09 July,2026 09:49 AM IST | Mumbai | Clayton Murzello
Syed Mushtaq Ali (left) and Vijay Merchant walk out to open India’s second innings against England at Old Trafford, Manchester, on July 27, 1936. PIC COURTESY: CRICKET DELIGHTFUL/MUSHTAQ ALI’S FAMILY COLLECTION
Not all feats concerning India at Manchester were mentioned on Saturday, but it's worth recalling Vijay Merchant and Syed Mushtaq Ali scoring hundreds as opening batsmen to draw the 1936 Test match.
After that came Abbas Ali Baig's Test debut hundred in 1959, Sunil Gavaskar's 101 in extreme cold conditions in 1974, Sandeep Patil's six fours in an over off Bob Willis en route a career-saving hundred, and India's first win in their opening 1983 World Cup match. Twelve days later, India beat England to get into their famous June 25 final against the West Indies. Sachin Tendulkar's maiden hundred there in 1990 saved India from defeat, and only last year Shubman Gill, Washington Sundar, and Ravindra Jadeja scored hundreds in the same innings.
Indeed, Manchester - the city known for its textile production - holds special significance for India, and now Sooryavanshi's historic international debut that made him the youngest player (15 years, 99 days) to wear India colours at the senior level. Sooryavanshi's two sixes that set the wheels in motion in a much-awaited debut made it somewhat worth it for the large congregation of Indian fans at Manchester.
Interestingly, Sooryavanshi's historic debut coincides with the 90th year of the centuries of Merchant and Mushtaq. The Test was Game 2 of the three-Test series. England won the first Test at Lord's by nine wickets. On Day One of the July 25-28 Test, India were dismissed for 203 with Syed Wazir Ali (42) and C Ramaswami (40) being the principal scorers.
England piled on the runs. Big runs, to the tune of 571, before Gubby Allen declared with eight wickets down. If England thought India would crumble again, they had reckoned without the grit of Merchant and the flair of Mushtaq. The tall, charismatic Mushtaq told readers of his autobiography Cricket Delightful that the first 26 of his innings came in 20 minutes as Merchant stayed rock solid at the other end.
Mushtaq loved to be adventurous in his approach to batting and in an article in Cricket Quarterly (April-June 1975) he said that the Old Trafford century provided him with "the golden day" of his life. This selection was not based on the fact that this was his maiden Test century but "because I batted to my heart's content, with complete command over the best of England's bowling to reduce it to mediocrity."
Mushtaq's 112 earned praise from the best cricket writer then, Sir Neville Cardus, who reckoned that the Indian's cricketer, "touched the imagination; there was suppleness and lithe grace which concealed power, as silkiness of skin conceals voracity of strength in a beautiful animal of the jungle."
Mushtaq's Indore-based son Syed Gulrez Ali told me on Wednesday that his father took great pride in being the first Indian to score a Test hundred on English soil (Mushtaq reached his hundred on Day Two while Merchant got his on Day Three). "Dad also cherished the memories of the reception he received when he returned to the team hotel that evening [July 27, 1936] with an unbeaten century to his name," revealed Gulrez, who played Ranji Trophy cricket for Madhya Pradesh from 1965-66 to 1984-85.
Back to 1936. Although Merchant put a heavy price on his wicket at all times and not only on this tour on which he scored 1745 at 51.32 with three centuries, Wisden of 1937 (the publication that named him as one of their five cricketers for 1936) wrote that during his Manchester innings of 114, he "often jumped in to drive [Robert] Robins and also cut well."
In the midst of battle, the opposition's batting stalwart Walter Hammond wanted to see Mushtaq reach his hundred. "My boy, be steady, get your hundred first," Hammond told Mushtaq. Merchant too urged Mushtaq not to give his wicket away. This was the same Merchant who had heard talk that Mushtaq was asked to run him out because he was dismissed in that fashion in the first innings. Mushtaq, of course, would not have any of it and, in fact, stressed that his first innings dismissal was an accident. Merchant and Mushtaq put on 203 for the first wicket and even if India lost five wickets, they didn't succumb to defeat.
Merchant wrote in an article Oh To Be in England in Cricket Quarterly magazine (October-December 1976) that the 1936 Indians travelled to England by a ship called The Viceroy of India, and his pre-tour training involved running around a one-furlong stretch eight times each morning on the 17-day journey. "We travelled by first-class but, believe me, my [windowless] cabin on Deck E was below the water level. Fresh air was injected into the cabin by means of a pipe," he wrote.
In 10 years' time the feats of Merchant and Mushtaq will reach a century. And Sooryavanshi could well be a decade into his India career. The prospect of that milestone is nothing short of exciting.
mid-day's Deputy Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.
