India need their wicketkeeper to score runs at the Oval if they are to bounce back from England’s emphatic Headingley win
It was 50 years ago that
India won a historic Test at the Oval to seal their first series win on English soil. The hero then was the leg-spinner Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, who took six for 38 in the second innings, leaving India with a target of 173, which they chased down with four wickets to spare, thanks to a team batting effort in which no batsman reached a half century but everyone chipped in.
In the course of that Test match, Indian supporters borrowed Bella the elephant from Chessington Zoo and brought her to the Oval. The team saw this as a good omen, for the animal’s arrival coincided with the festival of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god worshipped as the remover of obstacles. Now, as India go into the fourth Test with the score 1-1, it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room, even if there won’t be one at the ground.