10 August,2011 08:36 AM IST | | Sai Mohan
Legendary spin quartet played together for the first and only time during India's maiden Test at Edgbaston in 1967
Edgbaston, the venue of the third England-India Test that gets underway today, has a special place in the memoirs of Indian cricket.
Having lost four out of five Tests, India's record here is not to boot. The first of those trips to Birmingham in 1967 saw the spin quartet of Bishan Singh Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan coming together for the only time. They took 18 wickets between them but India lost by 132 runs.
Awesome foursome: Former India spinners Chandrasekhar (left to right),
Bishan Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan during
a BCCI function in Kolkata in 2003. PIC/AFP
"It was a special occasion. Birmingham is not an easy place to bowl. It's traditionally a flat wicket, so you have to bowl with lot of guile," spin legend Prasanna told MiD DAY yesterday, before recalling the shock in the dressing room when skipper Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi named a playing XI comprising of four spinners under overcast English skies. "It was very unusual looking at a scorecard with four specialist spinnersu00a0-- against a side that was thinking of dropping Ray Illingworth (their lead spinner) because there were was a young fast bowler competing for his place.
"Walking out to the field with them was a special feeling. The sad thing... destiny never allowed us to play together again," lamented Prasanna.
The 71-year old said the 1967 tour gave birth to India's glorious run in the summer of 1971. "Those days the problem was we didn't have quality batsmen to bat through 90 overs. We didn't have a good seamer too. But the four of us could threaten any team, on any surface.
"The tour of 1967 gave birth to the wins in West Indies and England four years later. We realised that we had a bowling attack capable of doing great things," he said.
Mishra, not Ojha
Prasanna nominated leggie Amit Mishra to play ahead of Pragyan Ojha in today's Test. "I would nominate Mishra because English batsmen are not comfortable with leg-spin. However, I am little worried because neither of these guys have played a Test in England. Birmingham is probably the toughest place to do well. You need to bowl with plenty of craft," he concluded.
