Bishan Bedi, a member of India's famous spin quartet of the 1960s and '70s, captained India to West Indies in 1975-76. Here he shares some of his memories of that tour with Wisden.com. The 1975-76 tour started off disastrously - we lost the first Test by an innings inside three days - but by the time the last Test of the series got under way at Jamaica, it was Clive Lloyd who was feeling the heat. West Indies had just about managed to save the second Test at Port-of-Spain, and then India pulled off the famous run-chase in the third Test at the same venue. The teams were level, with everything at stake as we took the field at Kingston.

On a fast, bouncy wicket at Sabina Park, Lloyd won the toss and put us in, expecting his quicks to scythe through the Indian batting. However, by the end of play on the first day, India were in command at 175 for 1. The frustration of the bowlers had started to show in the last session of play - Michael Holding bowled six consecutive bouncers in an over at Sunny [Sunil Gavaskar]. Sunny threw his bat towards cover in disgust, but the umpires refused to step in.

Things really heated up on the second day, when Lloyd claimed the second new ball. Bowling from round the wicket, the West Indian pacemen targeted the batsmen, not the stumps. Gundappa Viswanath, Dilip Vengsarkar and Brijesh Patel took fearful body-blows.

But the batsman who stood out was Anshuman Gaekwad. He played the innings of his life. He had bruises all over his body, and later we found out that his skull had been badly damaged too. But despite all this, he never flinched even once. He finally collapsed on the pitch when a wickedly rising delivery struck him on his ear. We rushed him to the intensive care unit. I saw him in the hospital and was absolutely shattered.

At lunch on the second day, I went up to umpire Douglas Sang Hue and asked him to define intimidation. The Indian Board secretary Ghulam Ahmed was present too. Sang Hue replied thus: "Mr Bed - he didn't even address me as Mr Bedi - you will leave this country in three days. We live here. We don't want to die." He clearly indicated that the crowd would get after the umpires if they stepped in.

I then spoke to Kiri [Syed Kirmani] and Venkat [Srini Venkataraghavan], and decided to declare our innings out of sheer protest against the blatant intimidatory bowling. In our second essay, we only had six fit players - Gaekwad, Vishy and Brijesh had been badly hit while batting, while I had broken my finger on the field. We had no option but to close our innings at 97 for 5. It wasn't a declaration. West Indies knocked off the runs and recorded a face-saving win, but the Test had degenerated into a farce.

It was one of the ugliest incidents in my cricketing career. I remember reading in the press later that Douglas Jardine would have been squirming in his grave at what had taken place at Kingston. It just wasn't cricket.

I was quite astonished to see someone like Holding, whom I consider to be a fine human being, resort to such reprehensible tactics. But I guess he was only following his captain's instructions. It's ironic that the one-bouncer-per-over regulation has come in now. When the real danger to the game was taking place, the authorities did nothing about it. There was no match referee or neutral umpires either to curb the home team.

It's easy to say that cricketers must be prepared to die for their country, but I don't believe in that adage. We don't die for the country; we live to fight for it. If we all die for the country, then who lives?

The damage wasn't done to the Indians; it was the game which suffered tremendous harm. Lloyd later asked if we expected half-volleys to be served up to the batsmen. We certainly didn't, but we didn't expect six bouncers an over either. I lost much of the regard I had for Lloyd.

What was equally disappointing was the attitude of the locals. There was no medical assistance on the ground. Polly Umrigar [team manager] took one of the players to the hospital; Balu [Balu Alaganan, assistant manager] took another; Ghulam Ahmed took one more. Then we ran out of officials. When I injured my hand during fielding, there was no-one to take me to the hospital. The locals stayed out of it completely.

On the rest day, the prime minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley, sent me a personal note apologising for all that had happened, and hoped that the boys would recover. He stressed that it wasn't the way the game should be played. I was touched.

But the damage had already been done. We left Jamaica on a very bitter note, and what had till then been an excellent series had degenerated into a tragic one.

Bishan Bedi was talking to S Rajesh.

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