EAS Prasanna

25th August 1961, the Railways Recreation Ground in Secunderabad – that was where it all started for Erapalli Prasanna. Against a Hyderabad team boasting of ML Jaisimha and Abid Ali (both of who were permanent fixtures in the Indian Test team at that point in time), Karnataka captain Kasturirangan threw the ball to Prasanna for his first bowl in First-Class cricket.

Although his First-Class debut wasn’t spectacular by any stretch of imagination, Prasanna still bagged 5 wickets in that match and it was his ‘classical’ off-spinners action, to go with his consistency, which made everyone believe he was ‘Test’ material.

Soon after his First-Class debut, Prasanna was called up to the South Zone team for the Duleep Trophy Final against West Zone, which had Nari Contractor, Russi Surti, Chandu Borde, Polly Umrigar, Gulabrai Ramchand, Bapu Nadkarni, Dilip Sardesai, Farookh Engineer, Ramakant Desai and Baloo Gupte in its line up. The stage was perfectly set for Prasanna, what with Nari Contractor, the then Captain of the Indian team also leading the West Zone team, and Prasanna did all he could to impress – although he didn’t enjoy enough success in terms of the number of wickets, he still did enough to push for a place in the national team. From there, it was always up the ladder – he soon after played against the touring MCC team, and then was handed his first India cap in the 1962 Madras Test against England. Remarkable as it may sound to many readers now, but Prasanna had only played 6 First Class games before his Test debut.

The Classic Bowling Action

For a long time, before the advent of the ‘Doosra’, which called for a slightly different grip and release, off spinners would always look up to Prasanna’s bowling action – it was all according to the coaches manual. There was the nice lead-up to the crease, then the pivot that is so essential for a spinner and then the ball would be thrown up in the air, above the eye-line of the batsman, and then the big turn off the track.

Test cricket - A different cup of tea to begin with

Although the talent was there for everyone to see, and the trust to invest in him, Prasanna’s talent didn’t really translate to success immediately at the Test level. His first five Test matches – played in three different countries – produced only 11 wickets. With spin talent in abundance then, Prasanna was then competing for places with Bishen Bedi, S Venkataraghavan and BS Chandrasekhar, all of who had already tried their hands at Test cricket, and with good success too.

Then came the Edgbaston Test in 1967, the only time when India fielded all of its four world-class spinners – who would then go on to be called the ‘Indian Spin Quartet’ – Prasanna came out trumps in that match with 7 wickets.

For a major part of his career, Prasanna had to see off competition from Srinivas Venkataraghavan – although the competition was generally healthy, Prasanna thought he was unfairly done by on the 1971 tour of England. He admits ‘There is only one time when I was cheesed off, and that was on the 1971 tour of England. I was the prime bowler at the time, with 125 wickets in something like 22, 23 Tests and I had been bowling well in the county games, at the start of the tour. Yet I didn't get to play a single Test on that tour, and that upset me a bit, I couldn't understand the reason why.’

Modus-operandi

For Prasanna, the two main ingredients for a successful spin bowler were hitting the right length consistently, and getting the ball to turn off the wicket. Prasanna maintained, ‘Length in mandatory, line is optional’. He would toss the ball up, up above the eye-line of the batsman, lure him into the shot, get the ball to break/turn off the wicket, and then get the batsman locked up in awkward positions and get caught by the close-in fielders. Long after he hung up his boots, Prasanna revealed in an interview, “I was always able to turn the ball, no matter what kind of wicket I was bowling on. And I knew where I wanted my fielders” – For the record, 109 off Prasanna’s 189 Test wickets came courtesy catches by fielders, and most of them by a very sharp close-in cordon.

58% of Prasanna’s victims were caught by fielders – that record was bettered only recently by a certain Harbhajan Singh, who now has a good 61% of his victims caught by fielders.

Best times in Test cricket

It was on the 1967-68 tour to Australia and New Zealand that Prasanna really came to the fore. In 4 Tests against Australia, Prasanna bagged 25 wickets in conditions that weren’t really conducive to spin bowling. Prasanna recalled During that tour of Australia when I got 25 wickets, people like Ian Chappell and Keith Stackpole were calling me the finest off spinner in the world. And yes, I got a lot of wickets against the best batting lineup in the world at that time. I don't know what it was about that tour, really -- I guess the Aussie wickets are very sporting, they offer a lot of bounce and I always enjoy bowling on such wickets. And I was able to turn the ball a lot.‘

In the New Zealand tour that followed, Prasanna starred with the ball to finish with 24 wickets, in what would be India’s first overseas Test series win.

Prasanna was also part of India’s historic Test series wins in the Caribbean in 1970-71, where he enjoyed moderate success. Back in New Zealand in 1975-76, he brought his magic back to the fore and picked up 11 wickets to lead India to yet another series win; in fact, his 8 for 76 in the Auckland Test that India won was rated as one of the top 10 bowling performances by Indians in Test cricket by Wisden.

Prasanna was said to be one of the finest students of the game and a smart thinker. Many in fact had seen him as captaincy material – while he did captain the Board Presidents’ XI teams and the Karnataka Ranji Trophy team with good success, regional selection politics meant he did not have a permanent place in the Test side, and hence he had to be content with just captaining his state side Karnataka.

In an era when the art of spin bowling is on the down swing and when spinners generally find it difficult to perform outside the sub-continent, here was a legend who performed marvelously irrespective of the conditions he was faced with.

A few important statistics