The Indian cricket team did get some significant successes during the late 1950s and in the 1960s that include some wonderful individual performances like the world record opening partnership of 413 runs between Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad against New Zealand in 1955. The world record stood tall till the first half of this year, when the South African opening pair, Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie broke it. Mankad-Roy`s partnership stood tall for as long as 53 years and the new record of 415 runs was made by Smith-McKenzie, in March, 2008, against Bangladesh. Some other brilliant performance in this decade was Subhash Gupte`s leg spin magic against the West Indies in West Indies in 1952-53 and also the Jasu Patel`s stand-out performance against Richie Benaud`s Australians in 1958-59.
While making the world record opening partnership of 413 runs for India, the great batsmen, Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy batted throughout the entire first day of the Test against New Zealand, which itself was a record. The partnership was really a valuable one for India, as it helped India clinch a huge an innings and 109-run victory in the fifth and final Test against New Zealand at home in 1955. They surpassed the previous world record of 359 runs, made by England`s Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook against South Africa in 1948-49. They showed a lot of grit and determination and batted out some hostile spells of bowling from the famous New Zealand bowlers like Cave and Hayes. Mankad eventually got out for 231 runs, that was the highest individual score by an Indian till then and the score of Roy was 173 runs. Roy also scored another two centuries in the same series and became one of the star players for India in its second home series win.
The Indian team presented some more glorious and spectacular moments for the Indian cricket enthusiasts in the 1960s, as they established themselves a team to reckon with on sub continental soil with consistent performances at home. The team first became successful to win a Test series against the England team for the first time in its history in 1961-62. It was considered as a sweet revenge, as the England team did white-washed the Indian team in its previous tour of England, in 1959. India won the four match series in 1961-62 by 1-0, by winning the last match, after drawing the first three.
The series saw an equal battle between the India and England team, as none of the teams could beat each other in the first three Test matches of the series. The fourth and final Test of the series held at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata and the Indian team, led by Noorie Contractor, played extremely well to beat the England by a huge margin of an innings and 187 runs. The famous players like Chandu Borde, Pataudi and Sunil Durrani were the stars for India in the victory. Borde gave an all-round performance in the matches, with two innings of 66 and 61 runs in the match and a bowling figure of 4-65 and Pataudi made a spectacular century of 103 runs, in the first innings. Durrani got a match-bowling figure of 8-113 and played his own part to help his team get the historical series win against England.
The Indian team also got its first Test series wins in the New Zealand tour in 1968, during the same decade and the decade saw the rise of India`s fabulous spin quartet of Bishan Singh Bedi, B.S. Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and S. Venkataraghavan. It was the decade of 1960s that also gave indication about the fact that the Indian team was going go get some more great successes in the 1970s.
