When SL, India And Pakistan Teamed Up Against The Rest

Hard to believe with all the heat and dust thrown up by the ongoing Asia Cup cricket championship in Dubai, but it was less than three years after Independence and Partition, in August 1947, that India and Pakistan fielded a joint cricket team in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), in March 1950.

In fact, it was a joint India, Pakistan and Ceylon team against the visiting Commonwealth XI, led by the Australian Leonard Livingstone. The team was on the first of its three tours of the subcontinent between the 1949-50 and 1953-54 seasons.

On the extensive tour of India, the team played five matches against the Indian national side, which were designated as unofficial Tests, as well as a number of other matches. It broke off the tour to make a short trip to both Pakistan and Ceylon, where it played four matches in Kandy and Colombo. The last of these, at the Colombo Oval between March 4 and 6, 1950, was against the joint team, which ended in a draw.

The Commonwealth XI was made up of players from England, Australia, and the West Indies, who were engaged in league matches during the summer in England. In their ranks was West Indian legend and future captain, Frank Worrell, who would be part of the team on the next two tours as well.

The joint Asian team (known as Ceylon, India and Pakistan Combined XI) was led by Ceylon’s SS Jayawickreme and consisted of two Pakistanis, two Indians and seven from the host country. The Indians were legendary all-rounder and future captain Vinoo Mankad and another accomplished all-rounder, Dattu Phadkar. The two, between them, took all 10 wickets in the Commonwealth XI’s first innings, with pace bowler Phadkar bagging 6 for 39.

The match was obviously a success, as it was staged again in the next season (1950-51), when the Commonwealth XI toured India once again for five unofficial Tests and also played in Ceylon. This time, the Combined XI was more evenly spread among the three nations. Colombo Oval was again the venue in February 1951, with the visitors winning the four-day match by 120 runs.

There were four Indians in the team led by Vijay Hazare, who would captain India on their tours of England in 1952 and the West Indies in 1953. It also included pace bowler Shute Banerjee, all-rounder Gul Mohammad (who would later move to and represent Pakistan) and middle-order batsman CD Gopinath. The others in the playing XI comprised two Pakistanis, with the rest from Ceylon.

The match was marked by two centuries, one by the Australian, Bruce Dooland, for the Commonwealth XI and the other by Hazare. The Commonwealth team was captained by England wicketkeeper Les Ames.

Gopinath, who lives in Chennai, played eight Test matches and is the only Indian survivor from that match. At 95, he is India’s oldest Test cricketer. Worrell, who was already a leading batsman, would, in 1960, become the first Black West Indian to be appointed as captain; before that, all captains from 1928 onwards were white Europeans domiciled in the Caribbean. In March 1967, he died tragically young of cancer, aged just 42.

It would be another 45 years before a combined India-Pakistan team played together, again at Colombo. This was on the occasion of the 1996 Wills World Cup, jointly hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. After a terrorist bomb tore through the heart of Colombo on the eve of the World Cup, killing 80, Australia and the West Indies forfeited their matches in the Lankan capital on security grounds. The organisers fielded the joint team, led by Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin and including Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble (the Man of the Match) and Wasim Akram, against Sri Lanka in a display of sub-continental unity.

That lofty concept, though, will be furthest from the minds of the Indian and Pakistani players when they line up for the high-voltage Super Fours match in Dubai on Sunday.

Gulu Ezekiel is the author of 18 sports books, the latest being What If…? Indian Cricket’s Counter-Factual History.

Published on: Saturday, September 20, 2025, 07:33 AM IST