Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

only basic comforts, private homes and state guest houses. “And maharajahs’ palaces with no water,” Tom Graveney adds, going on to recall the drink restrictions: “We had to sign the forms to show we were all alcoholics and needed 28 bottles of beer and four bottles of whisky to last for a month. And we pooled all this stuff and carted it round with us.” Donald Carr had been in India as a boy, and Dick Spooner and Fred Ridgway had toured with a Commonwealth side the previous winter, but the rest of the party were new to the sub-continental conditions. They were soon tested by the intense heat and challenged by the alien and ever-changing playing conditions. It seemed that there were never two surfaces the same: “Turf, coconut mats, jute mats,” says Tom Graveney, “but they made sure we never played on a turf pitch before a Test!” Their first match was in Bombay and they went on to play at Ahmedabad, Indore, Amritsar and Dehra Dun before arriving in New Delhi for the first Test. After five matches they were still unbeaten but had managed only one win, scrambling home by two wickets on coir matting against Western India at Ahmedabad. On a pitch expected to suit his style of bowling, they entered the Test without leg-spinner Bert Rhodes, who had already returned home with a rumbling appendix, and then, on the eve of the match, Tom Graveney, who had been in prime form, went down with dysentery. It was not a promising start. Nigel Howard won the toss Senior Professional in India 62 The guest house at Indore