Gundappa Viswanath scores emphatic hundred on Test debut against Australia in 1969

Gundappa Viswanath scored 137 against Australia, thus becoming the sixth Indian batsman to score century on debut © Getty Images

Gundappa Viswanath announced his arrival at the highest level with an emphatic hundred on November 20, 1969. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the day that where the journey of a genius took off.

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Australia reached Kanpur for the second Test already one-up in the series. In a drastic move, Vijay Merchant’s Selection Committee dropped four seniors — Chandu Borde, Dilip Sardesai, Rusi Surti, and Abid Ali — from the side for the first Test at Bombay.
 
They drafted in four youngsters in the form of Eknath Solkar, Subrata Guha, Ashok Gandotra, and a curious little man from Mysore who went by the name of Gundappa Rangnath Viswanath.
 
Of the four, ‘Vishy’ was the only debutant. He had scored a 230 on his First-Class debut (209 of them on Day One) against Andhra at Vijayawada two seasons back and was making waves at domestic level when he made his Test debut.
 

Day One: Viswanath fails
 
Ashok Mankad, replacing Sardesai as an opener, piled up the runs in a solid opening stand with Farokh Engineer after ‘Tiger’ Pataudi had decided to bat. They batted fluently — especially Engineer — who scored 77 out of a 110-minute partnership of 111 before hitting one back to Keith Stackpole, of all people. He had hit 12 boundaries.
 
Ajit Wadekar then helped Mankad add 56 more before falling to Alan Connolly; Viswanath walked out and saw Mankad hit one back to Ashley Mallett for a well-compiled 199-ball 64 with nine boundaries. He was joined by Pataudi himself. Viswanath struggled against Connolly in his maiden innings before being caught by Ian Redpath off Connolly for a duck.
 
From 167 for one, India had suddenly slipped to 171 for four. The 20-year old was crestfallen: he had waited for this opportunity for so long. What if India did not get a chance to bat again? What if he was dropped for good?
 
Gandotra did not last either, and India reached stumps at 237 for five with Pataudi on 36 and Solkar on 15. There was a lot of repairing to be done next morning.
 

Day Two: Indian spinners fight back
 
Pataudi fell early next morning, but Solkar hung around, adding 46 for the seventh wicket with Srinivas Venkataraghavan before he was bowled by Connolly. EAS Prasanna scored a few runs towards the end before India were bowled out for 320. Connolly had taken four for 91 while Mallett had returned figures of three for 58 (his previous best was three for 87).
 
Guha toiled hard on a bat that had little to offer to the seamers on Day Two. Venkat provided with the first breakthrough, having the obdurate Bill Lawry caught at bat-pad; Stackpole was just beginning to look ominous when he was run out for 40 (of a team score of 56); and Ian Chappell was trapped leg-before by Prasanna — the bowler Chappell had always held in very high esteem.
 
Australia finished with 105 for three. Doug Walters was on 29 while Redpath was unbeaten with four.
 

Day Three: Australia manage slender lead
 
Though Walters fell early to Bishan Bedi on Day Three for a 115-minute 53, Paul Sheahan joined Redpath for an enterprising partnership. The stand lasted for close to three hours and amounted to 131 before Redpath was snared by Solkar for a 226-minute 70.
 
The lower middle-order did not score much, but John Gleeson hung around to allow Sheahan score his maiden Test hundred. Guha came back to have Sheahan caught-behind for a 257-ball 114 with 20 fours — but by then Australia had already managed a lead. The innings ended on 348 with Venkat picking up three for 76. India were 28 runs behind.
 

Day Four: A genius emerges
 
Once again Engineer and Mankad got India off to a decent start, adding 43 for the opening stand. However, Wadekar did not score much, and Viswanath walked out with the score on 94 for two. He got off the mark soon, saving himself from the ignominy of scoring a pair on Test debut.
 
Mankad fell for a 202-minute 68 soon, and with both Pataudi and Gandotra failing, India suddenly found themselves at 147 for five, a mere 119 runs ahead, as Solkar walked out to join Viswanath.
 
Despite his failure in the first innings, Viswanath was confident when he had walked out to bat. A long conversation in the pavilion with Pataudi had helped. It was after the fall of five wickets that ‘Vishy’ took over: seldom Green Park witnessed artwork of such exquisite quality; they were taken aback by the man’s amazing wristwork and the silken elegance of his strokes.
 
The square-cuts and square-drives were especially the strokes that turned him into a darling for the crowd that afternoon, and for ages to come. Not only did he score crucial Test-saving runs but he did them in a style matched by few in the history of world cricket.
 
He went past his fifty with Solkar playing a good support act. When play ended for the day, India were on 204 for five — 176 runs ahead — with Viswanath on 69 and Solkar on 20. The situation was better than what it was in the morning, but an Australian victory was still possible.
 

Day Five: A hundred on debut
 
Solkar and Viswanath saw off the first hour of the day’s play. Viswanath, never one to allow a bowler dominate him, scored at a brisk pace and became the sixth Indian to score a hundred on Test debut. He also became the first batsman to have scored a duck and a hundred on debut (Andrew Hudson and Mohammad Wasim have emulated this ‘feat’ subsequently).
 
By the time Viswanath was trapped leg-before by Mallett, he had scored 137 of the most beautiful runs ever made. He had batted for 354 minutes and had hit 25 strokes to the fence. Pataudi declared soon, asking Australia to chase down 285 runs in a shade over two hours. Graham McKenzie had taken three for 63.
 
There was no way Lawry was going to accept the challenge: he himself remained unbeaten on 56 with 10 fours; with the spinners not being able to break through, Pataudi ended up using 10 bowlers; he brought on Viswanath as the fourth-change bowler, and the man from Mysore rolled his hand over for some really innocuous leg-breaks for a single over. The Test petered out to a draw.
 

What followed?
 

• India struck back at Delhi but Australia won the remaining two Tests at Calcutta and Madras, claiming the series 3-1. They would not win a series in India in close to another 35 years.

• Viswanath scored his second Test hundred against England at Bombay in 1972-73. In doing so, he broke the jinx of an Indian batsman scoring a hundred on debut not being able to score another Test hundred. He eventually scored 14 hundreds, none of which ended in an Indian defeat.

 
Brief scores:
 
India 320 (Farokh Engineer 77, Ashok Mankad 64, Eknath Solkar 44; Alan Connolly 4 for 91, Ashley Mallett 3 for 58) and 312 for 7 decl. (Ashok Mankad 68, Gundappa Viswanath 137; Graham McKenzie 3 for 63) drew with Australia 348 (Keith Stackpole 40, Doug Walters 56, Ian Redpath 70, Paul Sheahan 114; Srinivas Venkataraghavan 3 for 76) and 95 for no loss (Bill Lawry 56*).
 
(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at https://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)