||||
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N Kapil Dev | 12 | 2 | 25 | 1 | 2.08 | ||
| Maninder Singh | 43.5 | 8 | 99 | 3 | 2.25 | ||
| RJ Shastri | 24 | 3 | 69 | 4 | 2.87 | ||
| NS Yadav | 15 | 3 | 41 | 2 | 2.73 | ||
| India 2nd innings (target: 221 runs) | R | M | B | 4s | 6s | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SM Gavaskar | c Rizwan-uz-Zaman b Iqbal Qasim | 96 | 320 | 264 | 8 | 0 | 36.36 | |
| K Srikkanth | lbw b Wasim Akram | 6 | 32 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 37.50 | |
| M Amarnath | c †Saleem Yousuf b Wasim Akram | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | |
| DB Vengsarkar | b Tauseef Ahmed | 19 | 75 | 66 | 1 | 0 | 28.78 | |
| KS More† | lbw b Tauseef Ahmed | 3 | 30 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 11.11 | |
| M Azharuddin | c & b Iqbal Qasim | 26 | 81 | 75 | 3 | 0 | 34.66 | |
| RJ Shastri | c & b Iqbal Qasim | 4 | 49 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 14.81 | |
| N Kapil Dev* | b Iqbal Qasim | 2 | 14 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 15.38 | |
| RMH Binny | c †Saleem Yousuf b Tauseef Ahmed | 15 | 61 | 48 | 0 | 1 | 31.25 | |
| NS Yadav | b Tauseef Ahmed | 4 | 8 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 40.00 | |
| Maninder Singh | not out | 2 | 20 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 12.50 | |
| Extras | (b 22, lb 5) | 27 | ||||||
| Total | (all out; 93.5 overs) | 204 | (2.17 runs per over) | |||||
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wasim Akram | 11 | 3 | 19 | 2 | 1.72 | ||
| Iqbal Qasim | 37 | 11 | 73 | 4 | 1.97 | ||
| Tauseef Ahmed | 45.5 | 12 | 85 | 4 | 1.85 | ||
Match details
Toss - Pakistan, who chose to bat
Series - Pakistan won the 5-match series 1-0
Series - Pakistan won the 5-match series 1-0
Player of the match - SM Gavaskar (India)
Player of the series - Imran Khan (Pakistan)
Player of the series - Imran Khan (Pakistan)
