Sunil Gavaskar and John Snow collided at Lords in 1971. This match will chiefly be remembered for the Snow/Gavaskar incident, when John Snow barged the little Indian to the ground while he was attempting a sharp single off his bowling on that tense final day.
Things hadn’t gone very well for John Snow since coming back from Australia as the world’s best fast bowler. Sussex had dropped him for a month because of his poor form, and he was really having a tough time of it. Obviously England couldn’t play him against the Pakistanis, as he was short of match practice, so this Lord’s game was his first test of the summer.
I was standing in the slips when the incident happened. Farokh Engineer tapped the ball and went for a single with Gavaskar. I remember Snowy running up from the bowler’s end and looking for Sunil Gavaskar out of the corner of his eye; when he came level with the bowler, John Snow leaned on him and sent him flying. Snowy then threw him his bat, and the game went on. There was a big uproar about the incident and I said to Snowy in the dressing-room, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ He said that Gavaskar got in his way, but then Ray told us both to shut up. Just then, the action replay of the incident was shown on the dressing-room TV. They stopped the action just as Snowy drew level with Gavaskar, and it was clear he was waiting for the little Indian. Snowy, realizing that he’d been well and truly caught out, said, ‘Well, the
Basil D’Oliveira excerpt: I knew I was going to be in trouble. For a moment I did not know what to do while Sunny Gavaskar picked himself up. Then I saw his bat in front of me, and after he had brushed himself down, I picked it up and gently tossed it to him. We were no more than a yard apart. I could have quite easily taken a step and handed it to him, but it seemed such a natural act to spin it to him the way kids spin a bat to decide who is going to bat or bowl.
I cannot honestly recall whether any words passed between us at that moment. I don’t mean angry words. I was certainly not angry with him, nor he with me. He looked a little startled, perhaps—and no wonder. The only words I can remember were those of umpire David Constant, who came down the wicket and said to me, “Come on now, we can’t have any of that.”
I finished the over, which took us up to lunch, but by that time, I expect I had already been found guilty of ungentlemanly conduct by everybody who watched the slow-motion replays on television. Certainly I had been judged by those people who were watching it in the committee room at Lord’s. As I walked into the England dressing room at lunchtime, Alec Bedser was coming in from the players’ balcony, where he had been watching the last session of the morning’s play. I immediately apologized to him. “Sorry about that, Big Al,” I remember saying to him. “It was a bit unfortunate, wasn’t it?” “You’ll apologize, won’t you?” he said.
“Sure,” I replied. “Just let me get my shirt off and wipe away the sweat. With that I sat down to put on another shirt, ready to go along to the Indian dressing room, when the door burst open and in stormed Billy Griffith, secretary of MCC. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man look so angry. He was literally white with rage as he shouted at me, “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen on the field.” I’m sure the collision between Sunil Gavaskar and John Snow at Lords in 1971 will be remembered in the pages of cricket history.
