ENGLAND IN INDIA
Grace under fire
John Stern looks back on England’s triumphant visit to India in 1984/85, when David Gower ’s under-strength tourists prevailed against a backdrop of assassinations and political chaos
A crowd gathers in Delhi for the cremation of Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minster who was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards on October 31, 1984
PHOTO BY GABRIEL DUVAL
JOHN STERN
Wisden Cricket Monthly editor-atlarge
@Stern_Words
Tony Brown was a tall, imposing figure. “You knew where you stood with him,” Mike Gatting tells WCM about England’s tour manager of their 1984/85 trip to India. He was “a stickler for standards”, according to the Wisden obituary following his death in 2020.
Brown had been a successful captain of Gloucestershire and was secretary of Somerset at the time of the tour. This overseas assignment should have been an honour but it was quickly turning into a nightmare.
Three hours after England’s arrival in Delhi at the end of October 1984, the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, revenge for the temple massacre in Amritsar five months earlier. “It is all a terrible shock, of course,” Brown told The Times. “We can only sit tight for the time being and see what happens.”
Mrs Gandhi’s death was followed by 12 days of official mourning and, for David Gower ’s party of England cricketers, plenty of uncertainty about whether the tour would continue. India was in turmoil.
“I’d never been to India but I was excited about going there,” fast bowler Neil Foster tells WCM. “In the hotel in Delhi, by the sunbeds or the pool, you could see smoke in the distance where there were disturbances going on. We were aware of what was happening but we were cosseted.”
The mourning period meant England couldn’t practise or play in India but the Sri Lankan board offered them a training base. The squad headed to Colombo, hitching a lift with the country ’s president JR Jayawardene as he flew home from Mrs Gandhi’s funeral.
England spent nine days in Sri Lanka before returning to India to prepare for five Tests and five one-day internationals. Meanwhile, Brown was being pulled from pillar to post, trying to clarify a revised schedule. England were due in Calcutta (now Kolkata) for the first third Test on Boxing Day but that was in doubt because a general election was scheduled for Christmas Eve.
Back in India, England were welcomed by Percy Norris, the deputy high commissioner, who hosted a cocktail party for the team just before the first Test in late November. “One of the best I’ve ever been to,” wrote Gower, who’d snored his way through plenty of official functions in his time.