The poignancy in writing this is overwhelming. In 1986 England travelled to the West Indies for a tour where, surprisingly, England were being built up to give the hosts a run for their money. Now, three decades on the common themes I encountered when researching this seem painful. The mention of the never-ending production line of rapid West Indian quicks. The verve and power of the batting, under the power of Viv Richards, the human tour de force. The packed crowds, jamming every corner of every ground, climbing trees to watch at homely stadia across the region. It’s almost cliche to look back like this now. But it’s painful. They were, really, that good. Put them on their own wickets, with conditions in their favour, they were invincible when at their best.
The anniversary of that tour clicks to number 30 this weekend, and I thought I’d do a little, or long, recap on thoughts of the time, and in hindsight. I’ve read up on the tour using the relevant B&H Yearbook (the 5th edition) and Wisden. The first part deals with the run-up to the series, the second starts at the first test and I hope to complete over the weekend. So, after that intro, Part 1…..
On 1 February 1986 England started their ill-fated tour of the Caribbean with a warm-up match on the island of St.Vincent. What was to ensue over the next few weeks was the cricketing equivalent of a mismatch. Unlike, for example, David Haye’s recent victim, England had to keep getting up after being knocked out, ready to take another pummelling from a far superior foe. The captain’s ship wasn’t just sinking, it was being ripped apart at the seams. We shall never see the like from those shores of the Caribbean ever again. So I thought I’d just write a few personal memories of the test series that confirmed that lightning really could strike twice. I was a schoolkid, keen as mustard on the sport, and hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.
Let’s put this into the context of the times. I’m guessing most of my readership are more than aware of how we got to where we did, but it does no harm to look back. Mid-80s English cricket had major heroes like Gower and Botham, but were looking down the barrel. Rebel tours took out some good players. The production line wasn’t exactly rolling top players into the team. We started losing to foes we never used to, such as New Zealand and Pakistan. Then, in a painful series, England were hammered 5-0 at home by a rampant West Indian force in 1984. The Blackwash series. They slaughtered us by an innings at Edgbaston, chased down 340 odd in just over two sessions at Lord’s, handed out a one-handed beating at Headingley, had Greenidge, Dujon and Davis take us apart at Old Trafford, before applying a routine coup de grace at The Oval. If England managed to get through the top order, the lower order helped bail the West Indies out. Even if they did, no-one thought we’d match their scores anyway. Defeatism reigned. Once Larry Gomes punched that ball to the boundary at Lord’s to chase down that 340 odd for the loss of 1, we really did put the dead into dead rubber. Hell, we got excited at Headingley because Paul Allott bowled well.
But there was a significant but. England were without their Apartheid Tour players and the bans were soon to be lifted. This meant the automatic reinstatement of Graham Gooch, probably the insertion of John Emburey, and maybe Peter Willey as well. The England selectors of the time certainly didn’t hold this betrayal against the various participants, as the 1985 Ashes series saw Gooch, Emburey and Willey in the team, and with Sidebottom and Les Taylor also given a shot. It always brings a smile to my face when you see some of the outlandish stuff now about “team culture”. Our keeper at the time was Paul Downton…..he didn’t rebel tour. Just thought I’d throw that in.
There was a definite whiff of optimism in the air going into 1985 and the “strengthening” of our team because a redoubtable band of men, without Ian Botham, went out to India and won 2-1. Tim Robinson, one of my favourite bats at the time, making a magnificent 160 in Delhi to set up a levelling win, and then Fowler and Gatting making double hundreds in Madras, as it then was, to back up Neil Foster’s excellent bowling to put us 2-1 up. Fowler made 201 there, and was dropped, never to play for England again, after the next test. He could probably feel a bit more peeved than most at the forgiveness shown to rebel tourists.
We won the Ashes 3-1 against a pretty feeble Australian team, kept afloat by Allan Border and Craig McDermott. It was a great summer of batting, England winning the last two test matches by an innings, including 300+ partnerships in both matches. Tim Robinson made two hundreds, so did Gatting, Gooch got a 196 at The Oval and captain Gower made three tons, all over 150, including a 215. As a kid watching that partnership at Edgbaston between Gower and Robinson, I was transfixed. My old favourite with my new.
So we were hopeful going into the next tour, the hardest tour. I was in the A Level years at school, so I was no callow youth, but I do recall reading all the previews and the suggestion was prevalent, if I’m correct. “Although no-one underestimates the strength of the opposition, one thing is certain. It won’t be another blackwash.” The old logical gene was going off the charts – they are at home, the wickets are fast, their bowling is miles better than ours, and their batting isn’t exactly crap, especially now Richie Richardson is established and looking good. But then hope over-rides that (and why that first test win in Jamaica in 1990 was so special) and you think about those writing these things “well, they must know what they are talking about…..”
These were the days before live TV coverage of cricket overseas. BBC would dabble with a little live play from Australia if it got interesting on an ad hoc basis, and we’d get the Channel 9 highlights (and those from New Zealand too with Peter Williams, I think, about as unbiased an anchor man you could ever have) for those tours. But there was nothing from the West Indies other than what the news would show you for five or ten seconds each night. On some occasions there wasn’t, I recall, total radio coverage because BBC with just a few stations weren’t prepared to have key slots taken up with the cricket. It is why one of my recollections of the first test was tuning into LBC (a London radio station where Jeff Stelling cut his teeth on football score coverage) every half hour to hear the Sunday score.
In these days of wall-to-wall coverage of pretty much all international cricket, you’d think the situation back then would be hell, but it really wasn’t. Sam Collins (yes, a name drop) said to a number of people talking to him after the DOAG screening I went to earlier this week, that it was like Stockholm Syndrome. We were grateful, extremely grateful, for whatever we got. There were no campaigns to get this live on the TV, because we had four channels. The technology did not exist. It was radio or nothing. When that coverage included the tones of Tony Cozier, it seemed absolutely dreamy. Exotic. Brilliant.
The tour, commencing on 1 February at the Arnos Vale (not Grove, you muppet. That’s on the Piccadilly Line) ground did not start auspiciously. The weakest team in the West Indian domestic competition bowled England out for 186, yet England fought back and bowled themselves to a small lead. This was not to prove vital. England barely scraped into three figures on their second dig, and the home team knocked the runs off for the loss of 3. This did not augur well. The one half century in the match was a 77 made by Mike Gatting, who at least had shown he was up for the challenge. The top score in the second innings? 18 by David Smith and Phil Edmonds. Desmond Collymore, the chief destroyer in the first innings with a career best 5-34, averaged 38 with the ball in the Shell Shield that year. We weren’t talking Marshall or Garner.
On to the Leeward Islands and another sketchy performance, but decidedly better in the first innings. The hosts made 236 with the wickets being shared around, and although no England player made three figures, they scored over 400 and set up the match. Leewards got to parity with 4 wickets down but Ralston Otto, a cousin of Curtly Ambrose, made 92 not out and set England 116 to win. The Leewards used two bowlers for the 34 overs that it would take to get these runs. At one end was Leicstershire man Winston Benjamin, and at the other, bowling superstar Richie Richardson! The latter actually took five wickets as England collapsed in a heap and finished grateful for a draw with 8 wickets down and 94 on the board. Tim Robinson, with 32, was the only one to hold his head up high. It wasn’t good.
The third prep game was against Jamaica, and England sealed a victory against one of the stronger sides in the West Indies. Gatting and Lamb made runs in the first innings, Lamb again in the second but still no hundreds, while the Jamaican wickets were well spread, with Les Taylor taking a lot of the top order scalps. England registered a 158 run win.
Of course back then England’s test and ODI teams were picked from the same squad and the fixtures were inter-mingled. The opening match against the full national side would be an ODI fixture at Sabina Park. A match that will live in infamy for the introduction of Balfour Patrick Patterson to an England team, and a projectile from Maco into Mike Gatting’s septum.
“A bad injury to Gatting, whose nose was broken when he missed an attempted hook off Marshall from a ball which cannoned off his face into the stumps, did far more damage to England than West Indies’ easy victory. They won with thirteen balls to spare in a match reduced by eight overs by their own slow over-rate, four fast bowlers and off-spinner Harper managing only 46 overs in the allowed 200 minutes. After England had been sent in, Patterson made immediate inroads by dismissing Robinson and Gower with his fourth and eighth balls in international cricket. Marshall prevented a full recovery by bowling Gatting and Gooch, and though Lamb and Willey added 62 off sixteen overs, England could not put West Indies under pressure. But for careless strokes by Gomes and Richardson with 7 runs needed, the margin would have been eight wickets.”
The ODI had been a disaster. All the fragilities we feared were exposed. The batting could hardly score at a pace to make us competitive, 145 off 46 overs. Marshall, Patterson, Garner and a young Courtney Walsh (Holding had been injured in the Jamaica match) gave us nothing. Then the West Indies scored patiently to win with a couple of overs to spare. The tests were just around the corner. The foreboding, immense. One thing was certain, 5-0 was a possibility all right.
TO BE CONTINUED……
Being Outside Cricket 
Really enjoyed this piece. This series was a little before my time though have read a few pieces about how great that amazing Windies team of the late 70’s and mid 80’s was. Would loved to have seen them in action.
Look forward to part 2, though I doubt it’s going to get any better for England….
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There’s a highlight when England managed to take three second innings’ wickets in one of the Tests. When Australia toured the year before they didn’t take one second innings ‘ wicket in an entire five match series.
David Smith? I’d forgotten he was on that tour. Batted as well as anyone in his second Test and was never picked again if I remember right. Poor Wilf Slack as well.
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I seem to recall that David Smith developed a back problem and was spotted aboard a boat, which got him rebuked severely by the team management – a foretaste of KP there. I think he blames that incident for the fact he never again got selected. If only he had been spotted lying on a bed rather than a boat, it would have been ok.
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I would prefer not to revisit this series…. I know that some people picked up on Holding’s comment about dead rubbers and tried to claim it was untrue….well they were taking about 2 Tests at Sydney played on cart tracks,where Allan Border took 10 wickets per match. The Aussies needed it.
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I was at the game in ’89 when AB took 11 wickets – was turning square and Dessie Haynes scored a great 143 in the second dig.
It was Murray Bennett and Bob Holland who spun the Windies out at the SCG in ’85, not AB.
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Enjoyed this; brought back a few memories. I’d just discovered cricket at this point, developing an obsession during the 1985 Ashes, and this tour introduced me to two things that would be important in the years to come: cricket on the radio, and stoicism in the face of repeated England defeat. Looking forward to part 2.
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Some nostalgic colour:
Your UK number ones during this tour were, firstly When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going – Billy Ocean, then Chain Reaction – Diana Ross; Livin’ Doll – Cliff Richard and the Young Ones; A Different Corner – George Michael.
I bought one of those and all four are on my iPod. March was the start of my pop music obsession, although my favourite singles of the period would probably (now) be Hounds Of Love (Kate Bush) and Kiss (Prince); the latter from the magnificent Parade album.
On TV you could see imperial phase EastEnders, including Angie’s suicide attempt and the origins of the Lofty/Michelle romance plot. Plus Jenny Powell on No Limits, the final series of Duty Free and the first series of Dear John. And, for those of a certain age, there may be no greater Proustian rush than this:
On the first day of the first Test, no less!
In the real world, well: Wapping; Halley’s Comet; overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos and his wife’s shoe collection; Glasnost and Perestroika; the engagement of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson; the abolition of the GLC; ‘Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster’; F1-11s bombing Tripoli and Benghazi. (And I split up from my first girlfriend)
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Frank Bruno appears in the next part. Don’t give it away if you know why. ….
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Just say No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Greenidge.
I remember that 340 that Gower set them to win in 1984. He actually made England bat on on in the 5th morning in order to put the game safe IIRC.
Safe ROTFLMAO.
Anyway, surely Radio 3 had TMS back then as I remember listening to it? I also recall having to tune into BBC World Service for regular updates when abroad on my hols.
Poor Fowler, he was an exciting, swashbuckling batsman..
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I don’t think Radio 3 did the entire day, sherwick, and that might have been on Sundays. 247 on the medium wave. The old home of radio 1 until it moved to 275 and 285. Radio 2 on 909 and 693. Old age.
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Thanks for the Mike Read jingle earworm there…
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I was at the Lords Test and saw Richards and Haynes score centuries each. Saw Garner’s telescopic arms take a blinder at gulley. I can still picture Richards first ball from Botham. He went forward then had time to step back and majestically punch it through extra cover off the back foot. All the time in the world and made Botham look like a medium paced trundler. My heart sank as an England fan. I knew what was coming.
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That was 1980 wasn’t it? The 1984 test saw Viv get sawn off by Barrie Meyer. Never got to bat second time around.
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Botham’s eight-for including the dodgy LBW:
Stay to the end which is a good catch by ______ who’s then congratulated by _______ .
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Downton and Pringle.
When I used to like and, more importantly, respect them.
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As great as that chase was that 340 has meant that captains are still too cautious when it comes to declarations just in case that happens to them. It was a brilliant effort and the fact it is still memorable 30 years on shows how special it was.
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I think I am a year or two older than you and remember that series and Windies team well.They were brutal in all aspects of the game. I hated them at the time, thought they were bad for cricket and all that. (Too much short pitched bowling etc) But now I look back, they were good, very good. The aggression, of course after so many years of oppression it was going to come out one day. Now, I’d give my right arm to see those players play again today, short pitched bowling and all.
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Apologies, you are right! Seems so long ago now.
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No apologies needed for reminding us of the criminally underrated Dessie’s career test best (I think).
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Following on from this a bit. ..who have you seen make their career / test best in person.
I’ve got Bell, Tres, Colly and Harmison (batting) in tests, and Ramps in FC.
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I saw Botham get his 200 at the Oval for England. Can’t really remember much of that sadly.
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You win. Of the three hundreds I have seen, none were the player’s top score.
Though I did see Peter Such complete his Test-best bowling figures… only to be completely overshadowed by some bleach-blond chap an hour or so later.
I suppose I do have quite an antithesis – at the start of a summer where he made 333 & 123 in one match and (uniquely) over 1,000 Test runs, I saw Graham Gooch’s first-ball duck against NZ before rain washed the day out.
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Two I can think of immediately are Carlisle Best and Nick Knight. Also got Viv in ODI’s (the magnificent 189* at Old Trafford in 1984)
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I remember that Viv 189.
Weren’t they in all sorts of trouble before he got going?
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Still quite pissed off about one particular score from this match, which I attended on day three. See if you can guess which.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64094.html
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Turning up to see a Lara masterclass only to see him get out? Would cheese me off.
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Another one I’ve got is Matthew Elliott
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I have Anil Kumble’s only test ton. I saw the first day and a half of Amla’s 311 too. Don’t count it because I wasn’t there to see him pass 300.
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Windies were in all kinds of bother, Viv hit 189 out of 270 odd – also saw the rare sight of Dessie getting out caught hooking. Never saw CG Greenidge get out hooking ever – does anyone remember if they have?
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Some innings to see in person.
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It was a privilege to be there. It was in the days when you could decide on the day to go along, I couldn’t get a seat but managed to sit on the grass between the rope and the fence
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Off the top of my head but lucky enough to have been there for KP 227 in Adelaide 2010 and his FC HS at the time of 235 at Guildford, Justin Langer 342 also at Guildford.
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@LCL re Lara. Obvious, isn’t it? It was also his final Test on his old home ground. A hundred would have been rather nice.
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Never saw Lara make many. Saw him get a first baller. Saw him at Clontarf. Think he got an 80 odd in 2004. See also Sachin.
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Favourite live Gordon Greenidge memory (from CC, for reasons of geography and finances I’ve not seen much live Test cricket – although I did see Alan Mullally’s highest of 24!):
Penultimate match of 1985 season with Middlesex and Hampshire neck-and-neck for the title. Hants at home needed a win so prepared the greenest of green tops – Nicholas inevitably lost the toss so we had to bat on it. GG, limping heavily, blasted 143 with the next highest score from a strong batting line-up 33:
http://stats.thecricketer.com/Scorecards/46/46456.html
No happy ending for this Hants fan though. Northants won by 1 wicket with Roger Harper hitting Raj Maru for four sixes (one landed on the roof of the old Northlands Road ground pavilion and the next went over it). Middlesex annihilated a woeful Warwickshire in the last game while Hampshire drew against Notts with Clive Rice making a century (Clive Rice always made a century against us). Middlesex won the CC despite having lost two more games. Hants have never won the CC in my cricket-watching life (I’m just too young to remember 1973). It would be fair to say I’m not Mike Gatting’s greatest fan – although such preparation for a lifetime of disappointment was probably invaluable.
And, in answer to Stevet’s question, I can’t think of any example of GG getting out hooking.
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I was lucky enough to get a very late ticket (actually on the morning in question) for a match in 2005 and saw Ashley Giles get his test best in a drawn match at the Oval.😉
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I’m sure somebody else got some runs that day.
Name escapes me for the moment . . .
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Strauss? No that was the first innings.
Trott? No that was 4 years later.
Flintoff? Vaughan? Bell? Collingwood? Trescothick?
Ummm can’t remember any other batsman.
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I was at Adelaide in 2010 as well. Worth remembering that it was a spectacular return to form for Pietersen after going 27 innings without a century.
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Goo?
Giles??
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Great article mate,
Love the nostalgia trips (that compilation of Thorpe’s hundred was very enjoyable as well). Remember this series well, only saw news clips but they were grim enough. The 84 blackwash was still fresh in my mind so I was expecting us too get well stuffed anyway. Some of my memories are: Gatt doing a press conference on his return home, nose splattered with panda eyes and some muppet reporter asks ‘where did it hit you?’. You could see his sheer exasperation as he pointed and replied ‘I think X marks the spot’. Also remember the early days of breakfast TV when they showed a montage of clips from the series to the soundtrack of David Bowie’s Absolute Beginners – said everything that needed to be said. God that West Indies side were formidable, getting stuffed by them was almost a given for the best part of 15 years. Also remember Downton playing as a stand-in opener for the second innnings in 1984 at Edgbaston after Andy Lloyd was cruelly felled (on his debut – he was never the same after that and never played again) in the first innings. He scrapped it out and made 50-odd, a really courageous effort – now that was definitely worth a hundred!!
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Steve. I really enjoy researching them. These are also personal posts to link what cricket means to me (and from the responses a number of you).
It’s also good to emphasise this blog and it’s raison d’etre isn’t the simplistic one others ascribe to it. But then it probably doesn’t need to do that.
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Really good nostalgia pieces and glad they appear as they really show off your love of cricket as well as the showing the love that the other commenters here have for the game.
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My first days at test cricket were at the Oval test in the first blackwash series. The Windies bowlers seemed impossibly quick to a young boy, the crowds back in those days were hugely West Indian influenced with horns, drums wild good natured, Carribean voices hurling their pearls of wisdom.
A great initiation it was. I think what I remember most from that game was Pat Pocock getting a standing ovation after being nightwatchman. It may have been because he was a Surrey stalwart, because it seemed strange that a guy who had got out for a duck got such a reception. The reality was that i think he got that because of his bravery at going out against that attack.
What I remember most about the Blackwash II series was Gatting getting his nose broken. I’m not sure I ever got to see much footage of that series.
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Not normally a poster here, but this is really interesting.
I heard Gooch at a league dinner a few years ago say that facing Patterson on this tour was the only time in his career that he left he simply could not handle the pace.
Finding any footage, as you say, is really tough but there are snippets in the Ian Wooldridge documentary ‘Calypso Cricket’ which I’ll link to below. Well worth watching but be warned it’ll leave you deflated and feeling what went wrong?
The best account of the tour is by Frances Edmonds, wife of Phil in ‘Another Bloody Tour’.Seems some of the behaviour was pretty abject, it seems. Botham and Gower formed their own clique in that dressing-room.
Apparently most of the other players phlegmatically took the knocks and collected the bruises, whilst Botham whinged about the pace and pitches. The rest didn’t care for him at that point.
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Matthew,
Welcome. Thanks for the link. I’m sure others said that about Patterson on that tour too. Descriptions rather than film footage works better to convey extremes.
Thanks and if you have any comments on part 2 when it is up I’d love to hear them.
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Can remember Johnners describing Patterson as ‘varying his pace between lightning fast and whoops where did that one go’
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I remember that Frances Edmond’s book had an amazing photo of the bruising on her husband’s body caused by Patterson. It was one hell of a tour. The tabloids were engaging in a circulation war by making up discreditable stories about Botham. The West Indies authorities were very upset about the inclusion of rebel tourists (especially Gooch) and there had to be constant bouts of diplomacy to keep the tour on the road. The Prime Minister of every island seemed to be in a competition for who could make the most fuss about Gooch. The team were under almost-constant police guard. Boycott and Matthew Engel were at one point arrested and kept in prison for a few days. The good old days!
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Are you sure about Boycott spending time in bird????
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Just tweeted Boycott to check on this
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To Escort (no idea how or where this will appear) No reply as yet from Boycott but I have reread Frances Edmonds’s account. There were rumours that Engels and Boyctott were sent to the slammer but they were actually held under “house arrest” in the Holiday Inn” and at least one of those made phomne calls from there. I must have been recalling the original reports rather than the follow-ups.
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Someone on here the other day was talking about Agendas.
He should read the latest from Pringle on Compton and tell me with a straight face that Pringle has no agenda against Compton. He has sniped away all through the SA series, and now he is doing the same in a blatant attempt to have him dropped. It’s a cowardly attack from a bankrupt former jounalist who has an Agenda the same size as his ludicrous ego.
No surprise the Telegraph wanted rid of this waste of space. His agenda has been quite obvious even last year following KP to Surreys match against the university at the start of the season when it was on the cards he might get recalled. Pringle turned up with the blatant agenda to write a hit piece on him, but it was in vain because KP scored a hundred.
Mr Pringle seems almost obssesed.
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I have read the same article. It is, to put it mildly, fuckwittery of the first order. The coup de grace is the reasoning behind why he’d select James Vince. It’s astounding.
Check your inbox.
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Dmitri you chose go not publish my other post then? Did you get my email?
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Please check your mail.
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Can you link it pls? Thanks
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I have the printed version only in The Cricket Paper. See the tweet in the right hand column for its “finale”.
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