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England in the West Indies

Monday, March 1 2004

Given the recent press coverage, it is unlikely that anyone reading this is unaware that it is now 36 years since England won a series in the Caribbean. Michael Vaughan certainly knows this, and it may be that he has been looking up the record books to find out how it should be done. If so, he will have learnt that the necessary tactics are to allow WI to score 550 and then concede a first innings deficit of about 100 so that they would be lulled into declaring with only two wickets down and setting a final day target of a little over 200. Given that Lara is not widely expected to match Sobers' generosity, perhaps we should look at the subsequent series to see where England have gone wrong and how they might get it right this time.

After 1967/68, England's next tour of these parts was in 1973/74. WI were hot favourites, having won 2-0 in England the previous summer. The duly won the first test and looked well set to win the second until Amiss produced one of the great match-saving innings (he made 260 and no-one else passed 50) to secure a draw. England clung on to draw the next two tests and shocked everyone to win the final one, mainly through Boycott's runs and Greig's rarely seen off-breaks. It was viewed as something as a triumph, as the fast medium fare from Boyce, Holder & Julien was regarded as being a bit lively for our lads. We can only assume that what followed was a very unpleasant shock indeed.

By 1980/81, WI were unquestionably the finest team in the world. For visiting sides, it was bad enough to have to bowl at Greenidge, Haynes, Richards & Lloyd. However, batting against various combinations of Roberts, Holding, Garner, Croft & Marshall was as unpleasant as it gets. The tragic death of Kenny Barrington, who was managing the side, overshadowed the cricket. In the event, the 2-0 defeat was no disgrace and there were occasionally heroic performances from Gooch, Gower, Willey and Boycott. It was certainly a better effort than in 1985/86, when the home side won all five tests. England actually quite fancied their chances beforehand, but were blown away on a minefield of a strip at Sabina Park and looked shell shocked for the rest of the tour.

Most observers expected a repeat of the 5-0 score line in 1989/90. Not content with losing 14 out of the previous 15 against WI, England had performed abysmally in losing 4-0 at home to Australia and were without several senior players who had decided to join Gatting's "rebel" tour of South Africa. However, they astonished everyone by winning the first test and would have won the second without the intervention of the rain. At this point, things turned against them. Gooch missed the remaining tests, as did Fraser, who was averaging 14 at the time. They might have saved the penultimate test, but Ambrose produced one of his exceptional spells to level the series and WI comfortably the final test to secure a 2-1 win.

WI won both of the two most recent series 3-1. In 1993/94, they comfortably took a 2-0 lead against Atherton's young side, and then the series got interesting. England should have won the third test but were famously dismissed for 46 chasing a low total, and then did win in Barbados courtesy of two hundreds from Stewart. The drawn final test featured Lara's then record innings of 375. The 1997/98 series was intriguingly placed at 1-1 after the first three tests, but England played poorly to lose the final two. Atherton still describes it as an opportunity lost, and I wouldn't argue with him.

So what can we expect this time? Both sides bat much better than they bowl, but both are capable of collapsing horribly. Both sides' attacks feature talented young quicks who really should mature into consistent test cricketers at some stage, but neither set of supporters are confident that it will happen just yet. Maybe Giles will surprise everyone and emulate Ray Price's performance for Zimbabwe against WI last year to win the series for the visitors. Then again, maybe not. This one really is too close to call.

Written by David Lewis

Posted by James