When Indian cricket team under Lala Amarnath played Australia after Gandhi's assassination

Rare photographs and memorabilia from historic cricket tours, including India's first tour of Australia, displayed at MCG library.

It was the Indian cricket team's first tour of Australia and the players, led by Lala Amarnath, looked distraught as they stood in silence in memory of Mahatma Gandhi, who had been assassinated less than a week before in Delhi.

The rare photograph of that emotional moment taken before the start of the fifth Test on February 6, 1948, captures ones attention as one enters the MCG library, housed inside the stadium.

There is a treasure trove of photographs, score sheets, articles and scrapbooks from the historic tour displayed inside the 150-year-old library.

The Australian team was led by the legendary Sir Donald Bradman, whose 'Invincibles' had returned undefeated from their 1948 tour of England, while Amarnath was the captain of independent India's first cricket team to tour Down Under.

It was also Bradman's last Test on home soil.

"Pankaj Gupta was the manager of the team during the 1947-48 tour. The most memorable picture is of the Indian and Australian sides lined up to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi... the other one is of C.K. Naidu being caught by Bradman and one where Bradman is facing Vinoo Mankad," David Studham, the MCG librarian told PTI Bhasha during a tour of the stadium.

"There are also wonderful scrapbooks put together by Australian children in the 1940s and 1960s. The Indian team's maiden tour of Australia was also highlighted in the library journal 'The Yorker' in the early 2000s," said Sutham, who has been associated with the library for three decades.