The famous cricket club of England and one of the most ancient cricket clubs in the world, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) toured India for the first time in the year of 1926. After that, the Indian team went to England for their first ever-overseas tour and as the Indian team showed a very impressive performance in England, the MCC sent another team to India in the year 1933. This was MCC`s second tour to India and the famous English player, Douglas Jardine, who played extremely well in the test between India and England in 1932, was given the captainship of the touring team.
Douglas Jardine was born in India and he was considered to be the master of Bodyline and when he came to India with the MCC team, nobody could think that the Indian team would be able to fight with his team. The people thought so in spite of India`s wonderful performance in the 1932 tour, and the two teams met with each other in the first official Test match on Indian soil in Bombay, on 15th December 1933. The MCC team got into the driver`s seat from the very beginning of the match and the English bowlers caused some serious damage to the Indian top order.
However, it was the teenager Indian batsman, Lala Amarnath, who started to pull the things back to their opponents and he counter-attacked the MCC bowlers with great bravery. He began to play his own strokes with great style and as he was totally unknown to the English bowlers, they just could not do anything to stop Amarnath. Lala Amarnath raced through his century and scored 118 runs in the innings to play India`s first century knock in a Test match. The captain of the Indian team in the match, C.K. Nayudu also did very well to accompany Amarnath on the crease, in spite of playing with an injured left hand and the two batsmen together made a huge partnership of 186 runs in India`s second innings. However, they could not save the match for India and the MCC team eventually won the match by 9 wickets. This test did pave the way for India`s second tour to England in 1936.
