ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2014

India in 2013/14 The reputation of the Indian Test team for being poor travellers is notorious, and in 2013/14 and 2014 they seemed bent on confirming it. Their season began well with a short series at home against West Indies. It had not been in the ICC’s Future Tours Programme and was arranged at very short notice, apparently for no other reason than to allow Sachin Tendulkar, poised on 198 Tests as the season began, to notch up a double century of a unique kind and retire in triumph. If this was the aim it could hardly have succeeded better. All it lacked was a valedictory hundred from the Little Master himself: posterity would have to make do with his 74 in the second Test at his beloved Mumbai, his 329th and last Test innings. He had compiled 15,921 runs, with 51 centuries – needless to say these numbers are all world records – in a Test career that began as long ago as 1989/90. Much has been written about precisely where Tendulkar ranks in the pantheon of cricket’s greatest batsmen, but his right to be there can be in no doubt. Among the batsmen of his own time – and, let it be remembered, this includes names such as Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid – Tendulkar was supreme. Put simply, no one else made so many runs, so fast, so consistently, over such a long career. And after Tendulkar: what next for India? The most immediate answer was a Test overseas. This was a novelty, and perhaps not a welcome one: Tendulkar’s farewell matches against West Indies had brought to an end a sequence of twelve consecutive home Tests. India’s remaining Tests of 2013/14 and 2014 were all overseas, the first assignment being a trip to South Africa for two matches against the reigning Test champions. This series, according to the ICC Programme, was supposed to consist of three matches, surely the barest minimum acceptable for a rubber of such importance. But between the late arrangement of the West Indies Tests and continuing ill-feeling between the Indian and South African boards, it seemed likely at one time that the tour would be cancelled altogether. In the end, a two-match programme was cobbled together. The first Test was, however, worthy of the occasion: competitive and hard-fought, it had everything except a satisfactory finish, as both sides settled for a draw in a match either might have won. In the second Test, Jacques Kallis followed Tendulkar into retirement with a fine century that inspired a ten-wicket win: yet another series defeat on the road for India. But this defeat was at least at the hands of the top-ranked side. India might have hoped to prevail against the more modest talents of their next opponents, New Zealand. But no: after losing an absorbing, see-sawing first Test, India took a big lead in the second but hopes of squaring the short series were thwarted by a record-breaking triple hundred by Brendan McCullum. A visit to England in 2014, with the hosts still reeling from the Ashes debacle and subsequent home defeat to Sri Lanka, might have offered better prospects. And so it seemed at first: India drew the first Test and won the second as England (not for the first time) self-destructed at Lord’s. But this was not the short, two-match rubber to which India had perhaps become accustomed: a full five Tests had been scheduled. It was the first time these sides had met over five Tests since 1984/85, and India had not played five Tests against anyone since touring West Indies in 2001/02. Perhaps it showed: the last three matches were disastrous for the tourists. So far from putting their travelling collywobbles behind them, India crumpled ignominiously, losing the final three matches by margins of 266 runs, an innings and 54, and an innings and 244. Reduced to helplessness by English bowling that appeared steady rather than outstanding, India 113