The Indian cricket team went to its second overseas tour to England in the year 1936, with a lot of the cricketers of the first tour, missing from the side. There were a number of young and talented cricketers included in the Indian team for this tour and the cricketers like Lala Amarnath, Mushtaq Ali and Vijay Merchant excelled in the tour. Though the Indian lost their first ever Test series by 0-2, against English, there were a lot of things for India to be happy about.
The England team won the first Test of the series against India without much difficulty and they started playing very well in the second Test at Old Trafford, as well. The England cricketers did well to restrict the first innings of India for a mere score of 209 runs and then the English batsmen played their own shots to get a mammoth total of 571-8 in their first innings. After the England team declared their first innings for 571-8, it was looking like India was going to loss the match by a huge margin. However, the Indian opening pair of Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali decided to do something different and they made a huge, the first ever 200 runs opening partnership for India, in the match.
Both the batsmen, Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali played extraordinarily in the match and Mushtaq scored 112 runs in the opening partnership with Merchant. Vijay Merchant also played his own part in the match and equally contributed to the historical partnership. The other Indian batsmen like C.K. Nayudu also batted very well in the second innings and as a result of their collective effort, the Indian team became successful to earn the first ever draw in Test cricket in the match. India eventually scored 390-5 in their second innings. It was indeed a memorable tour for India, as the Indian players once again proved themselves on the England soil, after their first tour in 1932.
