April 12, 1976 turned out to be a red-letter day in the annals of Indian cricket – The visitors chased down a target of 403 against West Indies at Port of Spain, on the back of centuries from Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath, and a gritty 85 from Mohinder Amarnath. Gavaskar, a famous cricketer in Trinidad, was admired and feted for his 102. The adulation that he received was further evidenced by the fact that some fans wanted the venue at Port of Spain to be renamed as ‘Gavaskar Oval’ after he played his final Test at that ground in 1983.
If we turn the pages back to the 1976 Test series, Clive Lloyd, the West Indies skipper, was perhaps left fuming after the loss at Port of Spain. On a slow wicket, the West Indies camp had picked three spinners – Imtiaz Ali, Albert Padmore and Raphick Jumadeen. Unfortunately, the trio could pick up only two wickets between them in the second innings. The West Indies had also been thrashed 1-5 by Australia in 1975-76. In sheer frustration, Lloyd asked his spinners: “Gentlemen, I gave you 400 runs to bowl at and you failed to bowl out the opposition. How many runs must I give you in future to make sure that you get the wickets?” A new era of deadly fast bowling was about to begin.
The fourth and final Test was played in Kingston, Jamaica. At that time, Sabina Park was renowned for its pace and bounce, and was supposedly the quickest deck in the Caribbean. On expected lines, Lloyd decided to unleash the West Indies pace battery, with Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel leading the charge. Bernard Julien and Vanburn Holder were the support seamers.
After India were inserted in to bat, Gavaskar and Anshuman Gaekwad made a steady start. Both openers survived a couple of dropped chances, and Holding found some sharp kick from short of a length, but India still had all wickets intact going into lunch. It was just a bit of calm before the storm. After play resumed, Holding decided to bowl from the Radio Commentators’ End, and from round the wicket. Gaekwad was the first one to bear the brunt of Holding’s intimidatory tactics, as he had to tackle three bouncers in a single over. Holding then unleashed his spine-chilling tactics against Gavaskar – four bouncers and a beamer. The very next over, Holding tried one more beamer.
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By then, Gavaskar had an inkling of what the opposition was trying to do. “When Holding pretended to be wiping his fingers to show the ball had slipped, it was difficult to believe,” he wrote in sunny Days, his autobiography. “After one over, in which all I could do was keep my head out of the way of the speeding ball, I walked up to the umpire Gosein, to ask him about the definition of intimidatory bowling. As I approached the umpire, I realised that this was the man who had given those decisions in the second Test under pressure from the crowd, and there was no hope of getting a satisfactory response from him. So I asked Gaekwad to stick around and concentrate even harder.”
Gavaskar didn’t spare the Jamaica crowd either in his book. “To call the crowd a ‘crowd’ in Jamaica is a misnomer,” he wrote. “It should be called a ‘mob’. The way they shrieked and howled every time Holding bowled was positively horrible. They encouraged him with shouts of ‘Kill him, maan!’, ‘Hit him, maan!’, ‘Knock his head off, Mike!’ All this proved beyond a shadow of doubt that these people still belonged to the jungles and forests, instead of a civilised country.”
Side note – The legendary Indian opener later apologised for his comment on the Kingston crowd.
Eventually, Holding uprooted Gavaskar’s stumps with a yorker – as he deflected the ball on to the stumps. But by then, the opening duo had added 136 for the first wicket. In his illustrious career, Gavaskar composed enough massive scores, but his knock of 66 perhaps would be near the top of the list in relation to showcasing courage and doggedness against brutal fast bowling.
What happened next?
On day two, Lloyd took the second new ball, and Holding was back to unleashing some missiles. The gritty Amarnath was caught by Julien while facing a delivery that reared up. Viswanath also had to face another of those missiles from Holding, with the respected commentator, Tony Cozier observing, “one of the wickedest bouncers of the series”. Viswanath soon fell to the barrage of short deliveries from Holding, and suffered a finger injury. Gaekwad was hit three times on his fingers and hurt his left ear. He also had to retire hurt.
The ‘Bloodbath’ didn’t stop there, as Brijesh Patel had his upper lip cut open, while facing a short ball from Holder. He needed three stitches. In the second innings, in his trademark style, Amarnath responded to West Indies’ tactics with a counter-attack and finished with 60. India, though, controversially declared their second innings at 97 for 5, and lost the game by 10 wickets. Incidentally, as per Gavaskar, all the 17 players of the Indian squad were on the field at some point or the other in that game.
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