Indian cricket team in England in 1974

The Indian cricket team toured England in the 1974 English domestic cricket season. After matches against many of county cricket and other minor teams, in April and May, the Indian team played three Test matches and two One-day Internationals against the England cricket team. The tour was a total disaster for the Indian cricket team with England winning all five of the matches.

The season became known as the "Summer of 42",[2] referring to the number of runs scored by India in its second innings in the Second Test at Lord's (also a reference to the film Summer of '42 which won an Oscar in 1972; a follow-up, Class of '44 had been released in 1973). This remains the lowest total for a completed innings in a Test match since New Zealand were dismissed for 26 in 1955.[3] Blamed for his team's poor showing, Indian captain Ajit Wadekar retired from Test cricket after the tour.

India could make a fair claim in the early 1970s to be the top Test-playing nation. In 1970-71, the team had beaten the West Indies in the Caribbean; in the English season that followed, 1971, the team had won its first-ever victory on English soil and with it the first series victory in Anglo-Indian Tests in England; and that victory was repeated, with a 2-1 margin, when MCC toured India in 1972-73.

The basis of India's success was the quartet of world-class spin bowlers – Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Bishen Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan – backed up by world-class batting from Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath. Ajit Wadekar was regarded as an astute captain, while Farokh Engineer was an extrovert wicketkeeper-batsman.

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