Fred Trueman, popularly known as ‘fiery Fred’, was one of the most successful bowlers of his era. Bowling with a deadly pace was his biggest strength. But, the art of swinging the ball both ways was cherry on the top which made his bowling lethal and unplayable.
Trueman got his national call for England’s home series against India in way back in 1952. He was handed the debut cap in the very first Test match of the series which was played at Headingly, Leeds.
He had a dream debut when he scalped seven wickets against India. His brilliant show with the bowl handed England a convincing victory by seven wickets in the first Test. The right-hand pacer did not stop there and went on to disrupt the Indian batting line up, again, by bagging eight wickets in the second Test match.
England dominated throughout the Test and won by eight wickets.
After scalping fifteen wickets in two Tests, Trueman was on the aces of his game. One of the most special performances of his career came in the this series when Fred ran riots through the Indian batting line-up in the third match of the series which was played at Manchester.
English skipper Leonard Hutton won the toss and elected to bat first. The English team scored 347/9 before the skipper decided to declare the innings. This was a mammoth total in front of the Indian team. The English captain leaded from the front by hitting a ton. He was the top scorer with 104 runs for England while Ramesh Divecha and Ghulam Ahmed were the top wicket takers for India with three wickets each.
What followed was one of the worst performances by the Indian team. The visitors were bowled out for a mere total of 58 runs. Indian batters had no answer to Trueman’s magnificent spell. The English bowler registered his best bowling figures in an innings with scalping eight wickets by leaking just 31 runs. Vijay Manjrekar and Vijay Hazare were the only two Indian batsman who able to score runs in double digits.
India were forced to follow-on and did not perform well in second innings either. The English bowlers dominated the Indian batting line-up and quickly bowled them out for 82 runs. Alec Bedser took the most wickets in the second innings. He dismissed five Indian batters. The first innings hero, Fred Truman, added one wicket in the second innings, to mark his match figures as 9/40.
England won the match by an innings and 207 runs. Not only the match, but they won the four match Test series 3-0, last match being a draw. Trueman was the hero of the series.
