A dramatic tour

I will never forget that trip to India, that last conversation with Percy Norris any more than I will ever forget the bravery of the Indian police and soldiers and the professionalism of the reporters I have seen on my television screen in the last few days, says Ted Corbett.

As I sat at home for hours on end on these last three dramatic days, I could not help recalling how, almost a quarter of a century ago, another England cricket team were caught up in one of the most dramatic tours in 100 years.

They too learned to know the Taj hotel, to look out of their windows on to the Gateway of India and to luxuriate in the splendid service of that hotel, one of the finest in the world.

We were all staying in the Heritage part; to say it was magnificent was to give it no credit at all but deep into that amazing tour we thought we deserved a little luxury.

The 1984-85 party, led by David Gower, had arrived to the news that Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, had been assassinated and as riots spread across the country, we were forced to retreat to Sri Lanka for 10 days.

Four of us sports writers-turned-news hounds were threatened by massive crowds that had gathered outside the Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi and I, for one, had to use all my old rugby skills to avoid rioters who were sure we were CIA operatives.

When we returned from Sri Lanka it was to defeat at the hands of Young India, hardship trips to Rajkot and Ahmedabad and forecasts that the Indian side with its heavy dependence on spin would have no trouble with this England side.

It was weakened by the bans on those players like Graham Gooch, Geoff Boycott and John Emburey who had taken part in rebel tours to South Africa, Gower was an unproven captain and India had beaten them handily in the World Cup semifinal.

We had only been in the hotel a few hours when we were invited to a party at the British High Commission. I left the party at midnight after a fascinating conversation with the Assistant High Commissioner Percy Norris who had served as a diplomat in every trouble spot in the world.

He was a quiet, polite, well-educated man who had seen more parts of the world than I had and could tell fascinating stories about every posting. It did not occur to me as we spoke that I would be one of the last people to have a long conversation with him — or just what his role had been as he gained those experiences.

Next morning should have consisted only of a team photograph and another lazy day by the pool. What we did not know was that Pat Pocock, the team joker and off-spinner, had phoned the High Commission to thank them for their hospitality and been told that Mr. Norris had been assassinated.

Gower, who could never resist the temptation find a laugh in any situation, borrowed the heavy jacket belonging to the photographer Graham Morris, and asked: “Is this protection enough?”

The full story came out afterwards and we thought for 24 hours that we were in serious danger.

Two of us set off for the High Commission where the staff were in tears at the death of the popular Norris who had been shot as his car paused at traffic lights on his way to work.

Middle-Eastern terrorists were blamed and suddenly it was clear to me that he had been a secret service man. I confirmed this fact again recently at another unexpected meeting with a secret service man.

Finally, we headed for that infamous junction where the crime had been committed. Considering the seriousness of the crime there were very few policemen until a cavalcade of jeeps rolled up and a high ranking cop — gold braid across his chest and down his arms — jumped out.

“Sahib, sahib,” shouted one junior officer, “I have this minute found the bullet that resulted in the death of the unfortunate victim.”

The senior officer pocketed the piece of evidence and the jeeps drove off. My companion, a young reporter with an overheated sense of the dramatic, whispered: “My God, I have a world scoop.”

To this day I have seen no mention of an arrest although it was clear Norris had enemies across the Middle East and beyond.

The next time England visited the Taj, England had run into another big story when Bhopal was blown up. But by then they were in no mood to care deeply. They had defied their critics and won the Test series 2-1 and, unlike the team of 2008, never attempted to abandon their tour.

In those days — when the IRA seemed to bomb London all the time, when plane hijackings were a regular event and when, to be frank about it, we were all young and foolish — we half expected to be at the centre of dangerous happenings.

We just all mixed in together, joked about the unpleasant moments afterwards and got on with the job.

Now, when cricketers’ earnings and reporters’ pay is so much higher, and when we all think more of our families than we did then, life has changed.