Fortuitous coincidence: It happened during a Test

ESPNcricinfo's match archive serves many salutary functions by enabling the inspection, in great detail, of every single Test match ever played. It settles debates over statistical details, facilitates nostalgia, and makes possible the endless disputes over the possible decline of Test match and player quality over the years.

It does all of these because it functions as an external aid to our memory; we need commit little to the innards of our craniums because the archive is there, a few keystrokes away.

I want to note briefly today its ability to remind me of the precise date on which a particular incident in my life occurred, because, well, it happened on the same day as a dramatic development in a Test match.

In 1981, I left my boarding school in Darjeeling and moved back to Delhi for good. On the last day of school, I left Darjeeling with some friends, traveling by jeep and car, heading for Siliguri to catch the night-time Tinsukia Express. I didn't know it then, but it was the last time I would ever see some of those lads again.

We left school in high spirits, enjoyed a glorious lunch in the sunshine at my friend's tea estate, and then a wonderful scenic drive down to the plains. Once left in Siliguri to our own devices, we indulged in many silly adventures that only schoolboys released from a strictly-regimented boarding school can (I have no intentions of revealing any of these, they are still embarrassing to think about after 30 years). Then finally at 2am the Tinsukia Express rumbled into New Jalpaiguri station, we hopped on, and headed back home to meet our families, denied our company for nine long months.

I have often wondered what date all of that occurred on, the date of a day marked by a fond remembrance of a time come to an end, by sparkling sunshine, the lush verdant hillsides of West Bengal tea estates, and then, finally, by the unbridled glee of schoolboys released from headmasterly and prefectorial control.

Well, there was a simple way to find out. That was the day England collapsed in Mumbai, while chasing a target of 241 in the first Test of the 1981-82 series. India began the fourth day at 203 for 9; by the time we had left the school premises England's chase had started. When we arrived at my friend's tea estate, England had already lost Graham Gooch and Chris Tavare, and by the time we left David Gower, Geoff Boycott and Keith Fletcher (and possibly John Emburey) had gone down. There were no televisions at hand, so we sat out in the glittering sunshine and cool breezes, drinking tea, polishing off an assortment of baked goods, all the while listening to the sonorous tones of the commentary crew on the radio.

Later, as we careened down one curved hilly road after another, the radio remained on, as England stumbled, quickly, to 102 all out.

A Test win over the English was in the bag; we were 'free', an extended, adventurous train drive awaited; what more could a schoolboy want?

And it all happened on December 1, 1981. The scoreboard says so.