Tillway Talk

  Today is the 50th anniversary of India's first test win in England. Ray Illingworth's team was seemingly invincible, and had played 26 tests without a defeat coming into the match at the Oval.  It was a record which was later broken by the West Indies under Clive Lloyd in the 1980s. The English unbeaten run was ended famously by India on 24th August 1971. Led by Ajit Wadekar, the Indian team won  the third match of the series. They thus  won the three-test series 1-0 and created history. England scored 355 in their first innings, with Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Venkataraghvan taking 2 wickets each. Solkar picked up 3 scalps, including Alan Knott for 90. In reply, India were tottering at 125-5 before Solkar and Engineer helped them put up a score of 284. Wadekar scored 48, Sardesai 54, Solkar 44 and Engineer 59 in that innings. Abid Ali and Venkataraghvan chipped in with 28 and 24 respectively.  The game turned on its head on the fourth day, when Chandrasekhar demolished  the Eng

  On the occasion of India's  75th Independence Day, a few random  musings:  India's per capita income is 38th in Asia  behind countries like  China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia  The life expectancy in the country  is around  70.8 years.  India trails nations like Nepal,  Indonesia, Iraq, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. The Indian literacy rate 77.7%. It is less than that of Indonesia, Iran, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.  So a lot remains to be done if India is to join the ranks of the elite developed countries.