The scariest Test England ever played:
PART 2 (continued from last week)
Marshall, Holding and Garner were three all-time greats, yet it was Patterson who stood out. “If anyone has ever bowled quicker than that, well ...” said Gooch. “He was rapid, and I mean really rapid.” That view is supported by Dujon, the wicket keeper who was chief witness to the West Indies’ reign of terror. He kept to all the greats from 1981 to 1991, and did so with such feline excellence that 95mph deliveries became much of a muchness. Every time he is interviewed, he patiently answers the inevitable question. Who was the fastest? Dujon cites two spells, both by Patterson: Sabina Park 1986 and the last day of the Boxing Day Test in 1988, when Australia unwisely provoked him and he threatened to kill them all the next day. He settled for the compromise of a match-winning five-for. In the first over of that spell, Dujon took a short delivery and heard a scrunch. A split-second later, the pain of a broken finger reached his brain.
In Thomas’s next over, Greenidge gave him what Garner called “a father’s correction”, bashing three fours. Thomas’s performance in the match led Christopher Martin-Jenkins to write in the Cricketer that “he is the real thing at last”, and though his series figures of eight wickets at 46 were modest, the sheer heat and quality of his bowling had most predicting that England’s hunt for a truly fast bowler was over – including the greatest of them all. “I could see that here was an outstanding young talent,” said Marshall in his autobiography, Marshall Arts. “He earned the respect of all our batsmen.” This being the 1980s, he played only one more Test in his career. Thomas only realised he had earned the opposition’s respect when, as the series progressed, they started to administer a few more “father’s corrections”. Being targeted by the West Indies batsmen was a strange kind of compliment.
Thomas and particularly Botham hit the green bit of the pitch with similar frequency to the West Indies bowlers. “There were overs in which Botham bowled six attempted bouncers,” wrote Woodcock in the Times. “All that did was stir up further trouble for England’s batsmen, especially with umpires who pay not the slightest attention to the law as it relates to short-pitched bowling.”
One man’s bouncer is another man’s shortish delivery. “I don’t remember anyone bowling many bouncers,” says Thomas. “It was more back-of-a-length stuff on both sides. You didn’t need to bowl bouncers on that wicket, it was flying.” One short ball from Botham was hooked for six by the debutant Carlisle Best, his first scoring stroke in Test cricket. Best famously commentated on his own innings – “You can’t bowl there to Carlisle Best” – and doubtless had plenty to say as he launched Beefy into the crowd. Amid the virility, Richard Ellison’s crafty swing bowling yielded a third five-for in as many Tests. This being the 1980s, he played only three more Tests in his career. Ellison concentrated on a different part of the body; four of his wickets were LBW, part of a then-record-equalling six in the innings. West Indies were dismissed for 307, a lead of 148.
There was also a row between Greenidge and Edmonds, who was standing intrusively close at short leg. It was an unusual occurrence in the series, despite the punishing nature of the cricket. Most were already friends from county cricket. “We all got on exceptionally well; it was excellent that way,” says Thomas. “There was no animosity, nothing whatsoever.” Both teams knew that it was nothing personal, just business. And that West Indies had an unchallengeable monopoly.
‘I FELT AS IF MY CHEST HAD CAVED IN’
On the third morning, before play, Robinson practised with the bowling machine, Fred, on a concrete wicket. Fred could do almost anything. He could give you a 94mph bouncer or a 66mph inswinger. What he couldn’t replicate was a length delivery from the 6ft 8ins Garner that would shoot along the floor. Robinson was bowled for a duck, and Gooch followed for nought in the next over from Marshall. Robinson went to the West Indies averaging 62 per innings, thinking Test cricket was a “piece of piss”. He barely made that many in the series: 72 runs, an average of nine, and his Test career never truly recovered.
Soon it was time for Patterson’s second crack at England, a six-over spell of unprecedented menace. There are no greater compliments from no greater authorities than those he received for his speed in the second innings. In the Times, Woodcock deemed it on a par with Frank Tyson in the 1954-55, “one or two of his short ones being just about as fast as man can bowl”, while Wisden said his pace was “comparable to that of Jeff Thomson of Australia in his prime”.
One delivery cleared everyone and bounced just inside the boundary. Gower was caught at third man, placed there deliberately as a catcher two balls earlier. It was his seventh failure out of seven on the tour: his scores were 5, 9, 2, 11, 0, 16, 9. Lamb then received what Engel described as “the most extraordinary cannonade of bouncers”. His innings had more incident that most seven-hour centuries. He was at the crease for 15 balls. Lamb was hit on the helmet and the body, slapped three boundaries and was caught top-edging a hook.
He was one of three men out hooking in the innings. Botham, who had fallen that way in the first innings, landed a few haymakers in a 28-ball 29 that included two hooked sixes: one top-edged off Patterson, one off the meat from the first ball of Marshall’s spell. Marshall went straight around the wicket and bowled four more consecutive bouncers, two of which Botham walloped for four to make it 14 from the over. Marshall was stirred first by the unspoken speed contest with Patterson and then by Botham’s chutzpah. In Marshall’s next over Botham was bowled… while hooking, another victim of the uneven bounce. It was the start of another difficult tour, particularly with the bat; he averaged 16.8 with a top score of 38.
The West Indies were the one team Botham could never conquer. Willey was almost the opposite, a West Indies specialist who played 15 of his 26 Tests against them, facing the bowlers head on with his extraordinary open stance. When he went out to bat in the second innings in Jamaica, having been pushed up from No7 to No4, Willey was not exactly high on life. “I had a bit of a humour on,” he says. “It was horrible. One ball was going past your throat, one was going past your ankles. So I decided to have a swing at anything that was in the slot.” He crashed 71 from 104 balls, including nine fours and a six off Patterson. When he reached his half-century, the press box tossed impartiality out the window and stood to applaud.
Willey does not recall the low or Patterson’s studs-up action. “I didn’t see the foot and I didn’t care what was going on behind him,” he says. “You’re just looking for that thing coming down at you.” He was in a higher state of concentration. “Sometimes, it’s not you batting. You’re in the zone. You don’t think about what you’re going to do; it just happens. There’s no time to think.
“You never thought about getting hit. It never entered your head, not even on a day like that. I put the grill on in the first innings and I got out for nought; I couldn’t see the ball. The second innings I put the side flaps on and just watched the ball. It’s like a boxer; you watch the fist. If you watch the ball, 99.9% of the time you’ll find a way to get your head out of the way. Doesn’t matter if it hits you anywhere else.”
When he was dismissed, Willey walked back to the dressing-room and was greeted by Thomas.
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah, fine, why?”
“You look about 150!”
Thomas remembers it well. “He looked like death. Honestly, he was gaunt and pale. And he’s a bloody tough character.”
When he was recalled for the fourth Test in Trinidad, Smith top-scored in both innings with 47 and 32. This being the 80s ... well, you know the rest. He missed the last match through injury and didn’t play another Test. “It gives me a lot of pride to have top-scored in both innings,” he says. “Talking about it makes me go cold because it’s the most exciting thing you can ever do on a cricket field. The thrill was in the challenge, knowing that it was the pinnacle – that you couldn’t go any higher.” Not just in 1986, but ever. Test batting will certainly never be as tough again.
“I was never scared; that never came into it. You know you’ll get hit, but you wipe that out of your head. To me it was a battle. It was like walking around in certain parts of London. I won’t start anything, but if somebody wants to have a row …”
Smith had been picked at the age of 30 after a barnstorming performance against an otherwise rampant Marshall in the County Championship the previous summer. In Trinidad he took on the West Indies to such an extent that his partner Lamb kept trying to shut him up for fear of reprisals. “Patterson hit me and he was standing next to me,” says Smith. “I told him to eff off. Leave me alone! They’re trying to kill you anyway, so whatever. You can’t wind them up anymore! I’m not a thug but I would take people on. Viv was having a few words with me so I pointed my bat at him and said, ‘If you want it as well, you can have it!’ I wouldn’t back down.
It was just part of the battle. I had a huge amount of respect for the West Indian players. It was awesome to play against them.”
With the match approaching its conclusion, Edmonds was hit over the heart by an accidental beamer from Patterson. “I felt,” he said, “as if my chest had caved in.” And that was with the kind of chest protector used by jockeys to protect them from a horse’s kick. As he staggered around like a confused zombie, Edmonds dislodged the bails, and should technically have been given out. Both umpires left the decision to the other, and he was given another life.
In Another Bloody Tour, her famous book of the tour, Edmonds’ wife Frances wrote: “There is a protective bodice, a lot of very thick skin, quite a bit of excess adipose tissue and a wodge of cheque books to penetrate before anyone gets anywhere near Phil Edmonds’ heart.”
The next ball was short, straight into the hip. “The longer the match went on, the less like a civilised game of cricket it became,” wrote Woodcock. “Except on that evening of ill fame at Old Trafford in 1976, when Close and John Edrich were subjected to such a disgraceful barrage by the West Indian fast bowlers, I think I have never felt it more likely that we should see someone killed.”
Edmonds was soon the last man to fall, to give Patterson his seventh wicket of the match. “I wouldn’t say it was shit batting, we just got bowled out,” says Willey. “When you talk to some modern cricketers about the West Indies they say, ‘Ah, they weren’t that quick.’ I’d like to see them face Patterson on those wickets.”
West Indies needed five runs to complete a 10-wicket victory. England lasted 88.2 overs in the match – not eye-catching these days, but almost without precedent in 1986. It was 79 years since they had been bowled out so quickly in both innings of a Test. “Perhaps no team in history would have coped any better,” wrote Engel. “I can’t recall a Test when it was so impossible to foresee any result other than a win for one side.”
There are photos of Edmonds on a beach a few days later, with a grotesque crater just below his left nipple. The mental bruising took even longer to subside. In most mismatches there is a quick finish, a knockout blow or a couple of hours of misery. England had to stand there and take it for the best part of three months. They were getting it from their own, too, with increasingly vituperative criticism of everything from the decision to make some net sessions optional to the inability to repel the greatest bowling attack in history.
“It has been very easy to abuse England on this trip,” wrote Engel. “One or two people in the press box have sounded a bit like Lord Haig, demanding from the comfort of HQ that soldiers hurl themselves against the enemy guns.”
After Jamaica, England looked like a team with a touch of PTSD. “The team talks got shorter and shorter,” laughs Thomas. “There was nothing much to talk about.” A 5-0 defeat was inevitable, and confirmed at Antigua after Richards blasted an astonishing 56-ball century. “After the first Test, the bouncers were never overdone,” said Engel. “There was no need – the batsmen had seen enough.” It was still the toughest assignment in cricket history, especially as at least three of the pitches were dodgy, and England exceeded 200 only twice in 10 innings. There was only one hundred on the entire tour, Gooch’s epic to win the second ODI. In the fourth Test at spin-friendly Trinidad, the West Indies included the off-spinner Roger Harper. He didn’t bowl a single ball. This was the end of the West Indies’ most dominant period, one last series when they postponed the slow, decade-long transition that began when the core of their greatest team started to go over the hill. They drew their next four series, three of them away from home, and although they stuffed England 4-0 in 1988, they had gone from the greatest to merely great. The 1985-86 series was the conclusion of a four-year spell in which they won seven series in a row and had a record of 23 wins and one defeat. And the defeat was in a dead rubber.
LIFE GOES ON
On the first morning of the second Test in Trinidad, Patterson’s first six overs went for 54 as Gower and Lamb launched a breathless counterattack. (Scorecard aficionados will love England’s first innings.) There were 10 no-balls in that, a recurring problem in his career and an indication of how he could struggle if his rhythm was not right. He did not have a classical action to fall back on. The locals said he was never the same away from Sabina Park, too, and eventually he ended his career with 93 wickets at 30.90 from 28 Tests. He did produce some more chilling spells, particularly overseas.There was that day in Melbourne, and in 1987-88 he took five-fours in consecutive Tests in India. The dashing opener Kris Srikkanth recalled one evening in Kolkata. “I knew if I got hit by any of his deliveries, I could die on the spot,” he said in 2009. “He walked down the pitch and gave me cold stares and I felt the chill running down the spine. I survived only because of my reflexes.”
Patterson’s international career ended at the age of 31 when he was sent home from a tour of Australia for disciplinary reasons. He became a paranoid recluse, prompting wild speculation about what had happened to him. Some said he was a destitute drug addict; others that he was in an asylum. He was found last month by the Indian journalist Bharat Sundaresan, the culmination of a six-year search. The result was one of the more poignant features of the year.
– theguardian
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