First Tour

Martin Chandler | 9:43am BST 31 May 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 148
Author: Ezekiel, Gulu
Publisher: Global Cricket School
Rating: 4 stars

This year, if my not always reliable arithmetic is correct, saw the end of the nineteenth edition of the IPL. As a competition and a format of cricket it does seem to be immensely popular in India, with a good deal of interest in other parts of the world as well.

Given that his writing is his living Gulu Ezekiel could have been forgiven for taking a deep breath, counting to ten and looking to turn his talents towards a form of the game I know he does not care for. To those who are not particularly enamoured of cricket in any form it probably seems strange that it is possible to have no interest at all in one form of the sport yet continue to maintain a lifelong love for another, but Gulu is far from alone in that.

So, ignoring the riches on offer from the IPL Gulu has, for the benefit of Test cricket lovers everywhere, confined his latest book to the game’s ultimate format. The specific subject he has chosen to write about is India’s first visit to each of the other Test-playing countries. There are therefore, given that India have yet to visit Ireland or Afghanistan, nine chapters starting in England in 1932 and ending in Bangladesh in 2000.

As ideas for books go it is a very good one, Gulu essentially having a blank canvas with which to work. There is a vanishingly rare book about the 1932 England tour that was published in Madras, but that apart as far as I am aware, none of these tours were chronicled in print at the time, save for a slim volume bearing Victor Richardson’s name that was published after India’s 1947/48 trip to Australia.

Not that Gulu has experienced any shortage of source material. He has clearly been through all of the books written by or about those who appeared in these matches, consulted contemporary reports, and, perhaps most importantly, relied on his own encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of Indian cricket. In fact, if I had one criticism to make of the book it is that it is too short. It certainly seems to me to be the case that Gulu had sufficient material in relation to each tour to enable him to produce a full retrospective account.

In terms of what happened England only gave the Indians one test in 1932, and they won that comfortably enough in the end but certainly got a fright on the first morning from fast bowler Mohammad Nissar. Australia won easily in 1947/48, although India did not have a great deal of luck. In the West Indies in 1952/53 the Indians, on the back of their heavy defeat at the hands of Fred Trueman and England a few months previously, did very well and lost the only decided test in a five-match series. Moving forward in New Zealand in 1967/68 the Indians won their first ever series away from home

Later on, during the Gulu’s working life as a reporter/author/journalist, India lost in Sri Lanka, were surprised by Zimbabwe in a Test that was ultimately drawn, and lost 1-0 over four Tests to South Africa before beating Bangladesh in the new millennium albeit not before, once again, the new boys performed with considerable credit, particularly in the early stages.

And then there is Pakistan. I have singled that chapter of First Tour out for a reason. There is a book, written and published in Pakistan by Qamaruddin Butt, that describes the tedious four-test series between the two countries in Pakistan in 1954/55. With both captains prioritising avoiding defeat, very little of great interest took place on the field. Perhaps it is for that reason that Gulu dwells at much greater length on the relationship between the two countries, and the entire chapter is much more an Indian perspective on why we neutrals are unlikely to get our wish granted any time soon of being able to watch a Test series between India and Pakistan.

So Kudos to Gulu for choosing to give his time to writing the book in the first place, and, just in case he was ever in any doubt it was certainly time well spent.