West Indies offer little respite
Partab Ramchand - 17 May 2002
"I am an astrologer, but I am not predicting," was Srinivas
Venkataraghavan's guarded comment on the eve of the Indian tour of the
West Indies in 1989. The former Indian captain was now the manager of
the squad, and he had been asked for his views on the team's chances.
In the three Tests he played, Hirwani was simply blasted out of shape,
illustrated by his figures of six wickets at 57.50 apiece. Richards
had promised revenge after the humiliation the West Indies had
suffered at the hands of Hirwani on an under-prepared Chepauk pitch,
saying, "I have a long memory, maan."
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Actually it did not need an astrologer - amateur or professional - to
predict the result of the four-match Test series and five one-day
internationals. The disparity between the two teams was so wide that
almost anyone could have predicted a rout for the tourists. And that
is exactly how the tour ended, with the West Indies winning the Test
series 3-0, in addition to making a clean sweep of the limited-overs
matches.
Looking back on the tour 13 years later, it is difficult to believe
that any other result was possible. The West Indies, despite the
retirement over the last few years of stars like Clive Lloyd, Andy
Roberts, Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Larry Gomes, were still the
leading team in the world. Players like Richie Richardson, Carl
Hooper, Gus Logie, Keith Arthurton, Curtly Ambrose, Ian Bishop and
Courtney Walsh had stepped in to effectively breach the gap created by
the exit of the stalwarts. Besides, experienced superstars like Vivian
Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall and Jeff
Dujon were still very much around.
With their abysmal record abroad, the Indians became the proverbial
lambs to the slaughter. Little went right for them. Both the batting
and bowling presented problems, and teamwork and the fighting spirit
were missing. Dilip Vengsarkar lacked the leadership qualities to
inspire the side, compounding the unhappy scenario by his uncharitable
comments against his teammates in a magazine interview towards the end
of the tour.
What was left to savour, then, were a few individual performances, but
these were hardly enough to test the home team, who romped home by
margins of eight wickets, 217 runs and seven wickets after the rain-
affected first Test at Georgetown ended in a draw. Indeed, there was
play only on the first two days of the game, making it the worst
affected by weather in the Caribbean side's history.
Over the next three Tests, the Indians encountered the full weight of
the West Indian supremacy. The home batsmen scored runs handsomely,
while the bowlers gave the Indians a torrid time. Players of the
calibre and experience of Mohammad Azharuddin, Kapil Dev, Arun Lal and
Vengsarkar were sitting ducks for the pace attack of Marshall, Bishop,
Walsh and Ambrose. On the faster and bouncier tracks, they were
shocking failures, lacking both the guts and technique required to
counter the fiery pace of the quartet.
The three exceptions were Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sanjay Manjrekar and
Ravi Shastri. To an extent, the trio displayed courage and the right
temperament, and each was rewarded with a Test hundred which, given
the strong opposition, was a commendable feat. In addition, Sidhu, by
getting 286 against Jamaica, registered the highest first-class score
by an Indian outside India, surpassing Polly Umrigar's 252 not out
compiled against Cambridge University in 1959.
If the batting lacked fight, the bowling, woefully inadequate, was
unable to withstand the might of the West Indian batting. Kapil
ploughed a lonely furrow, as his figures of 18 wickets at 21.50 apiece
will testify. Arshad Ayub, in his own restrictive way, was fairly
effective. The Hyderabad off-spinner was rewarded for his toil with
two five-wicket hauls.
Chetan Sharma and Ravi Shastri, however, could make no impression,
while Narendra Hirwani was the biggest disappointment of the tour. The
bespectacled leg-spinner had come to the Caribbean with a high
reputation. Not only had he set a world record by taking 16 for 136 on
his Test debut against the same opponents at Madras a little over a
year earlier, he also had a total haul of 36 wickets in his first four
Tests.
But in the three Tests he played, Hirwani was simply blasted out of
shape, illustrated by his figures of six wickets at 57.50 apiece.
Richards had promised revenge after the humiliation the West Indies
had suffered at the hands of Hirwani on an under-prepared Chepauk
pitch, saying, "I have a long memory, maan." At the end of the series,
there was little doubt that he had exacted it in style.
To some extent, the Indians were handicapped when vice captain
Krishnamachari Srikkanth was hit on the right hand by a ball from
Bishop in the final one-day international, played just before the
first Test. The sickening blow resulted in a broken bone,
necessitating the withdrawal of the swashbuckling opening batsman from
the rest of the tour. Given his capacity to counter-attack the fast-
bowling threat in his own inimitable buccaneering manner, Srikkanth
having to miss the Test series was a major blow for the Indians.
However, the reasoning that he would have made a marked difference to
the final result must be open to doubt.
© CricInfo
Teams
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India,
West Indies.
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Players/Umpires
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S Venkataraghavan,
Clive Lloyd,
Andy Roberts,
Joel Garner,
Michael Holding,
Richie Richardson,
Carl Hooper,
Gus Logie,
Keith Arthurton,
Curtly Ambrose,
Ian Bishop,
Courtney Walsh,
Viv Richards,
Gordon Greenidge,
Jeff Dujon,
Dilip Vengsarkar,
Kapil Dev,
Kris Srikkanth.
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Tours
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India in West Indies
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