John Snow & Sunil Gavaskar’s incident at Lord’s in 1971
Cricket history is littered with no nonsense characters, and two of the most single-minded ones came into contact when England met India at Lord’s in 1971.
John Snow was a fast bowler whose career took some time to take off, but when it did, he became one of the great English fast bowlers. He was at his best in Internationals………. The county grind often bored him, and he made no secret of the fact; and he wasn’t overly worried who knew it.
In 1971 he was at his peak following an Ashes-winning winter in which he had taken 31 wickets. That tour was dogged by poor on-field conduct and it culminated in England leaving the field after Snow had felled Terry Jenner and sparked crowd trouble in the Seventh Test at Sydney. Snow might have been a hero to supporters, but he was controversial and far from popular with those who ran the game.
Sunil Gavaskar was a diminutive opening batsmen who exploded on the Test scene with 774 runs in his first four Tests in the Carribean, including a double century [220] and three hundreds [116, 117 and 124]. The [124 and 220] was made in the fifth Test, and made three half-centuries [65, 67 and 64] as India pulled off a remarkable series win. He arrived in England with a fearsome reputation as “a young batsman of quite exceptional ability”.
The 1971, three match Test series kicked-off at Lord’s, where Snow starred with the bat, making a career-best [73] as England recovered from 71 for 5 to score 304 all out. India replied with 313, Gavaskar making only his second score under 50. His dismissal came almost immediately after a dog had strolled on to the ground and sniffed around him. Gavaskar, who has a phobia about dogs, was rattled.
In the second innings, England were dismissed for 191 and India were set a last-day target of 183. They lost two early wickets before Gavaskar and Farokh Engineer, mounted a decent recovery. On the verge of lunch, Snow bowled to Engineer, who played the ball on the leg-side and called for a quick single.
Snow, followed-through and went of the pitch, and still ahead of Gavaskar, changed direction to intercept the ball and at the same time Gavaskar, sensing that he was struggling to make his ground, if the bowler gathered, and he accelerated. Snow expected, Gavasker “to run over the ball”. Expecting a collision, Snow, who at more than six feet tall towered over the 5’ 5” batsman, shifted his weight in anticipation but Gavaskar did not do as expected and ran wider off the cut pitch. Snow, off balance, crashed into him, with the ball nowhere near him. The hefty fast bowler gave him a violent shove. Snow is a well-built fast bowler with strong shoulders and poor little Gavaskar had no chance. “As I made contact and Gavaskar fell, I could sense the shocked silence in the MCC Committee room”, Snow recalled. “I knew, I was going to be in trouble”.
When David Frith and Bob Willis were asked why Snow so undervalued – and they both agree he was – both cited the Gavaskar incident and its aftermath. Frith thinks it did Snow, “almost irreparable harm”.
An ardent fan of Snow said – still pre-great coats, we watched every ball of the Lord’s Test when the incident happened. We gloried in Snow’s highest Test score [73] in the first innings, but when in India’s second innings, he collided with Gavaskar, we felt physically sick. It looked bad. It was all over the news that evening, and even my father, who had no interest in the game, observed: “Things aren’t looking good for your hero”, they weren’t. In fact, it was nothing like as heinous as it first looked. For Gavaskar, it was “Just one of those things”. Later he would choose Snow as one of his idols, and considers him, ‘A good friend off the field’. But for Billy Griffith, secretary of the MCC, it was the “most disgusting thing” he had ever seen on the cricket field.
He was dropped for the second and third Tests, but then played in the third Test of the same series, when John Price of Middlesex failed a fitness test. He was not at his best in a game where India made history, recording their first Test win and doing so, securing a 1-0 series win. His only solace was that he got Gavaskar out in both innings for 6 and 0.
John Snow’s ardent fan said, “Snow's autobiography came out in September 1976. I bought it immediately and read it in one sitting. At the time, I felt let down. My own rebel stance had widened by then from my own small world - parents, teachers, school - to something more outward-looking. I was Rocking Against Racism, and Snow's "rebellion" seemed to be so very parochial. And it mattered too - before we learnt that Motorhead's Lemmy was also a vicar's son and the Clash's Joe Strummer had a diplomat for a dad - that Snowy wasn't a working-class hero. Worse was his position on South Africa. While against apartheid and "all it stood for", he didn't support the boycott. I was about to join the occupation of my new University Senate House because they banked with Barclays, who apparently invested heavily in the Vorster regime. No, Cricket Rebel didn't chime as I had hoped.”
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