The Indians in the West Indies, 1988-89

Even without playing to their full potential, West Indies were vastly superior to India in both the Test matches and the one-day internationals. They won the Test series of four matches 3-0 and made a clean sweep of the overs-limit rubber of five. From the Indian viewpoint, the tour was one of the most disastrous they have undertaken. Even outside the Tests, they were sometimes embarrassed and failed to win any match at any level.

The opening Test in Guyana was washed out after only two days' play. As it stood at its premature end, however, it seemed certain to be drawn, for the Bourda pitch was extremely slow. The remaining Tests were won by West Indies by the overwhelming margins of eight wickets, 217 runs and seven wickets. The curious feature was that India, whose bowling was, overall, below accepted Test standards and whose fielding was deplorable, dismissed West Indies in the first innings of every Test - though never for less than 300.

West Indies' shortcomings, such as they were, could be largely attributed to feeling jaded after major tours of England and Australia which took place in close succession. And no sooner were their players back from Australia than some went straight into the domestic season. There was talk before the start of the series that the West Indians might want for motivation, but once the international matches were under way, it never looked as if their commitment was anything but whole-hearted.

The strain of past campaigns told most on Viv Richards, the captain. It was not until his last innings in the series that he made his only century. In the previous four innings, his scores were 5, 1, 19 and 0. Gordon Greenidge played innings during which he looked as destructive as ever, but his consistency fell below his won standard. The rich vein of form that Desmond Haynes struck in Australia remained with him and was evident both in the one-day internationals and the Tests. However, the mainstay of West Indies' batting was Richie Richardson who, after a lean season in England, had touched high peaks in Australia. Not only was he hard to dislodge, on his home pitches, but he played the spinners with more authority than in his previous encounters with India. Richardson scored 619 runs in seven Test innings, including 194 in the First Test and 156 in the last, besides other 50-plus scores of 93, 59 and 99. If less consistent, Gus Logie always batted impressively, particularly when West Indies were in need of a steadying hand.

Of the bowlers, only Curtly Ambrose, tired and ill for a time, did not measure up to expectations. Malcolm Marshall, despite missing the First Test, was the main wicket-taker with nineteen dismissals, eleven of them in the Third Test, in Trinidad, on what was really a spinners' pitch. Courtney Walsh bowled tirelessly and always seemed to have a deadly quicker ball in reserve. He was only one wicket behind Marshall. Ian Bishop, a newcomer, took sixteen wickets and played a part which could not be measured in statistical terms alone. Rhythmic in his approach and fluent in delivery, Bishop touched high levels of pace and also moved the ball menacingly. Not only was he remarkably accurate for a bowler so inexperienced, but also he was tactically resourceful. His mastery over Dilip Vengsarkar, whom he constantly had groping in the region of his off stump, was a crucial factor in the balance of power, West Indies' fielding betrayed no signs of the tiredness of mind and body that was claimed on their behalf.

For the first time since his retirement, India truly felt the absence of Sunil Gavaskar. They were immensely unlucky with the weather on the early part of the tour, and they also suffered harshly from injuries. The intervention of rain on the third day of the First Test was the start of a wet spell which affected the whole Caribbean region and permitted just over a full day's cricket before the Second Test. Already, prior to the start of the series, India had lost the services of Krishnam Srikkanth, valuable for his experience as well as for his ability to carry the attack to the bowling. His tour ended in the last one-day international when his forearm was fractured by a ball from Bishop. Srikkanth had shown signs of good form from the first match of the tour. From the Second Test onwards, there was a continuing deterioration of a long-standing groin injury carried by Mohammad Azharuddin. That the problem became so acute as to reach crisis proportions was as much the fault of the player himself as of the Indian Board for allowing the injury to remain untreated for over a year. The other experienced batsman in the side, Vengsarkar, was completely undermined by Bishop and, unquestionably, was weighed down by the demands of captaining an inadequate side.

Although Navjot Singh Sidhu recorded the highest score by an Indian on tour, 286 against Jamaica, and followed it up with a brave century in the final Test, the outstanding Indian batsman of the tour was Sanjay Manjrekar, who scored a maiden Test century in the Bridgetown Test. Reported to be the last man selected for the tour party, Manjrekar had earned his Test place by scoring 109 against the Under-23s in his first innings of the tour. He headed the aggregates and the averages for the series, but more than that he caught the eye with his judgement of direction and his technique of playing fast bowling. Sidhu's success was achieved more by keenness of eye than mastery of technique, the most obvious imperfection being an initial backward movement of the right foot. The only other century scored for India in the series was a fighting 107 by Ravi Shastri in the second innings of the Second Test, at Bridgetown.

The outstanding Indian bowler was Kapil Dev. His tally of eighteen wickets in the series, at a very respectable average of 21.38, did less than full justice to the skills he showed in conditions not best suited to his pace. Chetan Sharma, his new-ball partner, was brave at heart and took useful wickets, but too often he bowled a bad ball. The two seam bowlers in reserve, Sanjeev Sharma and Robin Singh, who played in matches outside the Tests, were out of their depth.

The most disappointing aspect of the series was India's inability to take advantage of a turning pitch in the Third Test, at Port-of-Spain. Their failure and their rout underlined the decline of the art of spin bowling in a country where it abounded only a few years earlier. Of the three Indian spinners, Arshad Ayub, the off-spinner, was the most successful. But his chief merit was steadiness. Shastri's left-arm spin earned moderate rewards, and the leg-spinner, Narendra Hirwani, failed by a long way to live up to the reputation gained from taking sixteen West Indian wickets in his maiden Test and twenty in the only other three he had played since. As expensive as he was lacking in penetration, Hirwani was near to being dropped for the Third Test and, because of an injury, did not figure in the last. Apart from his own limitations, he suffered from lack of guidance from his captain and from his setting of fields, for which ridiculous can be the only fitting description.

The low standard of fielding, mentioned, included the wicket-keeping of More. As captain, Vengsarkar could not inspire his team either by personal performance or by force of personality. Yet at the end he publicly denounced his side as lacking courage and sense of purpose. In truth, the team's performance reflected a marked lack of class in its components. Nor did the touring side gain any credit for its conduct. Kapil Dev and Chetan Sharma staged the most unseemly displays of dissent, and the umpires were cynically under pressure. In this respect, the West Indians were culpable also, and Richards's reaction to an errant decision, although not directed at the umpire, sparked off a riot in the Fourth Test, at Kingston. The umpires indeed made mistakes, but a big enough proportion was in India's favour to absolve them of any charges of bias.

INDIAN TOUR RESULTS

Test matches - Played 4: Lost 3, Drawn 1.

First-class matches - Played 8: Lost 3, Drawn 5.

Losses - West Indies (3).

Draws - West Indies Board President's XI, West Indies Under-23 XI, West Indies Board XI, Jamaica.

One-day internationals - Played 5: Lost 5.

Match reports for

1st ODI: West Indies v India at Bridgetown, Mar 7, 1989
Report | Scorecard

2nd ODI: West Indies v India at Port of Spain, Mar 9, 1989
Report | Scorecard

3rd ODI: West Indies v India at Port of Spain, Mar 11, 1989
Report | Scorecard

4th ODI: West Indies v India at St John's, Mar 18, 1989
Report | Scorecard

5th ODI: West Indies v India at Georgetown, Mar 21, 1989
Report | Scorecard

1st Test: West Indies v India at Georgetown, Mar 25-30, 1989
Report | Scorecard

2nd Test: West Indies v India at Bridgetown, Apr 7-12, 1989
Report | Scorecard

3rd Test: West Indies v India at Port of Spain, Apr 15-20, 1989
Report | Scorecard

4th Test: West Indies v India at Kingston, Apr 28-May 3, 1989
Report | Scorecard

© John Wisden & Co