“In a player revolution unprecedented in sport, the world’s top 34 Test cricketers have secretly signed contracts to become freelance mercenaries.” Thus ran the earth-shaking story by the late Ian Wooldridge in the Daily Mail of  May 9, 1977. Thirty five years after Wooldridge’s scoop, Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the fateful day that announced a crack in the foundations of the cricket world.