In the three Tests he played, Hirwani was simply blasted out of shape,illustrated by his figures of six wickets at 57.50 apiece
Partab Ramchand17-May-2002″I am an astrologer, but I am not predicting,” was SrinivasVenkataraghavan’s guarded comment on the eve of the Indian tour of theWest Indies in 1989. The former Indian captain was now the manager ofthe squad, and he had been asked for his views on the team’s chances.
In the three Tests he played, Hirwani was simply blasted out of shape,illustrated by his figures of six wickets at 57.50 apiece. Richardshad promised revenge after the humiliation the West Indies hadsuffered at the hands of Hirwani on an under-prepared Chepauk pitch,saying, “I have a long memory, maan.”
Actually it did not need an astrologer – amateur or professional – topredict the result of the four-match Test series and five one-dayinternationals. The disparity between the two teams was so wide thatalmost anyone could have predicted a rout for the tourists. And thatis exactly how the tour ended, with the West Indies winning the Testseries 3-0, in addition to making a clean sweep of the limited-oversmatches.Looking back on the tour 13 years later, it is difficult to believethat any other result was possible. The West Indies, despite theretirement over the last few years of stars like Clive Lloyd, AndyRoberts, Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Larry Gomes, were still theleading team in the world. Players like Richie Richardson, CarlHooper, Gus Logie, Keith Arthurton, Curtly Ambrose, Ian Bishop andCourtney Walsh had stepped in to effectively breach the gap created bythe exit of the stalwarts. Besides, experienced superstars like VivianRichards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall and JeffDujon were still very much around.With their abysmal record abroad, the Indians became the proverbiallambs to the slaughter. Little went right for them. Both the battingand bowling presented problems, and teamwork and the fighting spiritwere missing. Dilip Vengsarkar lacked the leadership qualities toinspire the side, compounding the unhappy scenario by his uncharitablecomments against his teammates in a magazine interview towards the endof the tour.What was left to savour, then, were a few individual performances, butthese were hardly enough to test the home team, who romped home bymargins of eight wickets, 217 runs and seven wickets after the rainaffected first Test at Georgetown ended in a draw. Indeed, there wasplay only on the first two days of the game, making it the worstaffected by weather in the Caribbean side’s history.Over the next three Tests, the Indians encountered the full weight ofthe West Indian supremacy. The home batsmen scored runs handsomely,while the bowlers gave the Indians a torrid time. Players of thecalibre and experience of Mohammad Azharuddin, Kapil Dev, Arun Lal andVengsarkar were sitting ducks for the pace attack of Marshall, Bishop,Walsh and Ambrose. On the faster and bouncier tracks, they wereshocking failures, lacking both the guts and technique required tocounter the fiery pace of the quartet.The three exceptions were Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sanjay Manjrekar andRavi Shastri. To an extent, the trio displayed courage and the righttemperament, and each was rewarded with a Test hundred which, giventhe strong opposition, was a commendable feat. In addition, Sidhu, bygetting 286 against Jamaica, registered the highest first-class scoreby an Indian outside India, surpassing Polly Umrigar’s 252 not outcompiled against Cambridge University in 1959.If the batting lacked fight, the bowling, woefully inadequate, wasunable to withstand the might of the West Indian batting. Kapilploughed a lonely furrow, as his figures of 18 wickets at 21.50 apiecewill testify. Arshad Ayub, in his own restrictive way, was fairlyeffective. The Hyderabad off-spinner was rewarded for his toil withtwo five-wicket hauls.Chetan Sharma and Ravi Shastri, however, could make no impression,while Narendra Hirwani was the biggest disappointment of the tour. Thebespectacled leg-spinner had come to the Caribbean with a highreputation. Not only had he set a world record by taking 16 for 136 onhis Test debut against the same opponents at Madras a little over ayear earlier, he also had a total haul of 36 wickets in his first fourTests.But in the three Tests he played, Hirwani was simply blasted out ofshape, illustrated by his figures of six wickets at 57.50 apiece.Richards had promised revenge after the humiliation the West Indieshad suffered at the hands of Hirwani on an under-prepared Chepaukpitch, saying, “I have a long memory, maan.” At the end of the series,there was little doubt that he had exacted it in style.To some extent, the Indians were handicapped when vice captainKrishnamachari Srikkanth was hit on the right hand by a ball fromBishop in the final one-day international, played just before thefirst Test. The sickening blow resulted in a broken bone,necessitating the withdrawal of the swashbuckling opening batsman fromthe rest of the tour. Given his capacity to counter-attack the fastbowling threat in his own inimitable buccaneering manner, Srikkanthhaving to miss the Test series was a major blow for the Indians.However, the reasoning that he would have made a marked difference tothe final result must be open to doubt.