Bookended at Sydney

From 27A

West Indian professional approach to Test cricket. Replying to India’s first innings total of 241, the West Indies were faltering at 88 for five, with the first five in the lineup back in the pavilion. The Skipper, with the assistance of the bowlers, Marshall, 54, and Holding, 17, led the team’s clawing back into the match, to reach 213 for 8. Lloyd and Roberts, 68, then swung the game, and the series, away from the hosts with a new West Indian ninth-wicket record partnership in Tests of 161, compiled over three hours and 40 minutes, almost two sessions. Lloyd was 161 not out at the end, having scored his 18th Test century, and seventh against India, with his stay in the middle having occupied eight and a quarter hours. Arriving at the wicket with his team floundering at 42 for four, Lloyd demonstrated the mental tenacity required to perform at the highest level of the game and the ability to impose one’s will on a game of Test cricket. By the close of the third day’s play, India, faced with a first innings deficit of 136, were in dire straits at 36 for five. Following the rest day, India were dismissed for 90 in 30 overs, their lowest total against the West Indies, as Marshall and Holding wreaked havoc with the Indian batting lineup. The West Indies arrived in India intending to avenge their World Cup defeat, which they clearly did, but in doing so, they issued a statement to the rest of the cricketing world, ‘Be prepared. This is serious business.’

In 1984, the West Indies played 14 Test matches, and started another which spilled over into 1985. The first five were in the Caribbean against the Australians, who put up a brave fight, but in the end, were no match to the steamrolling hosts who never lost a single second innings wicket throughout the series. The first two Tests were drawn affairs, which with a little bit of luck, or better timing, could easily have gone in favour of the hosts. In the First Test at Bourda, the West Indies, chasing 323, were 250 without loss, when the game was called off, with Greenidge, 120* and Desmond Haynes, 103*. In the Second Test, at the Queen’s Park Oval, Australia, 213 behind on first innings, were on the rocks at 196 for eight, about an hour before tea on the final afternoon with only middle order batsman Allan Border, and the two fast bowlers, Rodney Hogg and Terry Alderman standing between them and a West Indian victory. Inspired by Border, the Australian fast bowlers dug in, and when Viv Richards, leading the side in the absence of an injured Lloyd, conceded the match, Australia were safe at 299 for nine. Alderman, 21*, had withstood the hosts’ attack for an hour and three-quarters, while Border, followed up his first innings 98* with an even century, 100*.

The West Indian juggernaut then swung into top gear for the rest of the series, with ten-wicket victories at the Kensington Oval, Barbados (Third Test), and Sabina Park (Fifth Test), and an innings victory at the Antigua Recreation Ground (ARG), in the Fourth Test. Apart from Border (521 runs at 74.42), who scored more than twice the runs at almost three times the average of his teammates, the Australians were outplayed by the “strongest, most professional and most disciplined” team, their Captain Kim Hughes acknowledged at the end of the tour.

On 13th May, less than two weeks after the Fifth Test, the twelfth West Indian team to tour England arrived at Heathrow Airport in London, to a barrage of negative press castigating them for their slow over rates, due to the heavy reliance on fast bowling, and their intimidating use of bouncers. The West Indies response was to complete a historic 5-0 sweep of their hosts, now famously referred to as the ‘Blackwash.’After posting 606 in their only innings in the First Test at Edgbaston, they swept aside the Englishmen by an innings and 180 runs in four days. In the Second Test at Lord’s, they completed an improbable run chase against the clock on the final day, scoring 344 for one, to win with 11.5 overs remaining, as Greenidge, 214*, and Larry Gomes, 92*, shared a new West Indian record unbroken second wicket partnership of 287 (In Search of West Indies Cricket, “Assignment at Lord’s”, SN, 13th August, 2023). An eight-wicket victory at Headingley, was followed by an innings victory at Old Trafford, where the visitors recovered from 70 for four to post 500, thanks to Greenidge’s second double century of the tour, 223, Jeffrey Dujon’s 101, and nightwatchman Davis’ knock of 77. In August, at the Kennington Oval in Surrey, the West Indies’ unofficial ‘home-away-from-home’, they completed the sweep by with a 172-run victory, equalling the eight straight wins of Warwick Armstrong’s 1920/21 Australian Test teams, one of the most hallowed records in Test cricket.

Next stop, Down Under. The eighth official West Indian tour party to Australia arrived in Sydney, on Monday, 15th October, 1984. Although it was the team’s fourth visit in six seasons, it was the first full tour since the 5-1 humiliation in 1975/76.

After a wobbly start to the First Test in Perth, the West Indians recovered from 104 for five, to score 416, thanks to centuries from Gomes, 127, and Dujon, 139. The fast bowling quartet of Marshall, Holding, Garner and Courtney Walsh then dismissed the hosts for 76 – their lowest total in Tests versus the West Indies – and 228, to secure an innings victory, and a new record for consecutive Test victories. In setting the new standard, the West Indies displayed a level of perfection in team play and professionalism rarely seen in sport, and it was a reflection of the high demands Lloyd placed on himself and his team members. An eight-wicket triumph at Brisbane and at Adelaide, in the Second and Third Tests, respectively, stretched the consecutive winning streak to 11 matches, and guaranteed the retention of the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy.

The Fourth (Boxing Day) Test in Melbourne saw the desperate Australian selectors make four changes to their side, bringing in Andrew Hilditch, Greg Matthews, and