Why Have You Called Me?
The telegram arrived at a quiet home in Ahmedabad. Jasubhai Motibhai Patel read it, set it down, and frowned. He was 35 years old. His hair carried the first honest streaks of grey. He had played four Test matches for India since 1955, none of them memorable. The selectors had overlooked him so many times he had made peace with it.
He was being asked to travel to Kanpur for the second Test against Australia. He packed his bags reluctantly, unconvinced. The cricket world was equally unconvinced. Journalists questioned the logic. Fellow players whispered. Why Patel, and not the younger, more dynamic AG Kripal Singh?
Only one man was absolutely certain: Lala Amarnath, chairman of selectors. He had watched the Green Park pitch in Kanpur being freshly laid and had noted the rough patches the left-arm seamers would create.
A Nation on Its Knees
To understand what happened at Kanpur, you must first understand how desperate things were.
In their previous 14 Tests, India had lost eleven. Five of those losses came by an innings. Eight were wrapped up with more than a day to spare. Just five days before Kanpur, Australia had crushed India by an innings and 127 runs in Delhi. The touring Australians, under the brilliant captaincy of Richie Benaud, were the finest cricket team in the world - carrying in their ranks Harvey, O’Neill, McDonald, Davidson, and Meckiff.
India had just returned from England having been whitewashed 5-0. The mood in the dressing room was not one of strategy and preparation. It was survival. The question being asked was not “Can India win?” It was “By how much will they lose this time?”
The First Day: As Expected
India batted first. It went as poorly as feared - 152 all out. Davidson, the silky left-arm menace, took five for 31. Benaud chipped in with four for 63. If Australian players celebrated in their hotel that night, who could blame them?
The second morning began in exactly the same vein. Colin McDonald and Neil Harvey batted as though the Kanpur pitch were their personal drawing room. By lunch, Australia were a comfortable 128 for one. Patel had taken the solitary wicket but had looked pedestrian, bowling from the city end, unable to threaten, a passenger in his own match.
The Lunch That Changed Everything
What was said between Lala Amarnath and captain GS Ramchand during those 40 minutes at lunch, we can only imagine. But the message was clear and urgent: You are bowling Patel from the wrong end. Davidson and Meckiff, both left-arm bowlers, had roughed up the surface at the pavilion end. That rough patch was Patel’s hunting ground. Move him there.
Ramchand listened.
Patel marked his run-up from the pavilion end.
His first delivery after lunch kissed the rough, gripped, and slid between McDonald’s bat and pad. The stumps were hit. McDonald, who had looked immovable all morning, walked off for 50, shaking his head. The crowd stirred. Something had changed. The air at Green Park felt different.
The Unraveling
What followed was not merely good bowling. It was something closer to witchcraft.
Neil Harvey reached fifty and looked entirely at ease. Harvey was an experienced Test player with over 6,000 runs to his name. Then Patel tossed one up, pitching it temptingly outside Harvey’s off-stump. Harvey decided to leave it alone. He raised his bat and let the ball go. Except the ball did not go. It cut back sharply, violently, and demolished his stumps. Harvey stood there for a moment, bat still raised, staring at the wreckage.
Bapu Nadkarni dropped a sitter at midwicket off Norman O’Neill, costing Patel what could have been a tenth wicket. O’Neill was eventually dismissed by Chandu Borde. But every other Australian wicket belonged to one man.
By close of play, the scoreboard told an almost surreal story: Australia all out, 219. Last nine wickets: 91 runs. Patel’s figures: 9 for 69.
Sealing the Miracle
India’s second innings was a transformed affair. Nari Contractor’s 74 and Ramnath Kenny’s 51 helped set Australia a target of 225 in 400 minutes. It was a target with teeth.
On the fourth evening, Patel dismissed Gavin Stevens. On the fifth morning, Polly Umrigar reduced Australia to 61 for four. Then Patel arrived again - claiming four more wickets as the Australian innings gasped and collapsed to 105 all out.
India won by 119 runs.
In the press rooms across the country, editors moved the story to the front page. Radio stations broke into regular programming. The phrase being whispered, then spoken, then shouted across India was the same everywhere:
The miracle at Kanpur.
What It Meant
Patel’s match figures of 14 for 124 were the best by any Indian bowler in Test cricket - a record that would stand for nearly three decades. His nine for 69 in the first innings remained the finest single-innings bowling performance by an Indian until Anil Kumble took all ten against Pakistan in 1999.
For his achievement, Patel was awarded the Padma Shri, becoming the first cricketer ever to receive India’s second-highest civilian honor. His face appeared on a postage stamp.
Jasubhai Patel played just 7 Tests for India in which he picked 29 wickets. But ask any Indian cricket fan what defined him, and they will give you three characters and two digits: 9/69.
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