Cricket deja vu, 27 years on

I WAS there 27 years ago almost to the day, when India, led by diminutive opening batsman Sunil “Sonny” Gavaskar and equally pint-sized Gundappa Viswanath, defied all odds to score 402 runs in the last innings to register what stood as a Test cricket record victory over West Indies.

It led to Lord Relator’s calypso in which he sang  “Gavaskar, The real master, Just like a wall, We couldn’t out Gavaskar at all.” But Tuesday’s heroes at the Antigua Recreation Ground were Omari Banks, an Anguillan in only his second Test and the battle-hardened campaigner Barbadian Vasbert Drakes. Yes, close to three decades ago I was on assignment for the Express and my good friend and colleague Rudy Ragbir was writing for the Trinidad Guardian that bright sunny day at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain when history unfolded. The previous day when West Indies skipper Clive Lloyd declared his team’s second innings on 271 for six wickets, I gave India no chance of victory, since up to that time, no team had scored 400 in a second innings to win a Test. I wrote then, West Indies would win the Test by tea time on that final day.

It was history that the Indians got the asking total, winning by six wickets. But on Tuesday I stood in the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, just outside the dispensary where ailing patients awaited the filling of their prescriptions and where a television set is located. And when Vasbert Drakes clobbered Australian leg-spinner Stuart MacGill to the boundary for the winning runs, for the moment, patients forgot their pains, a few doctors, nurses, ward attendants and janitors abandoned their stations and one would not believe the loud cheer which rented the air at the hospital. Yes, the beleagured young West Indies, led by Brian Lara who seems to have history in his hands, had won against all odds reaching 418 for seven wickets to beat mighty Australia who had whipped the shirt off our backs in 10 consecutive Tests.In that history-making Test innings at the Oval in April 1976, both Gavaskar (102) and Viswanath (112) scored centuries. It was deja vu as West Indies vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan (105) and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (104) blasted supern hundreds on Monday to set up the successful run chase. Then the Indians withstood the tremendous pace of a youthful Michael Holding, the swing of left-hander Bernard Julien, and the guile of leg-spinner Imtiaz Ali among the seven bowlers Lloyd threw at them including himself to no avail.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of the supremely confident Aussies as they threw everything at young Omari Banks (47 not out) and veteran Drakes (27 not out) who batted West Indies into the history books with their unbeaten 46-run eighth wicket partnership. It is also interesting to note that Indian spinner Venkataraghavan also played a role in both historic occasions, as a spinner on the Indian team in 1976 and as an umpire at the ARG on Tuesday.