All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

211 Premangsu Chatterjee seven first innings wickets for 101 runs from 52 overs. And then came more history in his next match the following season. The national championship of India, the Ranji Trophy had been launched in 1934/35 in memory of the great batsman K.S.Ranjitsinhji who had died in April 1933. Teams competed on a zonal basis, the winners of each group then contesting for the Trophy on a knockout basis. Bombay would win the tournament in 1956/57 and monopolise it for the next 20 years. Bengal, led by India’s Pankaj Roy, had won the Trophy just once, 18 years before, as well as being runners-up four times. Assam, in north-east India, generally one of the weaker states, have never won the Trophy. The Jorhat cricket ground was surrounded by grass banks and large leafy trees. The trees cast long shadows later in the day and so close of play was usually 4.30 pm. The ground would host ten first-class matches between 1953 and 1974, and Assam would lose all ten. Given that they really only had two bowlers Assam must have been quite pleased to take the first seven Bengal wickets for 257. Unfortunately the visitors’ tail then wagged to good effect and, mainly thanks to Sunit Shome, who extended his only ever fifty to 122, batting nearly two days they reached 505 all out, the highest-ever total on the ground. The two aforesaid bowlers were Aswani Rajbanshi (62.4 overs, three for 213) and Surjuram Girdhari (72 overs, seven for 157). Given that he entrusted them with only 29 overs, the Assam captain clearly had little faith in the five other bowlers who constituted his ‘attack’! Assam’s first innings then lasted just 38 overs and if it hadn’t been for 20 extras, the details of which are not recorded, the final total would have been even sorrier. After his prodigious spell with the ball off-spinner Girdhari, down to bat at No. 6, must have been hoping for a rest. However it was not to be and he was soon back on the field again, going in with the score 12 for four. Making 14 he was the only batsman who passed five, and he helped effect what might be seen as some sort of recovery. Chatterjee’s final victim was Gangaram Das. Having bowled 11 wicketless overs he had now begun his three-match first-class career with a duck, albeit that it had contributed to a piece of cricket history. Bowling six batsmen and trapping three in front Chatterjee had come close to emulating Wisden and Hollies in taking all-ten without help from the field. It is stating the obvious to say that the Assam batting wasn’t very strong. None of the side would play Test cricket, and in an eventual total of 202 first-class appearances its members would make just six centuries, and four of these were by Girdhari. Three were making their first-class debuts. For Siba Gogoi, who didn’t bowl, it was his only match. And 54 was a score Assam would fail to better four times in their ten matches at the ground. Given all this it is surprising that, while Chatterjee bowled unchanged, at the other end Dattu Phadkar had bowled 14 overs without reward. Medium pacer Phadkar was a genuine allrounder who had been a mainstay of the Indian side for a decade after the War. He finished his career with 62 Test wickets, a total exceeded at the time by only three other Indians.