In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Roger Seymour looks at a Test Match that evolved into somewhat of a precursor of T20 cricket.
In November 1972, two Antiguans arrived in bleak, cold, damp, London, England. Andy Roberts and Vivian Richards, the young sportsmen, had been selected by the Volunteers’ Cricket Committee, for further development of their cricketing prowess. The committee’s fund-raising efforts to cover the cost of the airfares, tuition and living expenses for the trip had included barbecues and dances, as Antiguans banded together to lend support. The destination of the promising talent was the Gover Cricket School at East Hill in Wandsworth, near Clapham Junction in south London, which at the time, was the best known cricket school in England. Run by Alf Gover, the former England and Surrey fast bowler, it was an indoor facility, accessed by a regular street door, with a gas-lit, low-ceiling coaching hall.
During the difficult six-week period at the school – the Caribbean lads found the cold climes very trying – they had an unsuccessful trial with Surrey County Cricket Club. According to Richards, in his first autobiography, Hitting Across the Line (1991), “We had expected an enthusiastic response but we left with our confidence in tatters.” However, the chips started to fall in the right place, and by the following summer, Roberts, adorned in a Hampshire sweater was terrorising batsmen with his fast bowling on the county circuit. Richards, on Somerset’s books, was blossoming into a potential run machine. When the West Indies Cricket Board announced the selectees for the November 1974 – March 1975 Tour of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in June, among the names were Richards (Leeward Islands; No Tests) and Roberts (Leeward Islands; One Test), the first two Antiguans to be included in a West Indies touring party.
Roberts and Richards became integral pillars in the West Indies team during the ensuing years, anchoring the bowling and batting departments, respectively, as the side evolved into a rampaging juggernaut. The two Antiguans delivered several individual, match-winning performances which, those fans, who were fortunate enough to have witnessed them, still rave about to this day. Roberts, quiet and soft spoken was the undisputed leader of the fearsome pace quartet, while Richards’ swashbuckling batting spearheaded the mauling of many a bowling attack. Forty years ago, the duo conjured some real magic and turned a half-asleep Test match into a memorable occasion.
In February 1983, the fifth Indian team to visit the Caribbean arrived in Jamaica. The side was a disheartened group, coming directly from Pakistan, where they had lost a six Test Match series 3 – 0. The fall-outs from that disaster included all-rounder Kapil Dev replacing batting hero Sunny Gavaskar as captain, and the dropping of reliable batsman Gundappa Vishwanath after 87 consecutive Tests. Less than two weeks after arrival, with only one four-day game versus Jamaica to acclimatise, India was confronted by an all conquering West Indies side playing its first Test match in a year.
The beginning
The Test began on Wednesday, 23rd February, at Sabina Park and Captain Clive Lloyd, leading the West Indies for the 50th time in Tests, invited the visitors to bat after winning the toss. On an easy-paced pitch, the pace quartet of Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall kept the pressure on throughout the first one and half sessions of play to such an extent that, 45 minutes to tea, India were reeling at 127 for the loss of seven wickets. There had been a glimmer of resistance early on, when Gavaskar, who had only arrived two nights before, and the fluent Mohinder Amarnauth shared a second wicket partnership of 48. However, once Amarnauth was touched on the glove, while attempting to evade a lifter from Garner, and Jeffrey Dujon, keeping wicket for the first time in front of his home crowd accepted the easy catch, it became a continuous procession to the visitors’ dressing room. When Dujon’s counterpart, Syed Kirmani, chased a wide delivery from Marshall, to provide him with his fifth dismissal, India’s seventh wicket, the West Indies players probably envisioned batting that afternoon.
Balwinder Sandhu, wearing a turban and a helmet, joined Yashpal Sharma, number five in the batting order, and the two batted solidly until play was halted 50 minutes early, due to poor light. The rearguard action had taken India to 219 for seven at the close of play, as the adventurous Sandhu (62) and the patient Sharma (46) held the fort. A further 50 minutes of play were lost the following morning when the groundsman lost his footing and the handle of the pitch roller fell, creating a hole just outside the off-stump at one end of the wicket, thus necessitating repairs.
The overnight pair set a new eighth wicket record of 107 runs for India versus West Indies in Tests, before Sandhu was caught in the gully off the shoulder of the bat from a Roberts’ bouncer, for the eventual top score of 68, which had taken two and a half hours to compile. Sharma, last out for a vital innings of 63, had occupied the crease for four and a half hours whilst guiding the Indian fightback to 251. Roberts’ four wickets cost 61 runs, while the other members of the quartet snared two wickets each.
As India bowled tightly and fielded almost flawlessly, the Test-rusty West Indians struggled to gain an advantage. At tea, the hosts were 83 for two, and by stumps, the match was evenly poised. The West Indies were on 149 for four, with the out-of-form Gordon Greenidge (50), and Lloyd (20), at the wicket. Apart from Desmond Haynes’ delightful cameo of 25, the other top order batsmen were disappointing. Richards, out of the game for three weeks prior to the Test with a fractured thumb, scraped 29. Larry Gomes (4), just returned from Australia, having played no first class in almost a year, was well taken at short leg by Sharma. Gus Logie (13), was unfortunately run out in his debut Test innings.
The match resumed half hour early on the Saturday morning to make up for the time lost due to the roller incident, with Friday having served as the Rest Day. When Greenidge was dismissed for 70, top edging a catch to slip cutting at Ravi Shastri, the home team had been reduced to 186 for six. It was left to Dujon (29) and Marshall (23), who added 43 for the seventh wicket, along with Roberts (17) to overhaul India’s score, which they managed by a mere three runs. Dev and Shastri, four wickets apiece, were ably supported by Venkataraghavan and Maninder Singh, who troubled all the batsmen. India’s performance in the field was quite remarkable when compared to the scores they had conceded in completed innings in Pakistan; 485, 452, 652, 581, 323 and 420.
The first act
When Holding plucked Gavaskar’s leg stump out of the ground with the first delivery of India’s second innings, the 11,000 spectators on hand were abuzz with anticipation of another demolition of India as in the previous encounter at Sabina Park between the two sides. In the Fourth Test of the 1976 series, India’s Captain Bishen Singh Bedi had declared his side’s second innings closed at 97 for five, as three batsmen had been so seriously hurt by the hostile West Indies fast bowling that they could take no further part in the match. Bedi had declared to prevent possible injury to Chandrasekhar or himself, but later recanted to say that there was no one fit enough left to bat. The scorecard read five batsmen absent injured, as the West Indies got the required 13 runs for no loss to win the series 2 – 1.
It was not to be. As in 1976, when he contributed 59 to India’s second innings total, and as in the first innings, Amarnauth handled the West Indies attack with complete aplomb, adding 68 for the second wicket with Anshuman Gaekwad. (Gaekwad made 81, retired hurt in the first innings of that infamous ‘76 Test and spent two days in the hospital after being struck on the ear by a ball from Holding). Marshall, bowling around the wicket, dismissed both batsmen to catches off the outside edge, as India finished the third day on 81 for three.
The first heavy rainfall in Kingston in two years eliminated any chance of play on the Sunday, and the West Indies Cricket Board lost an estimated US$70,000 in revenue. The start of the final day’s play was delayed by an hour due a few damp spots on the pitch. The overnight batsmen Dilip Vengsarkar and Sharma made slow and painful progress, and appeared set to make it through the session, when with the penultimate delivery, a steep bouncer from Marshall ballooned to Garner in the gully off of Vengsarkar’s bat. India, 112 for four at lunch. By tea, the visitors had limped to 168 for six, as the second session was extended by 20 minutes, further compensation for the roller incident. Shastri (23) and Kirmani (9) having survived the two overs against the new ball.
The crowd had dwindled to less than 2,500 spectators as the perceived inevitable dull draw loomed. Little did they suspect that a two-act magic show was commencing. The curtains parted in the second over after the break. Roberts’ first delivery struck Kirmani’s glove and Haynes at silly mid-on accepted the catch. The fifth delivery, a lethal bouncer to the first innings top scorer, Sandhu, who spared at it in self defence, went straight to Garner in the gully. The final ball found the outside of Venkat’s bat and Greenidge, at second slip, gleefully accepted the catch, as Sabina Park erupted. India, 168 for nine. Shastri could only look on helplessly, as number 11, Singh, who held on for 13 minutes, succumbed to Roberts’ 20th post-tea delivery, pawing a catch to Holding at short backward square. India dismissed for 174.
In a devastating spell of fast bowling, Roberts had taken four wickets for one run. Having dismissed Dev via Dujon’s sixth catch of the match, Roberts had captured the last five wickets in India’s second innings for 39 runs off 24.2 overs. No longer the tearaway fast bowler of yore, Roberts had reached into his magic bag of tricks and in a matter of minutes had blown the cover off of a petering out Test. End of Act One.
The second act
The West Indies target was 172 runs in half an hour plus 20 overs, an asking rate of 6.6 per over. At that point in time, the West Indies were the two-time defending Prudential World Cup Champions and the most successful limited overs team. On the final day of their last Test match, 3rd February, 1982 versus Australia at the Adelaide Oval, the West Indies had chased 236 in 15 minutes plus two sessions, to win by five wickets, with 17 balls to spare, to square the series and preserve their unbeaten record.
In the prologue of Sir Vivian, The Definitive Autobiography (2000), Richards with Bob Harris, set the scene for the Second Act: “This was no one-day match with restricted [time] and there couldn’t have been anyone outside our dressing room who thought this would be anything other than a stalemate. Even I thought that we would go and just bat it out.
“But our captain, Clive Lloyd, thought differently. He decided to give it the charge, telling us to go out and fire on all cylinders, take a chance and give it the gun, at least until we had lost six wickets or so. When he gave these instructions my adrenaline began to flow… This sort of thing was unheard of in a Test match, a huge challenge. I felt I had been given the licence to go for it. There were others in the team who thought we might be committing suicide, but Clive won them over despite the empty ground and unreal atomsphere.”
The chase was on. The openers, Greenidge and Haynes, provided the lightning start as the West Indies raced to 47, before Dev bowled the latter with a yorker in the first of the mandatory 20 overs. Haynes had struck one six and four fours off 21 deliveries, contributing 34 to the cause. With Richards nursing an injured shoulder, Lloyd, the hero of the Adelaide chase, arrived at the middle, but soon holed out to Amarnauth at mid-on. 65 for two. The word had spread all over Kingston, and the crowd started to grow at an incredible rate, pouring in, since the bored gatekeepers had long abandoned their posts at the turnstiles.
The situation demanded Richards’ presence and his emergence from the pavilion was greeted with a deafening roar of approval. He signalled his intention from the start, depositing Venkat’s third delivery of off-spin into the members’ pavilion. As in Adelaide, where both Greenidge and Richards had contributed 50s, the former was once again content to play the supporting role as his teammate went on the rampage. Off the third ball of the 15th over Greenidge (42) dragged a Dev delivery on to his stumps. 131 for three. Roberts, promoted to number five, joined his fellow Antiguan.
Inexplicably, Dev, tossed the ball to Amarnauth, who had not bowled a single delivery in the match, and only 13 overs in the Jamaica game. In his first match as captain, Dev had opted not to go with either Shastri or Singh. The move paid immediate dividends as Roberts skied his first delivery to Kirmani behind the stumps. 132 for four. Dujon, in his fourth Test, maintained the required tempo when he lifted Amarnauth’s sixth delivery straight overhead for six.
Richards was in full flight, pummelling the deflated Indian attack, as the swelling crowd roared their approval of the Master Blaster’s destruction. In 64 minutes at the crease, he faced 35 deliveries, walloping four sixes and five fours. His fourth six, struck off of Amarnauth, landed on the roof of the three-storey pavilion, and is believed to be one of the biggest sixes ever struck at Sabina Park. The fairy tale innings of 61 came to an end when he holed out to Dev at long-on off Amarnauth. 156 for five. Richards’ gem of a knock was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. Writing in the June 19th, 2011 edition of the Jamaica Gleaner, Tony Becca, the doyen of Jamaican cricket writers who probably witnessed more Test cricket at Sabina Park than any other scribe, recalled, “… the one afternoon that I will never forget was the final session of the first Test of 1983.”
Logie, who replaced Richards with 16 runs required off two and a half overs, promptly dispatched Amarnauth’s first delivery over long-on for six. Dev, who bowled throughout the West Indies innings dismissed Logie (10), via the lbw route, with the last ball of the 19th over. 167 for five.
Amarnauth, whose two overs had cost 28 runs, was surprisingly entrusted with the responsibility of the last over. Dujon handed his helmet to the umpire. Marshall, the non-striker, should have been run out off the first ball but Amarnauth broke the stumps before gathering the return from mid-wicket. The second, a knee-high full toss was deposited “upstairs in the Kingston Club pavilion” according to Becca.
Richards concluded the prologue, “I was swinging my arms so freely but, because of my problems with my right hand, I favoured my left – and it conked out in that innings. I had to have pain-killing pills and spray as my right thumb was throbbing, and my arm just collapsed. Just holding the bat became a problem as there was no feeling in the arm and it was a trial and a tribulation to accomplish what we did. This to me was what it was all about, not doing it just for you but for the team and for the cause. To be there. It could not have been better.”
The West Indies won by six wickets with four balls to spare thanks in the main to the two magicians from Antigua.
