One hundred years ago this summer, the first ever Indian team representative of all sections of the country, toured Britain and Ireland. Towards the end of the 19th century Parsee teams had made two tours of England without conspicuous success, but previous attempts to put together an All India team - the last as recently as the previous year - 1910 - had failed.
In 1911 however the tour was made. It seems as though it is about to pass by unheralded which is not altogether surprising as it was an almost total failure. "The tour of the Indian cricketers," commented Wisden was a complete disappointment." Faced with an over ambitious programme, they won only two of their fourteen first class matches and five of the other nine.
The team had been selected by a committee of two from each of the three main communities, Hindu, Muslim and Parsee under the Chairmanship of Indian Army officer Colonel JG Grieg. Known as Jungly, because of his given names John Glennie, Grieg was a very good batsman, probably the best in India at the time, who played with success for Hampshire when home on leave. When he eventually retired from service, he was Hampshire Secretary for nine years, and then became a Catholic priest, probably the only one to be President of a County Cricket Club at the same time.
The team chosen was also representative of the three communities with a Sikh as captain. He was the 20 year old His Exalted Highness The Maharajah of Patalia, who - unlike a number of other cricket loving Indian potentates was a useful - though not outstanding - cricketer. He was to become a legendary figure, fabulously rich with an assembly of wives and concubines which - allegedly - exceeded the number of first class runs - 637 - that he scored. However his nickname of His Exhausted Highness was said to originate from his feat driving a Rolls Royce nonstop across India and not for any other activities!
Unfortunately his appointment was to be a source of weakness for the team. Once in Britain, he was much in demand on the London social scene and a guest at Buckingham Palace, where he received a knighthood from the newly crowned George V. In his absence the team lacked clear leadership and tended to split on communal lines.
A further problem was caused by Patiala insisting that he was accompanied on his various jaunts by his private secretary. KM Mistry was, potentially the best batsman in the party, and was also, in theory, the vice captain. They appeared in only three first class matches, Mistry heading the averages with 168 runs from three innings.
The best players appearing regularly were RP Meherhomji a right handed opener who made over 100 runs in all matches, his fellow Parsee, JS Warden, a fine left handed all rounder, Salamudin a fast bowler and the remarkable Palwankar Baloo, a 36 year old slow left armer of very high ability. He was an "untouchable" who owed his selection, in reality, to Grieg who had persuaded the Hindus, mostly from higher castes, to include him in their side for the Bombay Quadrangular Tournament, then the premier first class competition in India.
Grieg was no campaigner for equal rights; rather, having encountered Baloo as a net bowler, he wished to face the best in match conditions. Baloo's performances in these matches made him a must for the tour, though his treatment and that of his brother Shivram - a good batsman - by some of their co religionists - was hardly appropriate. Taking 75 first class wickets on the tour and 114 at 18.66 in all matches, he was the success of the tour. He received several approaches from several counties, notably Surrey, but turned them down on the grounds that he was past his best.
By mid August the tourists had won their first class games but suffered a number of unexpected defeats. En route for Scotland, they played Northumberland at Newcastle and lost by one wicket with WW Meldon of the well known Galway family, an all rounder who made his Irish debut that season and had played for Warwickshire with success, playing a leading role in the hosts' one wicket win. Crossing the border to play three matches in Scotland, easily defeating the North of Scotland at Inverness with Warden taking 9 wickets in the match and Meherhomji and Salamudin scoring big hundreds. Rain probably saved them in a three day first class match against Scotland at the rugby stronghold of Galashiels.
Surprisingly they were found lacking against the leg spin of John Bruce-Lockhart, the Scotland out half, who was a member of a family distinguished in the fields of cricket, rugby, academic achievement and - in one instance - espionage. They then doubled back to the North Inch, Perth, where they were defeated by Scottish Counties, which had the look of a Scotland A team, had such a side then been in vogue.
Two days after the Perth match, the jaded tourists found themselves in Belfast, playing Ulster at Ormeau. The Ulster side was captained by Oscar Andrews a member of the famed multi talented Comber family. His first cousins none of whom played in the match - included four useful cricketers in the legendary "Mr Willie" Andrews, supremo of North Down CC for decades, James, later Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, John, the second Stormont Prime Minister and Tommy, the ship builder, whose last creation was to plunge to her doom in the North Atlantic eight months later, along with him and most of the passengers.
On paper, the Ulster side was a strong one including not only Andrews but also all rounder Billy Pollock, sublime left hander Harold Jackson and future Ireland batsman JA Donnelly, then of the now long defunct Ulster CC, but later to play for Pembroke and Phoenix.
After an unpleasant Irish Sea experience, the visitors were no doubt happy to win the toss and bat. Meherhomji made 98 and the side posted 324. Andrews bowled his fast medium with great accuracy and the professional, Littlewood, had 4/83. Then Ulster batted if such a word does not infringe a Trades Description Act. In next to no time they were rushed out for 26, with only NICC opener HA Moore, 11 at No 1, reaching double figures. The stars cut a sorry picture with Pollock making 3 and Andrews, Donnelly and Jackson all failing to score.
Baloo had figures of 9.2 - 4 - 9 - 4 and the paceman Salamudin 10 - 6 - 11 - 4. Ulster's second innings was an almost 300% improvement in terms of runs scored but made little or no difference to the result. They were bowled out for 65. Donnelly this time was the double figure scorer, far outstripping his team-mates with 23. Pollock again made 3 while Andrews and Jackson narrowly avoided pairs.
They - Pollock and Jackson - both continued their careers after the War, playing for Ireland with some success, though another member of each of their families was to achieve more on the cricket field. Jackson's brother Finlay won both cricket and rugby caps before dying an untimely death in 1940, while Pollock, like Mickey Steward and - it seems appropriate to mention - BA "Ginger" O'Brien was to have his feats eclipsed by his son - Stuart - who was one of Ireland's best batsmen in the immediate post Second World War years, besides captaining the side.
The Indians should then have played Ireland but, with the Home Rule crisis looming the cricket authorities in Dublin and Belfast were unable to agree on a fixture. However Stanley Cochrane stepped into the breach and assembled a powerful side at his Woodbrook ground.
He included not only some of the best Irish players in Pollock, an excellent batsman despite his scores at Ormeau, George Meldon, perhaps the best batsman in his family, Bob Lambert, already a legendary figure and George Morrow, who two years earlier had successfully countered the great bowling of the Philadelphian JB King.
Also in the side were Cochrane's four professionals including Albert Baker a batsman once preferred to Jack Hobbs by Surrey and Peter Clarke a leg spinner, London born and plucked from obscurity by Cochrane, whose Woodbrook performances were to gain him a Middlesex place and a Test Trial. His outstanding recruit however was the South African all rounder Aubrey Faulkner, attacking batsman and very good leg spinner. It seems strange that this three day match was not accorded first class status while the Scotland game was.
Batting first Woodbrook made 278 with everybody but the two openers, Morrow and Faulkner, making double figures. The fact that Cochrane made an undefeated 12, suggests that either the tourists bowlers had tired or that they felt obliged to feed the host a few easy runs. Lambert made a swashbuckling 42, and Pollock, the horrors of Ormeau behind him, a far more typical and elegant 72.
India replied with 255 again struggling against leg spin. Clarke and Faulkner who bowled at medium pace with a high bounce, taking three wickets each.
Batting again Woodbrook made 231, largely thanks to a commanding 110 from Morrow and a fighting 42 from Baker. They proved the only batsmen really to come to terms with Baloo.
This left the Indians needing 255 but though Warden made a stylish 89 and Baloo hit powerfully for 48, they again found Clarke and Faulkner difficult, succumbing by 35 runs.
They then returned to England for two further matches before returning home by ferry and rail to Marseilles where they took ship for Bombay (Mumbai).
Among the Woodbrook side Pollock was to live until 1982 but others were not so lucky. Morrow and Clarke were both dead within four years from "natural causes" while Stedman, the former Surrey wicket keeper and another of Cochrane's staff, was killed on the railway line near Bray in 1917. Faulkner, who was subject to deep bouts of depression, has a distinguished war record and, leaving South Africa, settled in London where he opened a cricket school. Here, in 1930, having set his affairs in order, he put his head into a gas oven on 10 August 1930.
Among the Indians, Warden was the first to die; passing away in 1928 aged 43, Meherhomji in 1943 while Baloo died on 4 July 1955. His Highness Sir Bhupendrasingh Rajindersingh Maharajah of Patiala died in his luxurious palace, having lived to see his son the Yuvraj of Patiala play Test cricket, died on 23 March 1938. Fortunately, perhaps, he did not live to see an independent Indian government abolish the powers and titles of the princes.
