Test Match Special - Death, Disaster and Redemption: England in India 84-85 part 2

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

In the second of a three episode mini-series, Daniel Norcross is alongside Vic Marks, Peter Baxter, Prakash Wakankar and Jonathan Agnew to look back at England's turbulent tour of India in 1984/85.This episode begins at the end of England's first test against India in Wankhede, but 3rd December 1984 is remembered for a very different reason. The Bhopal disaster occurred. They discuss what is was like to be close to such a catastrophic event and how it affected the atmosphere inside the stadiums when playing cricket.Switching focus back to the cricket, Vic recalls the beginning of England's fight-back in the second test of the series in Delhi.

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Hello I'm Daniel Norcross Welcome to the Test Mat special podcast And to what I think we can call a mini-series A three-episode special Looking back at England's Tour of India in 1984-85 Now you can be forgiven for thinking That this is a typical nostalgic look back to yesteryear But this wasn't a typical test series

There was not a typical backdrop To the two and a half three months of cricket In fact there wasn't anything too typical about any of it. Mrs. Gandhi is assassinated. Her son takes over. As he now goes on to the back foot and pressures the military

the target of the Japanese. Already tonight the tensions between the majority Hindus and the Sikh community are spilling over into violence. Buses have been burned and Sikhs attacked and many have gone into hiding.

Listen now. Listen now. goes that first ball to Azaruddin who cuts and get that single and that is Azaruddin's 100. In India, more than 600 people are now known to have been killed by the escape of poison gas and it's feared the final figure maybe over 1,000. A couple there's goals again to Paola and Paola. Edge is this one. A thick outside edge is along the ground to Cardman and that is Fowler's double hundred.

Cutting raises his battle off and acknowledges the chairs of the crowd. Cheers of the crowd and their generous cheers. And once again, a nice touch. Almanagh comes across and shakes hands with Mike Gathing. Just hours after the England team arrived in India on Wednesday, the 31st of October, 1984, the Indian Prime Minister Indiraigandi was assassinated, sending the country into riots and ethnic violence. Then, some weeks later, 24 hours before the first test in Bombay,

Percy Norris, a UK's deputy high commissioner who had just entertained the team at his apartment, was also assassinated. and one of the worst industrial accidents struck in Bhopal. At least 3,800 people were killed and thousands more suffered morbidity and premature death. We're going to hear firsthand what it was like to be in the country at that time, close to these events and involved in the occasional game of cricket across a few months at England toured India in the winter of 1984 and 85.

Joining me to help tell the story is former TestMAT special producer and commentator Peter Baxter. Hello, Peter. Hello. TMS regular and member of the England party for that 84-85 tour of India. Vic Marks, welcome aboard, Vic. Hello, Dan. And TMS commentator, Prakashwakanker, all the way from India. Hello, Prakash. Hi there, Dan.

Later on in this episode, we'll also be talking to someone else who you may know a little bit about. Jonathan Agnew, who joined this tour at Christmas in 1984. He will join us on this podcast a little bit later. But we pick up the story on the 3rd of December. 1984, the back end of the first test match. But it's a date remembered for another reason. A chemical leak drifted over the city of Bhopal overnight and some estimation suggested at least 15,000 people were killed. Hundreds of thousands more suffered disease or premature death. With everything going on at that point, did the news come out during the test match, Prakash? It would have

because while the actual events of that night only now, I think, are really seeing the reality of what had happened there and how late the information was relayed meant that the loss of life was far greater than otherwise might have been. But, you know, Bhopal, I don't know, Bhopal is probably as close and I hope we never get anywhere near it. It was as close to an atomic disaster that one could ever have thought of. To have had a factory by, run and owned by Union Carbide, the U.S., with 49% Indian holdings from state banks and so on, and to have a situation where a repeated occurrence of minor accidents had created a situation which is a tinderbox.

It was just waiting to happen. And finally it did on that fateful night, and it remains to this day you can walk through that area of Bhopal, and you will see physical evidence. in, you know, shapes of people who've been affected multiple generations, young children, deformities. It's a really, really sad reflection on what industrial malfeasance neglect could lead to, especially back in the day. And the Indian governments, I must say, inability to prosecute the real people who should have been, because only eight Indian officials were finally convicted and every single one, including Warren Anderson, were let go, Scott Free.

It was a different era. It was a different time. And I don't think the Indian authorities had the courage or the ability to do what was right, even though they could have done nothing for all those thousands and thousands of people who were probably affected and scarred for life. It was really a very, very sad day. I mean, it sort of sounds sort of the equivalent, the Indian version of a Chernobyl disaster and the effects.

Probably worse, Dan. Probably worse. Because remember, I mean, if anybody ever looked it up, the Bhopal factory, the Urankabite factory, was right next to the main railway colony. And had it not been, in fact, for some very, very courageous action by a couple of officers of the Indian railways who managed to move trains away and not have them come in and stop at Bhopal, I dare say the toll would have been much, much higher. How much were you aware of that, Vic, the Bopal disaster, as it has. it happened because I mean it's happened on the last day of a test match cricketers notoriously are in their own bubbles but yeah this is yet again as something else that's happened on top of the assassination of Gandhi and Percy

Norris and everything that's going on well I guess our heads were spinning you know whatever next but you're right we are on a cricket tour and and we're watching the news and it's a disaster but we don't sort of think it's going to impact how we're going to go about our business it's obviously going to have a bigger impact actually on our new friends the press call because they're going to have

to do some work that is not involved in whether Pat Poccox getting his left arm right at side on and as he rolls his off break so we know it's happening but we don't think it's going to materially affect how we go about our business I suppose

Peter were you drummed in the service again as the BBC foreign correspondent as you were on the first day that you arrived on this occasion of course Mark Tully was in command in Delhi my memory of it is

the news sort of as Prakash as more or less said it was it rather trickled through and the full impact of what had happened took a while to come through and eventually I think I'm not sure

it wasn't Patrick Eager Patrick Eager had gone through and taken some photographs and he was deeply affected by what had happened and very strong on the subject to my memory anyway. Were that not a bit very dangerous, Prakash? I mean, the area and the site must have been deeply contaminated. They were. And, you know, luckily, and in the, if we talk about silver linings, right,

the air, the way the wind was blowing that night when 40 tons or more of methyl isosinide was. released into the air, actually had ended up taking the gas fumes or the plumes and the cloud away from the main city of Bhopal. It sort of lingered over the railway colony and the immediate vicinity. And those days, people used to live and houses were right next to the factories where they worked in. But it remained dangerous for anyone to go. And if anyone did go there, I know that they were told to ensure that they had either masks, proper gas masks if they could, if not then to wet tiles and make sure their eyes were fully

covered because the first reactions were from the soft membranes where the gas would go through the eyes and then it would sort of percolate into the system and then all hell would break loose. But watering eyes was the first sign that you were beginning to be affected by the gas. Let's get back to the cricket because it comes thick and fast. It's an extraordinary tour. when you look at the way these matches were arranged, I suppose partly because there were so many that were hastily rearranged following the assassination of Indyri Gandhi. But off you go to Delhi.

Now you've got some pretty, I suppose, raw memories of Delhi. It was only four or five weeks ago that you arrived. And you've only got two days off before you start the next test match. It's more berserk, the more you look at this itinerary. Well, I remember we went to see the pitch, it was cracked and dry and I record a conversation between John Thickness the London Standard and Sunil

and Thickness obviously asked him about the wicket and Sunil said Have you seen the Taj Mahal? Well yes, replied Thickness Well if you want to make a return of visit book up on the fourth or fifth day of this test match but he was wrong of course because we're still playing on the fifth day

Well we'll get to the test match itself but first of I want to come to you Peter in going through this itinerary there are an awful lot of challenges it seems to me both logistically to get around India but also for you to get programmes on air

you're in different stadia one day after the next you've barely got time to unpack your stuff in the hotel before you're presumably going and trying to set up the day before a game it must be pretty hairy wasn't it well yes often I mean

I would and all the lines and things that we'd booked from London because in those days you didn't just dial up on ISDN. You had to book in advance with British Telecom and the Indian Overseas

Communication Service was the place and there was a big one of these in Bombay and another one in Delhi and I hadn't had a chance to go and visit the one in Delhi when we were first there for obvious reasons. Or indeed to see I always used to look in on my

colleagues in all India radio had some old friends there and I hadn't had that really until just before the Delhi test match the chance to get all that sort of thing sorted out so all these re-booked lines had to be done

and they didn't always go and on up-country matches you relied on finding a telephone was usually one in the telegraph office and you relayed to London the number of this phone and that's how did your reports, really.

It was all pretty unsophisticated and a bit hit and miss. But I remember arriving in the commentary box in Delhi on the day before the test match. And the engineer held up a wire which had exploded into coloured wires coming out of this huge cable. And he said, it looked like a bunch of flowers as he handed it to me. He said, this is your line to London. At that stage, my heart rather sank, I'd have to say, but I think it worked as far as I remember. I mean, that's one of many challenges that you had to face across the tour.

Reading your book, there's a particularly hairy moment in one game when you're climbing 50 feet up an aluminium ladder. Yeah, well, that was, yeah, that was one day international in Chandigar, which eventually, because of rain, was reduced to 15 overs a side. But we are the sort of the press corps was led to a certain extent by Peter Smith, the Daily Mail, who did the job splendidly. We addressed him as tour leader all the time. And he had insisted everywhere, obviously, that the press box should be as near as possible

in a line wicket to wicket. So we arrived, and as you say, there's very little preparation times. I think we'd travelled up from Delhi the day before, and we arrived on the morning of the match to find the press box was indeed in line wicket to wicket right behind the sight screen. You couldn't see a thing. So he pointed out to this,

and the man shrugged and said, well, this is what you asked for. So we relocated to the roof of the pavilion, which was up three floors, but the only access was by a twisted aluminium ladder which was a little bit frightening because I remember a couple of our numbers some of whom are still around

saying they just weren't going to do that ladder and yet there was a splendid bearer who came up with an enormous tray of tea for everyone in one hand while he climbed this ladder and I thought well if he

can do that doing that I don't think any of us can complain really my problem was that I had to come down it every half hour to a report for Radio 2, it would have been in those days, from the telephone in the Secretary's office. There's also another detail that I think

is so hard for people now to understand. Indeed, hard for me to understand, that you would have to book your telephone calls. Yes. So, I mean, how did that work? Well, you, I mean, if you're in an hotel, you did it with the hotel, the man in the town.

Only two places in India at that stage that we could do direct dial. to London and that was Bombay and Delhi and nowhere else so they were all and you went to the hotel

switchboard and you said I want to book a call to London at this time I can remember arriving I think it was

we had a one day international at Katak and we stayed in Bubon Eshwa and as soon as I arrived at the tell I had

it was a Saturday so meant to be doing something for Sporton 2 and I went straight to the telephone operator and asked

can you book a call to London and he was terribly pleased he said oh yes I can do that he said I can get it within 12 hours so I knew at that stage I was going to miss the program

well that was it we had no mobile phones and there's no way of telling London I am struggling with this no absolutely no way to communicate at all a less diligent man someone like me for example

I would have seen this as an opportunity just to sit back and watch the cricket, Peter. I'm not quite sure why you went to such terrible late to do your job. He did struggle a bit. I remember the Gauhardy up in Assam, where Victor took a lot of wickets on a pitch made up of dry, grey river mud

that every evening in this atel which was called the hotel. Bellview, but all the locals called it the Hotel Belly View. But there was only one telephone. It was in the manager's office. And I used to sit in reception every evening, waiting

for London to call through on this thing, and then dismantle the hotel manager's phone to attach crock clips to the terminals inside his precious Bakerlight telephone in order to send back interviews and reports

from my tape machine. And he watched it all, I think at first with a certain amount of alarm, but eventually he got used to it. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Grab your VIP pass. We're delving into the secretive world of Formula One. Behind the scenes with two of the sports' biggest names, Mercedes and Williams. This is not coal mining, this is Formula One motor racing.

As they build their new cars, we want to be so much further ahead. and face shocking headlines. He is Lewis Hamilton moving away from Mercedes. I'm Joseph Fines, and from BBC Radio 5 Live, this is F1, back at base. Listen on BBC's fans. Let's get back to the cricket, because England are 1-0 down, let's not forget. And then you go to Delhi, India win the toss. They elect a bat, and Victor, hearts must slightly sink when that happens.

You don't want to be losing the toss in India, and you're 1-0 down already. No, and it doesn't look like it's going to misbehave too much And it's not got much pace And we are 1-0 down And we are conscious Of what happened to Keith Fletcher's team However many years before Four years before

So it's a bad toss to lose, you think But who knows Well, just the bear scores No one really in the Indian side Gets going There's a 60 from Capaldev but everyone else is getting into the sort of late 20s so it's clearly

a pitch that people could bat on four wickets for Richard Ellison a couple of wickets for Edmonds three wickets for Pocock Edmonds the left arm spinner Pocock the off spinner and then England in reply to 307 and this is

going to be a really crucial moment in the whole series they come good let's make no bones about it and Tim Robinson has his sort of breakthrough innings doesn't he striking 160 bats forever gets England into a first innings lead.

Clapping again as Shiva-Rama comes into bowl. A chop-shot bite. Robinson Shastry Fields throws Downton's in and Robinson has his maiden test century with a delicate dab behind square on the offside. His hat falls off as he runs. He is now hatless. Congratulations from the Indian players

who pass him put a hand on his back. Paul Downton is up with him. shaking his hand and no doubt renewing the pledge that they must bat together now to get England up to India's score. So it's 247 for five, and Tim Robinson has reached the magic three figures, 100 not out. Well, it was a sort of horses for course's pick, because Robinson, I think by then was opening the batting for Nottinghamshire with Chris Broad. And Broad had done really well, but Broad was renowned as being not. a particularly deaf player of spin. So they picked Robinson,

whose record may not have been as good, but was more capable of playing on slow, low tracks with the ball turning sometimes, although it didn't turn prodigiously in this series, and certainly not in this match, I don't think. But he just, you know, as we will learn later, he just kept on batting. Very calm, very measured,

but able to score square of the wicket. it was another watershed innings. If Gatting had played his watershed innings in Mumbai, then Robinson certainly played his in the second test match at Delhi, 160. There is one other thing, Dan, why you say people worried that the same thing might happen to Keith Fletcher's.

There's one other reason why it couldn't, and that was they had introduced the minimum number of overs in a day's play, which hadn't been the case on Fletcher's story. and it was limited to 80 so presumably each day wasn't a six hour day I think it was five and a half hour days

I mean that's still quite a slow over rate isn't it we've got spinners at both ends and we still complain now about 90 overs in a day but 80 overs in five and a half hours but what you're saying I think on that Fletcher tour it got down to about 11 overs per hour

and then you were there you were there on that one peter I don't know but anyway it was really funearily slow and they were trying to do something about that. Well, that plays to England's advantages. Prakash, your memories of this test match because England have got themselves a lead now of 111. But India, they're pretty well placed

at the end of the fourth day to draw the game on a pitch that's not got too many demons in it. Lacks when Shiva-Arma Christian's continuing to weave his web over England, despite that total of 418. He picks up another six wickets. He's got 18 in three innings. And really, if India bat out,

just what a session and a half maybe two sessions on the fifth day with plenty of wickets in hand sun or gavasker at the crease then india can get out of deli and still one-nill-up very true and and i think if again from memory i think four or five wickets down a couple of hundred runs on the board things look quite all right uh till you know i think india might have lost five odd for 20 or 22 something like that uh in in that in that test match and And it all began, while people will have different theories. It all began with Kapel Dave playing that shot which ended up in Alan Lam's hands. And I remember that there was somehow from very faint memory reading in the Times of India, I think it might have been Kay and Prabhu or someone who'd written.

That's where the controversy began, that Kapil had played a shot which simply wasn't called for, knowing that India could have left Delhi with that one-nil lead. It's another matter that England took four more wickets to ensure that they sort of restricted India to 235. But the fact of the matter is that it was started in a press article and then that went on for other stuff, of course, which we'll talk about. Well, he was called long off, I think. And he hit the ball before. Yeah, I think he had.

He'd hit one for six. You just thought he'd go again. Yeah. I mean, I remember lunchtime, actually. India were 95 ahead with five wickets remaining and they hadn't lost a wicket for some time and they were grumpy at lunchtime because I would be obviously in the dressing room getting their lunch ready

and they were grumpy because they thought they'd got a bad decision or something and they were a bit down and my recollection is that Gower, we all know dear David who is the most laid-back man of all, actually got quite angry because he sensed that there was a sort of element of designation. England had played well to get in this position, but he sensed that they were kind of feeling that the world was against them and that they weren't going to get these five

wickets. And there was sort of an acceptance that, after all that effort, it was, we were just missing out. And he got quite stroppy with everyone and said, come on, you know, we can, we can do this, we can do this. And he had a big choice to make as to whether to take the new ball and bring back the Patesmen or persist with the spinners. And he persisted with the spinners. And he assisted with the spinners and Prakash is right the capital dismissal

was key India collapsed from 207 for 4 at that point they have a lead of 96 they lose their last six wickets for 28 runs England find themselves now

needing just 127 to win they've only really got two hours to do it in but I think it's around about this point that we get a debutante in the Testmat special commentary box

Peter do you want to tell us how this came about. Oh, yes. Well, my summarizers, my expert summarizers for that test match were Abbas Ali Beg, former India Somerset, indeed,

Oxford University. And Mike Selvey, doing his second test match with TMS. Well, Abbas told me the night before, the sort of fourth evening, Abbas announces to me that he has to go to a

wedding in Bombay. This is sort of rather sprung on me. So, oh, this is difficult. I said to Selve, you're going to have to work fairly hard tomorrow. Anyway, as it turned out, fairly early in the day, it became obvious that Selve had succumbed to the affliction that does tend to get Englishmen in India occasionally, and was rushing off to get a fast rickshaw back to his hotel.

And I suddenly had no expert summarizers. And the Test Match is just getting interested. interesting. And so I went down to the England dressing room door and knocked and asked to see Tony Brown, the manager, and I said, I don't suppose you could spare someone to

come and join and help out in the commentary box. And he looked around the dressing room and he said, obviously Victor had finished his getting lunch duties, and he said oh Victor's not doing anything, he can come. And a debut

was indeed made. Yeah, I mean, my memory is more or less the same. You come in. He says, I haven't got a summariser. Anyone will do. Was there panic? Was there panic in this voice? Oh, Peter's voice.

Yeah, probably. It's been known just occasionally. So he's not exactly plucking you specifically for the role, is he? I think my main virtue is my obvious availability. And Peter, does he take to this like a duck to water? Well, he does. The thing I remember is reflecting on it afterwards is that the world had, for the first time, widely heard that wonderful chuckle. Well, I loved it, of course. Well, particularly, he was getting frightfully excited as the wickets tumbled, and then the runs were knocked off.

I mean, Foxy was on his sickbed and had to come from the hotel to open the batting. He hadn't been fielding, I think, but... and then I remember sitting alongside Tony Lewis was working for TMS and Mike Carey and Mike Carey

and Ashish Ray Right yeah well I was it was the highlight of my day really And from there began a beautiful relationship with the programme Peter he wasn't your only find was he

I mean On this tour there are a few people They're going to become really rather important to Test Match Special over the next few years and it might be the appropriate time to bring one of those people in

because with England now at one all the series level the party go off to where a bit they go up to miles away Gourhalty into Assam just before Christmas the 19th 20th and 21st of December It was like the cavalry's coming

It does well I mean because Paul Allett was injured was he not And so England needed a replacement fast bowler. And who better than the callow young man who had made his debut against the West Indies in a 5-0 thrashing the previous summer than the man who would go on to become, well, I suppose, the longest-serving lead commentator

on Test Mac Special, Jonathan Agnew. Jonathan? Yes, happy memories being shared, aren't there? It's an interesting listen. So, England had won all. The whole touring parties up in Guwahati, apart from Pat Pocock. Where have you been up to this point?

been following the series at all? No, not at all. You mean, you couldn't really. I mean, you could read it in the newspapers, but no, I was, I was an officially a reserve, which in those days didn't really mean very much. I mean, they're far more monitored these days. But then, no, I was actually making windows in a wooden window factory in Ratby, just outside Lester. And because of those days, of course, there was six-month contracts and you had to find work, and I didn't really have any expectation of going on this trip. I was disappointed to have missed out in the first place. But that's by the buy. And so, no, I remember I think there's a bit of interest building up back at home about Paul Allerton is back.

And all I had done really, because there were no indoor nets. I mean, Grace Road wasn't functioning in December. The nets had go up sometime in spring. So there was nowhere to bowl. You can have a bit of a jog around the streets of Glenfield in Leicester on wintery nights. But apart from that, there was nothing. And so suddenly to get the call up and say you're going to India tomorrow was a bit of a shock. I'd never been there before.

And they had left, you're quite right, they'd left Pat Pocock behind for you. I remember going to Lords and sort of picking up bits of kit, a touring sweater. I think I might have got a cap. I certainly didn't get a blazer because I can tell about that in a second, but it was just all totally rushed.

And so next thing I knew I was on this flight to Calcutta. And there to meet me was dear old Percy, who's become a very good friend since. I think he was quite relieved not to necessarily on the go-hearty trip. and he met me a Calcutta airport, Dum Dum. And where we went into town. And again, there was nothing there was nothing there. There was no practice facilities.

Nothing at all. And the team weren't there. So Pat and I would go off in the mornings down to this old golf club called Tolly Gunge, which is still going. I popped in on our last trip. It was a bit decrepit in those days. It was a golf club. And we would sort of run around.

and have a few catches and that was it because there wasn't again there wasn't any way where you could bowl and we just waited for everyone to come back from this sort of

mysterious place called Go Hardy that I'd never heard of and I was sort of knocked around the Grand Hotel in Kolkata it was a bizarre thing I mean it's a real it shines a light

into how much more professional things are these days the fact that the reserve literally could arrive like that with absolutely no pre no preparation when he got there, no expectation of playing. And then suddenly the team arrived. My old friend David Gower, of course, captain from county days.

I didn't really know many others. And I remember that was it. I remember David, I don't know if you, Victor, remember, had a bit of a meltdown in reception. When they arrived, it was like, I mean, it was just absolutely rammed full of people. And I do remember the skipper kicking off briefly. which he can do sometimes

and then that was it I'm pretty sure I was rooming with Graham Fowler and so I sort of checked in with him He had drawn straws And poor old day Foxy lost Yes he must have done

But he actually he didn't lose Because he stole most of my chocolate That I brought with me Over the course of the next few days Have we gone very well I didn't really know Graham very well If hardly at all So that was the great thing about changing the roomies

doesn't it? You know, you've got to know your teammates pretty well. So it was a strange introduction, but the blazer, you see, they're all smartly kitted out. There's beautiful blazers with the George and the dragon and all that stuff. And I looked at these very jealously, because I hadn't got anything. They might take my old Leicestershire one out there. But Bernie Thomas, who was the physio and actually did everything, apparently knew a tailor over the road from the grand. If anyone's been there in those days, knows it was an interesting part. of Calcutta, should we say, some quite temporary structures. But anyway, in one of these was a tailor.

And I remember going measured up for this thing. And as is the case in India, it was made surprisingly quickly. But as is not usually the case in India, and I've got a couple of very nice suits on our recent trip to prove it, this was made appallingly badly. His attempt at George and the Dragon, I can't even begin to decipher what that was. It didn't fit. and I was sort of saddled with this thing for the rest of the trip. We used to have official functions that we'd go to, and there the team were looking immaculate. And I'd come shambling in in this, well, sort of jacket-looking thing.

Wrong colour. And it just stood out. But in a way, as you will discover, as we'd carry on, and that was my tour, because really, I had no part to play other than carrying a drink. Have you kept the blazer? No, I think I left it behind there, to be honest. This is very disappointing. It's gone well at auction now.

probably would actually. England have found themselves after three test matches despite losing that first one with a score at one all and Vic I imagine spirits at this stage are pretty high. Yeah, I mean it was a die game

but having lost that first test match knowing what happens in India over the years if you lose the first one you could struggle to get 20 wickets. Having won at Delhi, we're right in it. Moral as you say is reasonably good we're enjoying ourselves.

as I say it's not a particularly experienced touring side so we're still sort of lapping up our first experience of India in some ways so we're not sort of yet pining to go home and to have some of the luxuries of the Western world we're enjoying it well that's where we're going to leave this episode with the series beautifully poised at one match all

in the last episode canningdon get over the line can they do what no other side had done and come from behind to win a series in India. Make sure you're subscribed to the Test Matt Special podcast on BBC Sounds so you don't miss any episodes. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio

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