The Indian team's 1952 tour of England was the first tour after the country's independence. Team India looked much stronger on paper. The command of the team was in the hands of Vijay Hazare. Everyone was expecting that the England team would face a tough competition against India. But in the third test, Team India was exposed. On July 17, 1952, the English bowlers wreaked such havoc that the Indian batters were completely on the back foot. The hero of victory from England's side was Fred Trueman, who single-handedly broke the back of Team India by taking 8 wickets.
England batted first and scored 347 runs losing 9 wickets. In response, Team India was bundled out on the paltry score of 58 runs in the first innings and despite being on follow-on in the second innings, they got all out on just 82 runs. The result was that the England team won the match by an innings and 207 runs.
England captain's century
Leonard Hutton played a brilliant innings for England in the first innings. The batter troubled the Indian bowlers a lot and played an innings of 104 runs. Apart from this, Peter May made an important contribution in the middle order with his 69. The England team went ahead in the first innings with an innings of 71 runs by wicketkeeper batter Godfrey Evans. Indian bowlers were not able to make an impact. For India, Ramesh Divecha and Ghulam Ahmed took 3-3 wickets. While Vinoo Mankad got 2 wickets and Gulabrai Ramchand got 1 wicket.
Indian batters collapse
When the Indian batter came on the crease, it was expected that they would perform brilliantly but it did not happen and half the team returned to the pavilion on a score of 17. For India, Vinoo Mankad scored 4, and both Pankaj Roy and Hemu Adhikari recorded ducks. Vijay Manjrekar was the highest run-scorer with 22 runs and no other batter could do anything special. Fred Truman wreaked havoc on England's behalf. Truman single-handedly dismissed 8 Indian batters. Alec Bedser got the remaining 2 wickets. The entire Indian team was back in the dugout in just 21.4 overs. The fear of Trueman was not leaving the minds of the Indian batter as he alone had taken 15 wickets in the first two Test matches.
England gave follow-on to the Indian team in the second innings but the team could not take advantage of it and the entire team once again collapsed on 82 runs. This time Tony Lock and Alec Bedser desimated the Indian line-up. Whereas Fred Trueman could take only one wicket. This day was very special for the England bowlers. A total of 22 wickets fell within one day. This time Hemu Adhikari was the highest run scorer for India with 27 runs. Apart from him, captain Vijay Hazare scored 16. Tony Lock gave only 36 runs in 9.3 overs and took 4 wickets. India suffered a crushing defeat in this match as England won by an innings and 207 runs.
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