Re: Just look at the score card of this test match!!!
Some more information:
When Blood flowed in Sabina Park!
By Sriram Veeraragavan
There was not a single soul at the Santa Cruz airport to welcome the
Indian team returning from 1976 tour of West Indies. I suspect whether
even the airhostess served the team properly.
Yet K.N. Prabhu (TOI's Sports Editor that time) had written,
"Performance at port of Spain will rank in history among the most
daring feats of batsmanship." And referring to the Sabina park test he
had written "For sheer grit it will take precedence above all else, he
added "It was a matter of pride to realise that a younger generation
of batsmen was not inclined to tread on toes of the square-leg umpire
when facing pace..."
So then why such a welcome rather non-welcome at the airport & Why did
the public think that the Indian team were 'quitters' and what really
happened at Sabina Park??
Blood had flown like water & that too Indian blood. Lloyd had let
loose his wild bull 'holding' who went on a blood hunt bouncering
every man out and if they still stood he hurled beamers at them
accompanied by a deafening roar & war cry from the blood-thirsty
crowd. "Hit him maan, Kill him maan, Knock him down" was the Barbaric
cry that went up and many Indian batsmen went down as the decibel
levels rose. But as we shall see, not without a fight.
Why did Lloyd, the gentleman cricketer let this happen? What made
Bedi, the captain, say, "this is not cricket" and lodge a protest
mid-match. Why did he have to declare in the first innings and what
happened in the second innings? Lloyd had said later "this is cricket,
if you get hit, you will have to take it".
To understand why Lloyd did what he did, we have to go back a little
bit and understand the mental makeup of Lloyd that time. The Aussies
had just hammered the West Indies and had thrashed them 5-1. Lloyd's
team had won the first test against the Indians only to nearly lose in
the second test and actually lose the third test (that was the
historic Port-of-Spain test where India chased 403 to win). All hell
had broken loose after this loss! Remember Lloyd had declared in that
second innings of the third test. Public were for his head, rumours
were floating that the selector would bow into public demand & would
show him the exit of the captaincy door.
He had to deliver in this make or break final test at Sabina Park.
Deliver translates into win at all costs. It is with this background
that Lloyd and his men, Bedi and his men, now you and me shall enter
Sabina Park on April 21st 1976.
Lloyd won the toss and tossed India into the arena called Sabina Park.
Gavaskar and Gaekwad walked in to bat little knowing that was the most
pleasant thing (the walk) to happen to them as the rest of day they
were left hopping and ducking. Still India reached at the close 178
for Gavsakar's wicket.
This is what Tony cozier had written about the first day's play- "
Gavaskar's 66 lacked the authority of his Trinidad century, his timing
was seldom perfect and there were dozen or so false shots which could
have cost him his wicket, in addition to two actual chances. In one
over when holding bowled around the wicket & roused himself to deliver
four bouncers, Gavaskar had his bat knocked out of his hand. Perplexed
that umpire Ralph Gosien issued no warning about intimidator bowling,
Gavaskar walked down the pitch apparently to protest….
Gaekwad too had his good fortune, although he adopted the sheet anchor
role skillfully.. Gavaskar and Gaekwad took the fullest advantage of
their luck- both in respect of Lloyd's decision and through narrow
escapes in the field - to add a record 136 for the first wicket and
before the scheduled close had gained a position which could only be
worrying to West Indies. Lloyd had been under severe criticism from
all quarters for the debacle in Australia & India's amazing victory in
the third test. He has again made a crucial error of judgment in his
decision to send the opposition in and may well pay for it with the
match & the series."
Three points stand out of that account, Indian's grit, luck and what
the West Indies crowd and critics thought of Lloyd that time. You can
very well imagine with what amazing pressure Clive Lloyd would have
gone to bed that night.
Gaekwad & Amarnath were in and had showed that they intended to fight
it out; ball might hit them, even kill them but not knock their
fighting spirits down. They are not going to move away to square leg
like Polly Umrigar, the manager, had done to Fred Trueman in 1952.
They are here to fight and not to flinch. Lloyd was of course was
fully aware of this and had decided to hell with gentleman's spirit
and all that, let Holding fly at the opposition.
What a bloody day it turned out to be, April 22nd, 1976. The crowd had
gathered in to see the massacre; they wanted blood, if it was not the
Indians' then they would go for Lloyd's. John Arlott had written
elsewhere about a crowd's behaviour and its worth reading now. "There
is no more savagely moving experience than to be part of a crowd
watching a fast bowler- better still a pair of fast bowlers- knocking
down wickets, when the pitch is fast and green and batsmen are being
tumbled out, the temper of crowd becomes almost 'primitive'. Each time
a wicket falls the killer howl goes up. When the process is constant,
it seems that cry is kept on a delicate trigger in the throat so that
it is released almost before the batsman knows he is out…"
How true those words would have sounded on this day to our batsmen.
Just imagine their plight, two men alone in the middle with 11 men,
mad fast bowlers. Even madder crowd, it is a unenviable task, the mere
thought is horrifying and yet a challenge and a beautiful spectacle &
that's why we should stand up and applaud when a batsman facing such a
music (almost a dirge!) comes out on top irrespective of which side he
is representing, But hey I am getting sentimental..!It is time to go
back to action on the 2nd day and see through the eyes of Tony Cozier.
"... Holding especially was a frightening proposition; bowling at
great pace & persistently threatening the batsmen's life and limb with
disconcerting lift...he removed Amarnath with his fifth delivery with
the second new ball. It flew from no more than three yards in front of
the batsman, straight at this throat. All Mohinder could do was
involuntarily put the bat up as a means of self-protection an Julien
at backward short leg held the catch, which lobbed up off the glove or
the handle.
Vishwanath filled the breach and was greeted with one of the wickedest
bouncers of the series. It reared almost vertically at great speed and
brushed his glove as he took evasive action, crashing into the
boundary behind the wicketkeeper before Murray could get close to it.
Encouraged by response he was getting, Holding repeatedly dug the ball
in & it consistently rose chest high or more, three or four times an
over. If the batsmen were not bobbing and weaving to avoid the ball,
they were standing up on their toes to keep it down. Very rarely could
they come forward... eleven runs after Amaranath's departure,
Vishwanath went in identical fashion. Holding hit the offending area
of the pitch, he ball flew and Vishwanath scrambling to protect his
rib-cage, fended it off to Julien.
Gaekwad battling through with great courage suffered at least three
blows on the fingers and at other times just narrowly avoided being
struck. Yet he kept going until he received one from which there is no
escape. It landed against the batsman's left ear. Throughout his
career, Gaekwad will shudder every time he recalls how close he came
to being hit on the temple..."
What a bloody day it was. But it is very clear that Indian batsmen
didn't throw the towel in, didn't flinch, and had actually taken in
with chin up, Gaekwad, Gavaskar and Vengsarkar all showed great
unprecedented courage.
The scorecard looked like a medical report with Gaekwad, Brijesh
Patel- retired hurt and rest back in the hut with Bedi and
Chandershekar not coming out of the hut into the arena to bat. Bedi
decided that it was wise to protect their bowling fingers as Holding
had bouncered at Venkatraghavan also and showed no signs that he would
be soft on them. Actually Bedi's was a wise decision, as they two were
not anyway expected to score 100s. West Indies scored 391 & India in
second innings scored 97 with 5 wickets down and no batsmen left fit
enough to bat!
But the problem had started with words that Bedi used. But before we
go into that lets find out what Sunil Gavaskar had to say. When asked
by Raju Bharatan (to whose book "Indian Cricket, vital phase, I am
grateful for helping me write this piece, in fact this piece can be
described more or less an extract from his book) about a beamer bowled
at him by Holding, Sunny retorted -> "Which beamer? There was so many
of them bowled at us! Both Holding and Daniel bowled them regularly.
Their technique was simple; it was to mix a beamer with 3 or 4
bouncers per over; then having shaken the batsman's confidence,
produce a fast yorker to go through his defence. " I will never forget
the one Holding bowled at me,(in 2nd innings) the moment I went in to
bat. It was on me before I could say Mike! I asked Murray (keeper) why
they were after me, what I had done to them, if it was really
necessary when they had virtually won the match with 3 of our key
batsmen injured. Murray was apologetic and said that he and some
others in team had spoken to Lloyd about it but they had been told to
turn their eyes away if they didn't want to look!" Lloyd later said
that probably Holding got a bit carried away in front of his home
crowd but of course the responsibility is of the captain & as we saw
Murray had already called his bluff. Holding just did what he was told
to do by his captain.
If you are wondering what the umpires (Gosien and Douglas sang hue)
were doing about it, this is what Raju Bharatan writes about it. "To
expect Gosien to stop Holding in his native Jamaica was like asking an
ant to halt an elephant!". But Bedi did ask and was told by the umpire
that " Mr. Bedi you will go back to India after this match, we will
have to live here".
But lets come to the Bdi's statement-> "West Indies tactics in this
test match were not part of the game, they were a deliberate effort to
subdue us. When I lost the toss and we were put in on a lively wicket,
I knew we had little hope, still Sunil, Anshuman, Mohinder displayed
great courage on first day. None of them flinched from fast bowling,
but there is a limit to courage when you are facing bowling at 90 mph.
A lot of human beings would have conked out. I gave the umpires a
piece of my mind. It became so painful to watch that I had to make a
disgusting gesture of declaring in a six-day test. I just couldn't
help it."
This was the damning piece which killed off public sympathy in India
and there in West Indies (which anyway was not there much!). The words
'disgusting gesture to declare' was not on. Read what Raju Bharatan
wrote -> "Bedi complicated a starightforward decision by stating he
declared in disgust. After this were those at Sabina Park not
justified that Bedi declared in second innings too, his later
clarification that "we had no other fit batsmen able to bat and so we
were forced to come in", should have come earlier before start of
play."
Bedi could have been little more careful with his words but he was to
do something that further enraged the sporting public. He didn't
venture out to the field for West Indies 2nd innings when they needed
only 13 runs to win. He said later "as far as not being on the field
in the second innings is concerned. I did not think it was necessary"
Well many other people thought it was necessary. Tony cozier wrote, "
Bedi's action was plain and simple. The Indians had enough & were
calling it quits...Bedi was conspicuous by his absence when Indians
took the field.. all this did little to improve India' image , which
had certainly got tarnished."
It certainly did get tarnished; the public back home had already got
tired of our repeated failures against pace and now in spite of such a
valiant victory in Port-of-Spain and a tremendous fight & show of
exemplary courage at Sabina Park, Bedi's press statements, his absence
on field all were the sour points that the public remembered and so
the impression when the tour came to close was that we were a team of
quitters.
Which was what the press carried too. Sample this (on the last day of
he test) by K.N. Prabhu "India left Sabina in 1971 with their heads
high, they slunk away from it now with all the fight gone out of them.
The declaration at 97 for 5, 25 minutes from tea, was a symbolic
protest against the bumper tactics. But instead of throwing in the
towel, Bedi would have the sympathy & support of majority if he had
the fourth test and the series to the very last, however hopeless the
cause. To have given the match away in this fashion was a terrible
let-down.
In a sense it nullified the performance of those who had stood upto
Holding, it made a mockery of guts & gallantry of Gaekwad and
Mohinder, Vengsarkar & Patel. The protest was forcibly made by Umrigar
on Monday. And that it had gone home was evident when bumper &
short-pitched ball were used sparingly this afternoon... Bedi did not
lead the team out. It was a petulant gesture not worthy of one of his
stature."
Still Tony cozier at the end of it all wrote, "It must be said that
they did not allow the injuries and the knocks to break their spirit
on the field of play. In fact it was a pity that the series had to end
like this because Bedi and his men had shown greater guts &
determination than many other teams which have toured the Caribbean."
Well what can we now say in 2002, except that may the present lot of
our cricketers who are about to embark on a West Indies tour get
inspired by that Sabina Park courage showed by these great batsmen.
But, seriously, how many of our current lot (except the obvious few)
would stand upto such bumper barrage even in these days of protective
equipment-- forget standing, they would be sitting ducks!
But I will leave the last word (humourous one at that) to Raju
Bharatan. "That a gentleman cricketer like Lloyd should have been
driven to adopt strong arm tactics is a pointer to the high stakes in
international cricket. Winning has become so important that gentlemen
prefer bouncers. Blondes beware!!".
SRIRAM VEERARAGAVAN