batting order to being an opening batsman. "His calm, sensible batting lower in the order", wrote Wisden, commenting on his first series, "raised promise of his developing into a useful all-rounder, and his fielding too was an asset". By the end of his career, he had batted in every position from one to ten. By his own admission, he ignored his bowling in favour of his batting. This was reflected in his performances. However, his figures of 9–101 in the season-opening 1981 Irani Trophy stood as a tournament record for nearly twenty years. It was the failure of the regular openers Pranab Roy and Ghulam Parkar that led to Shastri being made to open at the Oval against England in 1982. He distinguished himself by scoring 66 runs in that match. An injury in the webbing of his hand ruled him out of four of the Tests to be played in Pakistan. Forced again to open in the final Test at Karachi, against the fast bowling of Imran Khan (then at the peak of his career), he scored his first Test hundred. He later made another hundred against the West Indies in Antigua. Indian Cricket was impressed enough to suggest that, given time, he could become one of the best batsmen in the Indian team. Shastri was not selected to play in most of the important matches in the 1983 World Cup. In the series against the West Indies later that year, he again distinguished himself with his bold effort in batting against the domineering West Indian pace bowlers. The glorious winter In October 1984, India toured Pakistan for the third time in six years. The Lahore Test saw India collapse to 156 against Pakistan's 428, and follow on. India went into the last day trailing by 92 with six wickets in hand but were saved by a fifth wicket partnership of 126 between Shastri and Mohinder Amarnath. Shastri scored 71, while Amarnath made 101*. Shastri was even more successful in the next Test at Faisalabad, where he scored 139 and shared a stand of 200 with Sandeep Patil. The last Test and the remainder of the tour were cancelled because of the assassination of Indira Gandhi. There were already signals that Shastri was being groomed as a future captain. Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar was coming to the end of his career and Kapil Dev, who had led India in