India go down fighting to Lloyd's supermen
Daring hooks became his trademark, but he also drove effortlessly andcut ferociously
Partab Ramchand
10-May-2002
By the time India and the West Indies next met in the Caribbean, the
home team was well and truly regarded as the best in the world. They
was never any chance of India repeating their feat of 1971, especially
after losing badly in Pakistan just before the series against the West
Indies. A comfortable victory was predicted for the home team and, in
the end, the 2-0 victory in the five-match series would seem to be a
vindication of such forecasting.
Daring hooks became his trademark, but he also drove effortlessly and cut ferociously. To the 584 runs he scored against Pakistan, Amarnath added another 598, with two hundreds and four fifties. Little wonder then that, by the end of the tour, he was hailed as the best player of fast bowling in the world. |
The home team was then in the midst of their record run of 27 matches
without a loss. With the batting being manned by the likes of Gordon
Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Jeff Dujon,
Larry Gomez and Gus Logie, and with a fearsome quartet of fast bowlers
in Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Joel Garner to
back them up, it can easily be seen why the West Indians were 'numero
uno' in the cricketing world by a long way.
What did India have to match this outstanding line-up? The debacle in
Pakistan had necessitated a few changes, the most important one taking
place at the top, with Kapil replacing Sunil Gavaskar. For the first
time since 1969, the Indian team was without Gundappa Viswanath,
dropped after 87 consecutive Tests.
But the batting still had a capable look about it, for besides
Gavaskar and Kapil, players like Mohinder Amarnath, Dilip Vengsarkar,
Yashpal Sharma, Anshuman Gaekwad, Ravi Shastri and Syed Kirmani were
around. The bowling too looked balanced, with Kapil, Balwinder Sandhu
and Madan Lal to handle the new ball, and Srinivas Venkataraghavan,
Shastri, Maninder Singh and L Sivaramakrishnan to give the old ball a
tweak. Maninder and Siva, both teenage prodigies, had shown promise in
Pakistan, while Venkat was recalled after three-and-a-quarter years,
both in view of his fine performances on the two previous tours and
also to lend experience to the spin attack.
Whatever the strengths of the visiting side, the line-up of the two
teams clearly showed that the West Indies were the better team, more
so under home conditions; this was amply reflected in the final
result. But if the Indians lost, they certainly were not disgraced.
The West Indies won the first Test with just four balls to spare, the
series was kept alive till the final day of the fourth Test, and the
tourists won a lot of friends by their fighting spirit and never-saydie attitude.
None displayed this more than Amarnath. He had come good on his
comeback series in Pakistan, and now he carried this form through
against the West Indies. Never flinching, Amarnath not only faced the
pace quartet's barrage of bouncers and short-pitched bowling with
batting that was the apotheosis of courage, but he also scored freely
off them.
Daring hooks became his trademark, but he also drove effortlessly and
cut ferociously. To the 584 runs he scored against Pakistan, Amarnath
added another 598, with two hundreds and four fifties. Little wonder
then that, by the end of the tour, he was hailed as the best player of
fast bowling in the world. Such was his form that on May 3, the final
day of the series, Amarnath crossed 1,000 runs for the calendar year,
the fastest batsman to reach the mark.
Unfortunately the other players could not take a leaf from Amarnath's
book, and the batting was rather patchy. Shastri confirmed his early
promise by getting a century in the final Test, Kapil hammered an
unbeaten 100 off just 95 balls in the closing stages of the drawn
second Test, while Gavaskar got his customary three-figure knock (his
27th ton in Tests) in the rain-affected game at Georgetown, the venue
where he had notched up his maiden hundred 12 years before. But more
was expected from them, as also from Yashpal, Gaekwad and Vengsarkar.
Confronted with a line-up of awesome stroke-players, the bowlers were
always going to find it tough going, and it speaks volumes for Kapil's
capabilities that he took 17 wickets at an average of only 24.94. In
fact, in the second game of the series, his 50th Test, he became, at
24 years and 68 days, the youngest player to complete the double of
2000 runs and 200 wickets.
The recall of Venkat was hardly successful, his 10 wickets costing him
58.60 apiece, although it must be admitted that he suffered the most
through dropped catches. Maninder and Siva, perhaps a bit awed by the
opposition, could make little impression in the limited opportunities
that came their way. At 17 years and 118 days, Siva became the
youngest Indian to make his Test debut when he played the final game
of the series. Shastri at best was steady without being penetrative,
while the medium-pace of Sandhu and Madan Lal proved no more than
amiable. To make matters worse, Kirmani had a mediocre tour, missing a
number of catches and stumpings.
From the Indian viewpoint, there was one significant event away from
the Test arena - the victory in the second one-day international at
Berbice. The West Indies were then the undisputed champions in the
limited-overs game, while India's record was woeful. And yet, thanks
mainly to Gavaskar's electrifying 90 and Kapil's swashbuckling 72 off
38 balls with seven fours and three sixes, India smashed 282 for five
off 47 overs then the highest total by any team against the West
Indies.
Kapil, Sandhu, Madan Lal and Shastri then restricted West Indies to
255 for nine in 47 overs, and the 27-run win was just the tonic the
Indians needed for their World Cup challenge in England a few months
later. What happened there is, of course, much too well-known to be
chronicled here.