It was a strong Indian team that flew to England in the summer of 1986. At the top, the technical proficiency of Sunil Gavaskar was complemented by the ebullience of K. Srikkanth. The middle-order comprised a blend of experience and youth; Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath and Mohammed Azharuddin. They were followed by two world-class all-rounders in vice-captain Ravi Shastri and skipper Kapil Dev. The lower-order featured the likes of Roger Binny and Chetan Sharma, competent handlers of a cricket bat both.

They were to play an England team that had been annihilated 0-5 in the Caribbean. David Gower, the captain, was feeling the heat, and the selectors intensified it by appointing him only for the two one-day internationals and the first Test. The teams shared the spoils in the one-dayers, which meant that from Gower’s perspective, there was everything to play for in the first Test at Lord’s.

It was at cricket’s ‘Mecca’ three years previously that Kapil Dev had held cricket’s Holy Grail. Half the 1986 team had figured in the side that had conquered the world on 25th June 1983. They knew what it felt like to win at the Headquarters, and were eager to experience that feeling all over again. Their juniors were as keen.

Kapil Dev won the toss and elected to bowl on a juicy pitch. The highlight of England’s 294 was Graham Gooch’s 114. India were 90-2 in response when in walked Dilip Vengsarkar.

The man had made his international debut a decade previously. An elegant and courageous batsman with a limitless repertoire of strokes, he would have been the first to agree that his career-stats, as they stood in June 1986, did not do his abilities justice; 4,635 runs from eighty-two Tests, at an average of 38.54.

He was no strangers to ‘Headquarters.’ In his first Test there in 1979, he had scored 103 to help Gundappa Vishwanath save a Test India seemed certain to lose. Three years later, his 157 had enabled India lose dignity, after a knockout had seemed imminent. In 1986, he did not take too much time to get going.

The drives cuts and flicks flowed off his bat, and there was nothing the English could do. They targeted the other end, and were reasonably successful. India were 264-8, when debutant wicketkeeper Kiran More came in to essay a resilient innings.

India were nine ahead when he fell. Vengsarkar was on 95, and with last-man Maninder Singh taking strike, there was a genuine possibility of the Indian no.4 being stranded.

However, Maninder offered a straight bat to everything, and Vengsarkar moved to 99 with a crisp on-drive. He then tapped the ball and called for a single. Maninder responded, and Vengsarkar became the first non-Englishman to complete a hat-trick of Test hundreds, at ‘Headquarters.’ The last pair stretched the lead to 47 before Maninder was dismissed. Vengsarkar returned unconquered on 126.

The stage was set for the Indians bowlers to take over. England never recovered after Kapil Dev dismissed Gooch, Robinson and Grower with only 35 on the board. India eventually needed 136 to win, and they made it with five wickets in hand. It was India’s first Test win at Lord’s, and Kapil Dev’s first win as captain at the twenty-first attempt.

England went into the next Test at Headingley, Leeds, under a new captain- Mike Gatting. The venue had had a reputation of being a seeming and swinging paradise. The English therefore fancied their chances of levelling the series, but they had reckoned without the capabilities of the Indian bowlers in such conditions. India batted first and scored 272, and then bowled England out for 102. The visitors scored 237 in the second innings, leaving the hosts with a modest 408 to get. India won by 279 runs and took the series.

Not one batsman had crossed 35 in the game, with one exception. Dilip Vengsarkar scored 61 in the first innings, and an epic 102 in the second. The runs he scored in the unfriendly conditions, against bowlers who knew how to exploit them to the hilt, spoke for themselves.

In the year-and-a-half starting with that tour of England, Vengsarkar scored 1,631 runs from sixteen Tests, inclusive of nine hundreds, at an average of 102. A prominent cricket rating of the time christened him the best batsman in the world. At a time when certain IVA Richards and Vengsarkar’s own colleagues SM Gavaskar were still going strong, it was a monumental compliment.

And a deserved one.