Turnbuckle: It took a Patil to pet the Aussies

Patil hit back with vengeance

It was the beginning of 1981. India had lost the first Test of their series against Australia by an innings and 4 runs. Greg Chappell, in his very first outing against India had scored a monumental 204. The visitors were bowled out for identical scores of 201 in both innings, their 11 batsmen batting twice failed to eclipse that one individual score.

Yet it wasn’t this shameful in those days. No one took us seriously nor did we take ourselves; a draw was synonymous to a victory and a loss (not an innings defeat) felt almost like a draw.

In a batting line-up which trembled like a pack of cards, only one man provided some resistance. And he was no Gavaskar, Kapil Dev or Vishwanath, but a series old Sandeep Patil who stroked a handsome 65 off 78 balls before falling prey to a Len Pascoe bouncer — he had to retire hurt.

Wisden noted in its almanack: “… Patil, who drove with great power against anything overpitched until his vulnerability to the short-pitched ball got him into trouble”

Over the next 18 days (yes, you may laugh over the slow and languid tours), India had rejuvenated themselves. At least it seemed so from the body language of a few players.

For the second match at Adelaide Oval, Australians were put in to bat and they posted an even larger total of 528, courtesy Kim Hughes’s 213 and Graeme Wood’s 125. India started steadily with captain Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan adding 77 runs for the 1^st wicket, before the former lost his stumps to Pascoe. While Chauhan continued playing his natural game, the players on the other end were leaving like travellers. Night-watchman Shivlal Yadav could manage only 16 runs, Vishwanath and Vengsarkar couldn’t even reach double figures. From 77/1, India were down to 130/4. Patil, bludgeoned in his last outing, was the next man to step in.“I detected a growing tendency among the patriotic Australians at the ground to brand the pitch so docile that the three pacemen who have slashed their way through all opposition at will, were bowling under hopelessly unfavourable conditions.” – Bill O’ Reilly

We, Indians are superstitious: a sneeze here, a passing cat there can often deter a well-planned journey. So, to say that Patil’s start was inauspicious would not be exaggeration. He survived a chance off Bruce Yardley’s bowling, while on 2. Had he been made to pay for his benevolence by the man standing at short mid-on, writing the post-match report would have been a matter of Cntl+C and Cntrl+V.

But Patil, it seems, did not care much about the journalists. Over the course of his innings, which lasted 301 minutes and 240 balls, he showed he didn’t care much about any one. Be it Lillee, Yardley, Hogg or Pascoe, he spared none. And his treatment of Pascoe with special brutality was only expected. Twice in succession, in one over, Patil hooked his tormentor and both his shots cleared the ropes.

A series of bewildered and incredulous gestures followed. If you plan to watch the video again, do watch out for that moment when the commentator in bafflement confuses the batsman with Chetan Chauhan and then corrects himself.

In The Sydney Morning Herald on January 27, the former Australian player and cricket writer Bill O’ Reilly, in an article titled My hat off to Sandeep, wrote, “I detected a growing tendency among the patriotic Australians at the ground to brand the pitch so docile that the three pacemen who have slashed their way through all opposition at will, were bowling under hopelessly unfavourable conditions.”

Reilly being an Australian, people who are usually averse to the idea of praising their opposition, this part of his article sums up the impact of Patil’s innings.

The article goes, “I rejoiced in the spectacle. I have been waiting for far too long to see a top-class batsman go to the work on Australia’s pace pack and cut them back to size”

Sadly, in the second innings Patil failed to be third time lucky for his team. Needing to hang on for four and a half hour to force a draw, the Indian batsmen were down to 128/8. It took 9.2 overs of battling from the ninth wicket pair of Karsan Ghavri and Shivlal Yadav to save India the blushes of another loss.

Sandeep Patil’s Test career lasted for another four years. He retired at the age of 28, when most players only start maturing. He did play a few more entertaining innings — once he hit Bob Willis for 24 runs in one over, during his unbeaten 129 runs innings against England. But for a career which started with such promise, it faded faster than any spectator from Adelaide Oval would have ever expected.

Debojit Dutta can be found doodling waywardly and pening absurdly on his blog Musings and Lyrics