Pakistan in India, 1960-61
Compared with the exciting series between Australia and the West Indies, the Pakistan tour of India was, in marked contrast an extremely dour affair. All five Tests were drawn and, in fact every one of the fifteen first-class games ended in a stalemate.
This was the second time that the two countries had played completely drawn series but the first time that every match played by a touring side was ended in a draw. In addition, the five draw encounters meant that the countries have now partaken in twelve successive undecided Tests.
Seventeen players made the tour under the captaincy of Fazal Mahmood, who won the toss and batted first in the first four Tests thus setting the tempo of the rubber in which the chief aim of the contestants appeared to be to uphold national prestige by avoiding defeat rather than to take the risk of trying to enforce a decision. Cricket was a secondary interest. In the Tests Pakistan average 35 runs per 100 balls; India 39 runs per 100 balls.
Scoring was so slow that on only eleven of the twenty-five days allotted to the Tests did the aggregate of runs reach 200, and on nearly half of these occasions the quicker tempo came on the last day when a decision was out of the question. Top score of the series came in the Fourth Test at Madras where India carried their first-innings score to 539 for nine declared. Their previous highest Test total was also made at Madras, in 1955-56, when they scored 537 for three declared.
The series produced nine centuries, five of them to Pakistan by Saeed Ahmed (two), Hanif Mohammed, Mushtaq Mohammed and Imtiaz Ahmed, P.R. Umrigar was in great form with the bat for India and made three centuries in six innings. C.G. Borde also scored one Test hundred.
Haseeb Ahsan, the off-spinner, was the most successful Pakistan bowler in the Tests with 15 victims, while Mahmood Hussain, one of three fast-medium bowlers, claimed 13. R.B. Desai, the Indian fast bowler, was easily the most successful for the home country capturing 21 wickets.
SUMMARY OF THE TOUR -- RESULTS OF FIRST-CLASS MATCHES
Matches -- Played 15, Drawn 15.
TEST MATCHES AGAINST INDIA
Matches -- Played 5, Drawn 5.
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