Shot Stories

The winter of our discontent

At the start of their 1992-93 tour of India, little did these England players know what was in store for them - the first ever Test series whitewash in the country

October 2015

On tour as a net bowler, legspinner Ian Salisbury was picked for the first Test, in Calcutta, ahead of Phil Tufnell and John Emburey. He was part of a bowling attack that included four seamers on a track where India picked three spinners. He took one wicket, compared to the 17 shared by India's spinners and five taken by part-timer Graeme Hick. In the second Test, in Madras, he took two wickets - including that of Sachin Tendulkar, though after he had scored 165.

Stand-in keeper Richard Blakey debuted when Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting fell victim to a plate of prawns in Madras. "I was keeping and couldn't hear what Graeme Hick was saying at second slip," Blakey recalled. "The other thing was the men around the bat. You wonder, 'How am I going to get a run?'" He finished with seven runs in the series, but he may have given England some insider tips: in 1992 he had put on 176 with Tendulkar in a Sunday League game for Yorkshire.

It was a lonely tour for Mike Atherton. Even Gooch and Gatting's seafood snafu couldn't get him into the side in Madras, not even as one of four substitute fielders. When he did get a chance, in the final Test, in Bombay, he ran out stand-in captain Alec Stewart in the first session. Both were caught at the wrong end and neither walked, giving more fuel to rumours about disunity in the squad. Six months later Atherton became England's captain, but he never played another Test in India.

Returning to the Test side after two and a half years, Neil Fairbrother battled in the first two Tests but was dropped for the third. David Gower, overlooked for the tour, was on air with Gooch (who was out of the side, unwell) when Fairbrother was batting in Madras. "Neil Fairbrother seems to be playing quite well," said Gower. "Perhaps another left-hander might have been useful, Graham?" A better batsman in ODIs than Tests, Fairbrother made 46 not out and 53 not out in England wins in Jaipur and Jamshedpur on the tour.

In one of the many puzzling selections on the tour, Paul Jarvis was picked despite a mediocre County Championship season. Odder still, he was dropped for the Bombay Test after having bowled better than Devon Malcolm and Phil DeFreitas in the first two matches. Jarvis' best performance came in the 3-3 drawn ODI series - he yorked Navjot Sidhu in Jaipur and took 5 for 35 in Bangalore.