Rajput won the toss and decided to bat, finishing Day One on 149-4, all wickets to RJ Hadlee. The following day, overnight batsman Shrikant Kalyani could add only one to his impressive 81 and became Hadlee’s fifth victim. On a flat surface, Hadlee added four to his tally to end up with 9-55; his best figures in non-Test match cricket. This Rajkot feat came three Novembers after Hadlee’s 9-52 against Australia in the 1985-86 Brisbane Test.

Sulakshan Kulkarni, the only player who didn’t succumb to Hadlee’s guile, remembers the spells as if he saw them from close quarters yesterday. “Hadlee was my hero and I was transfixed as soon as he started bowling in that match. He was accurate and got the in-cutter going on that Rajkot track, which I like to describe as a runway. I’m a coach now and work with a bowling machine. I can say that Hadlee was more accurate than a bowling machine. There was no help from the pitch as the game didn’t start in the morning for that dew factor to be exploited because the kit of the New Zealand team arrived late,” Kulkarni recalled.

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According to The Sportstar, the kit arrived by road from Mumbai at 12.30 pm and play could start only at 1.45 pm. G Viswanath, the magazine’s reporter, said that the BCCI were not to blame for the kit delay (like they were for the kit delay of the Australian team for the Jamshedpur ODI in 1984-85) as the New Zealand management themselves had opted for road transport which took 22 hours; six more than the normal time.

The off-field snafu didn’t bother Hadlee. He went about his task as a top pro, his focus firmly on doing well on the tour. Opening batsman Shishir Hattangadi, who was castled by Hadlee for one, told me on Wednesday that there was no question of leaving the Kiwi great’s deliveries alone, simply because he didn’t give you any room to play your shots. “He was at you all the time. The delayed start too played on our minds, but it didn’t affect him. Hadlee seemed to like the initial bounce the Indian ball offered and I remember him asking the umpires if the same brand of balls would be used in the Test matches. Hadlee came, saw and swept us away. He didn’t give us time to appreciate his craft,” said Hattangadi, who despite his impressive scores for Mumbai, was never selected to play for his zone save this one game. While Hadlee wove his magic, one-drop batsman Shrikant Kalyani held firm, scoring 82, shrugging off the heart-in-the-mouth moment when Hadlee bowled him off a no-ball when the Maharashtra captain had scored only a couple of runs. 

Kalyani and Baroda’s Tushar Arothe put on 129 for the fifth wicket, but both perished when Hadlee came on for his first spell on Day Two. Kulkarni and Bhavin Radia combined for an eighth-wicket partnership of 69 runs. Mumbai’s Kulkarni was the last man out, falling to John Bracewell for 47, while offie Radia claimed four wickets, as New Zealand ended their tour opener with 338-7. Skipper Wright worked his way to a century as opener in the drawn game, made special by his premier fast bowler.

In Rhythm and Swing, Hadlee wrote: “Our first tour match in Rajkot against West Zone wasn’t expected to produce anything out of the ordinary, certainly not a result. But I came close to a career-best, taking nine for 55 and extracting four lbw decisions from one of the Test umpires [Piloo Reporter]. Just like Brisbane 1985, I had a chance of taking all 10 wickets, but John Bracewell prevented that. I was still delighted, though, mainly to see the new ball move appreciably in the air. Nothing happened off the pitch, but the movement in the air further emphasised just how crucial it would be to use the new ball wisely. I also watched the Indian batsmen closely, interested to see how they handled seam and swing bowling. Only a couple of them played with confidence by pushing forward at me; the rest floundered around the crease, giving me possible leg-before chances.”

After the match, Kulkarni went over to meet his idol in the New Zealand dressing room, for a photograph and autograph. He found Hadlee seated near the door with his cricket coffin open. The inside lid had an inscription of his Test venue-wise wicket targets. He ended up with 18 in three Tests and though the Kiwis lost to Dilip Vengsarkar’s side at Bangalore and Hyderabad, they won the Mumbai Test. While memories of Hadlee’s 9-55 in Rajkot are vivid, the squads for today’s Test match have two great fast bowlers—one a veteran (James Anderson) and the other, a feisty young man (Jasprit Bumrah). Like Hadlee in 1988, they may rely on swing rather than sheer speed to outwit the batsmen at spin-friendly Rajkot.

mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello

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