In his autobiography, former cricketer Syed Kirmani recalls his first tour of England with the team

During 1970–71, the tour of the West Indies was in the offing and team selections were about to take place. In the previous season (1969–70), my performance in the Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy was much better than P Krishnamurthy of Hyderabad and I had thought my chances for selection were good. However, to my surprise, when the team was finalised, neither of us was a part of the Indian team touring the West Indies.

Instead, Rusi Jeejeebhoy from Calcutta was selected to be the second wicketkeeper. Farokh Engineer, who was the main wicketkeeper of the team, was already in England when team selection was announced. He went to West Indies to join the rest of the team led by captain Ajit Wadekar. Rusi Jeejeebhoy’s selection caught us by surprise, but then there was nothing that could be altered. That tour proved to be a very successful tour for the Indian team. They established the record of beating West Indies on their home ground for the first time. Sunil Gavaskar made his debut in that series and created history by scoring a hundred in each innings against the mighty squad of Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Vanburn Holder and Keith Boyce. Oh...

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