by Abhishek Mukherjee
Calcutta, 1961-62
In a bizarre, cruel move, BCCI had managed to bring Subhash Gupte's career to an end after the previous Test.
Apart from that, they managed to leave the team in a soup as well. India were without their finest bowler, arguably the greatest spinner in their history.
The only leg-spinner in the side was Chandu Borde, essentially a batsman who had taken 26 wickets in 21 Tests till that point.
Borde had famously scored 109 and 96 to save the Delhi Test against some intimidating bowling from Hall and Gilchrist three years ago (he was hit wicket four short of a second hundred), but he had been moving in and out of the top five in the batting order.
India had won a Test against England in 1951-52, but never a series. Now, with no Gupte, they decided to use Borde as their fourth bowler, to go with Desai, Ranjane, and Durani, and perhaps Umrigar.
Borde batted at 7 and 8 in the two innings. He would have batted at 9 in the second, had opener Vijay Mehra not been forced to bat at 11 due to an injury.
He scored 68 and 61 not out, and claimed 4/65 in the first innings.
India went 1-0 up, then clinched the series with another win, at Madras. This time Borde got a first-innings 31 (from No. 6) to go with 2/58 and 3/59.
Three years later, India drew their first series against Australia, after trailing 0-1. Borde batted at 9 in that heart-stopping Bombay Test. After an excellent back-against-the-wall partnership between Pataudi and Manjrekar, India were still left to score 32 with two wickets in hand – and Chandrasekhar left to bat. Borde saw them through.
When West Indies thrashed India 2-0 in India two years after that, Borde scored more runs than anyone on either side.
It was his partnership with Jaisimha that brought India to the brink of what could have been a famous win, at Brisbane 1967-68.
When India won their first overseas series, in New Zealand, months after that, Borde reached double-figures every time and averaged almost fifty.
He was the only Indian to be invited when single-wicket cricket was revived in England (one of three overseas cricketers, in fact), in 1963. And the only Indian in the Rest of the World side that played Barbados in 1967.
Even after over fifty years of his retirement, Borde remains one of three Indians (Kapil and Shastri are the others) to have done the 3,000 run-50 wicket double in Test cricket.
And I am not even getting into his post-retirement roles, especially as manager in 2007.
Chandu Borde was born on 21 July 1934.