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(Part 42.) “West Indies surely now cannot win!”
Television commentator and former Australian captain and leg-spinner Richie Benaud’s crisp, precise tone had pronounced on the West Indies’ fate against Pakistan at the 1975 World Cup.
Keith Boyce had just dragged a delivery from seamer Naseer Malik onto his stumps to reduce the Caribbean side to 166 for eight. Reaching a target of 267 in the second Group B match in Birmingham looked impossible, even after Vanburn Holder joined Deryck Murray in adding 36 for the ninth wicket.
Holder’s demise at 203 for nine brought in last man Andy Roberts and the rest, as they say, is history.
So with nine days to go to the 50th anniversary of Clive Lloyd lifting the World Cup following victory over Australia in the final at Lord’s, we follow Tony Cozier’s match report in the previous edition of this series by presenting the reaction of key performers on that day.
We also add an interesting perspective on Lloyd from a teammate, amid the tension of that last-wicket partnership, and conclude with the recollections of a diehard West Indies fan who reflects on the jubilation which followed that sensational result.
In 2019, on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of that World Cup triumph, the Cricket West Indies website highlighted the reflections of Roberts, Murray and Lloyd on that amazing comeback win:
Roberts: “It was a very important game. After I hit the winning runs after the great partnership with Deryck and ran off the field, the mood afterwards was if Pakistan had beaten us, we would not have won the 1975 World Cup.
“I definitely batted better in other matches, but it’s definitely my most favourite innings for the West Indies. A couple years after that (in 1977), Deryck and I held up the same Pakistan team in Trinidad for about four hours although we didn’t save the game.
“I always enjoyed batting with Deryck as a lower-order batsman. You see, I say lower-order because I was better than just a tail-ender. We had some outstanding partnerships, similarly with Clive Lloyd.
Composite photo: Ken Kelly.
“I always valued my wicket equally as my main skill of taking wickets. A lot of things went against and for us in that game. Pakistan’s total of 266 in those early days of one-day cricket was mammoth; today that is nothing.
“The start of our chase was a struggle, Sarfraz Nawaz put a stranglehold on us. One of the key things that went for us was when I came into bat, I only had to face two deliveries from Sarfraz at the end of his spell. If he had more overs left, who knows what the outcome could have been.”
Lloyd: “There was no way we weren’t going to win the World Cup after that game, the confidence it gave us going forward was immense. That game was also the beginning of shedding the negative connotations of us being called ‘Calypso Cricketers’ and commenced the glory era. It was one of the first times in my career that West Indies won a game showing a great never-say-die attitude.
Photo: CWI Media.
“When I made my debut under Sir Garry Sobers’ successful team and even growing up following the first great West Indies team under Sir Frank Worrell, we always knew that term (‘Calypso Cricketers’) wasn’t always one made out of admiration of our ability to be a dominant team.
“My accountant, an English fellow by the name of Gordon Andrews, was close to the dressing room after I got out (at 151 for seven) and came back to the pavilion. He said we were 66-1 to win when we had lost the eighth or ninth wicket and he brought in a case of Pale Ale and he said, ‘Clive we have just put on bet on you and the team will win.’
“At that point, every over we survived, I just drank the Pale Ale until we won.”
(via Wisden.)
Murray: “That victory was a turning point for West Indies in general. History before that indicated that West Indies didn’t win close games. So there was the question mark whether West Indies could clinch a tense victory.
“The team was well aware of this history and the win propelled us going forward in that World Cup with the mindset that under any circumstances, we could get a positive result.
“I remember telling my wife after the Pakistan win, we were going to win the World Cup and I wasn’t going to bat again and I was almost perfectly correct. I only batted again briefly in the final.
Photo: CWI.
“Andy may not have been known for his batting, but he had the personality to never throw in the towel and give up.
“The game became very tactical. Pakistan bowling out Sarfraz with more than ten overs to go played in our favour. Tackling the leg-spin of Javed Miandad and Wasim Raja and Pakistan’s other medium-pacers was much easier to negotiate.”
In his autobiography Gordon Greenidge: The Man in the Middle, the opening batsman sets the scene for a gripping finale as a fuming Lloyd stormed into the dressing after being given out caught off debutant Javed Miandad’s leg-spin:
Mushtaq Mohammad is the enthusiastic appealer at first slip.
Photo: Ken Kelly.
“He slammed the door of the dressing room behind him in a fit of uncontrollable temper, threw his bat all around the room. The pressure on him as skipper was beginning to tell, and defeat and almost certain elimination was staring us in the face.
“At 203 for nine, defeat was little more than a formality. I was sitting glumly and silent, my bags packed for a quick exit… and Lloyd, still muttering to himself, had conceded victory.
“Gradually Murray and Roberts began to claw us back into the match. Each stolen single induced an increasingly visible amount of panic among the Pakistanis. Their hitherto impeccable fielding began to fall apart and the prospects of an unlikely win became more and more of a reality.
“The 250 came up but the overs were running out. The dressing room became a tense and exciting place to be. All of us shuffled around restlessly; one or two of the players refused to look.
“[…] Lloyd could hardly bear the tension. He sat in the corner demanding a commentary, an explanation for every ripple of crowd reaction.
“At last, with just two deliveries left, Murray (61 not out) saw us home (correction: it was Roberts who hit the winning run) to the most tremendous cheering I have ever encountered.
(via Sportskeeda.)
“As we all congratulated each other as if we had won the Cup itself, Lloyd raced from the dressing room out into the section of the pavilion stands reserved for members. ‘That will teach you…you cheats!’ screamed poor Clive with a mixture of ecstatic relief and blind fury over his dismissal.
“Even in the hysteria of the moment, such behaviour did not go unnoticed and Clive was later severely reprimanded, I believe. Looking back, I think the Pakistan game, with its attendant emotion, was the turning point of the competition.”
And what was the reaction more than 4,000 miles away back home?
Photo: Ken Kelly.
Tony Inniss, who this year marks 60 years since seeing his first Test match at Queen’s Park Oval when Bob Simpson’s Australians visited in 1965, remembers the atmosphere at his workplace, Lever Brothers on the Eastern Main Road in Champs Fleurs:
“We had almost stopped work, everybody stopped work and were crowded around a radio. You could have heard the noise at Lever, not only in the office where I was but throughout the factory. In those days we had close to 600 employees.
“In the road, cars were honking their horns. Noise, noise [everywhere]. The only thing that came close to that, that I can recall, with cars blowing horns and people clapping and celebrating the way they were doing was 2005 when Trinidad and Tobago beat Bahrain to qualify for the 2006 World Cup football finals.”
Next: Thommo wreaks havoc and the other second round group matches.
(Part 43.) ‘Thommo’ on the rampage. With eight days to the 50th anniversary of the West Indies’ defeat of Australia in Read more
(Part 41.) Deryck Murray, Andy Roberts save the day. With 10 days to go to the 50th anniversary of the West Read more
(Part 40.) Competing views “This one-day cricket is crap!” That was the view of Stephen Hearst. Who was (he passed Read more
West Indies One-Day International (ODI) vice-captain Brandon King is in line for his Test debut against Australia, after the 30-year-old Read more
Trinidad and Tobago cricket star Nicholas Pooran has retired from the international game at the relatively tender age of 29. Read more
(Part 39.) Winning starts for Aussies and Kiwis. They may be neighbours and both former British colonies in the Southern Read more
Fazeer Mohammed is a journalist/broadcaster with almost 40 years’ experience across a range of media.
His interest in cricket, and particularly its history, started at home via his father’s small collection of autobiographies and magazines, offering perspectives and context which have informed his commentary and analysis on contemporary issues in the game.
