Antigua has long since boasted of its 365 beaches but a quarter of a century ago it was briefly the island of 375 runs. In the 1990s it used to be the last staging post for weary and battered English cricketers before they could return home to lick their wounds and contemplate shuffling on to the front foot once more against gentle English seamers in early May.
However when England started the fifth and final Test of their 1994 tour they had at least been bolstered by their astonishing 208-run victory in Barbados. This win was all the more staggering since they had been bundled out for 46 in Trinidad in the previous Test. It is unlikely that Mark Ramprakash, England’s batting coach, has forgotten that experience. Indeed in the wake of last week’s 77 all out he might draw on that memory to remind his batsmen how quickly it is possible to atone for a batting collapse.
England took to the field in Antigua on 16 April 1994 and within half an hour West Indies were 12 for two, with a wicket each for Andy Caddick and Angus Fraser. Whereupon England’s progress stalled. By the end of the first day West Indies were 274 for three with Brian Lara unbeaten on 164 and the pitch was sleeping. By lunchtime on the second day there was a buzz around the ground. Even then everyone sensed that Lara was going to break the world record of Sir Garfield Sobers, who had hit 365 not out at Sabina Park against Pakistan 36 years earlier, the highest ever Test score. Steps were taken to ensure that Sobers would be in Antigua in time.
By the end of the second day Lara was on 320 out of the West Indies’ 502 for four. The cricketing world was now on tenterhooks. Lara himself could not sleep because of the impending landmark. Having woken early he took himself off to the golf course and played nine holes in an attempt to pass the time and clear the mind. On that third morning his fluency at the crease had disappeared. Somehow the pitch was too moribund for strokeplay and the outfield was ever more cloying. A full house, augmented by many policemen, had to be patient. The outcome of the match was fast becoming an irrelevance but the imminence of a famous record being broken was a source of tension out on the field and in the BBC commentary box, where I was stationed.
Test Match Special had the rights and I was working for them as well as the Observer. Unusually Peter Baxter, the producer, had asked me to act as a commentator rather than a summariser on that tour. Since I was only required to deliver a match report on Saturday’s play this allowed Christopher Martin-Jenkins, then the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent, time to go off and meet the tricky deadlines that a Caribbean tour presents. So the commentators in Antigua comprised Jonathan Agnew, CMJ, Henry Blofeld and myself and on that Monday morning we were all staring at Baxter’s rota more earnestly than usual, making our calculations.
The commentator would be on air for 20 minutes but in whose 20 minutes would Lara break the record? On the horizon was a great moment for Lara but there was also the possibility of minor immortality for the person describing the record for listeners live on air and subsequently in clips that would be replayed countless times around the world. My guess is that the old troupers – though Agnew had only been doing the job for a couple of years – were keen to be that man on air when Lara passed 365. They might have been contemplating a few bon mots in between watching the clock on a morning when Lara was progressing rather more slowly than usual. As the greenhorn I was not so sure whether I wanted to be the man clutching the microphone when history was made. There were butterflies in the box.
The rota had me taking over from CMJ at 11.50am. At 11.44 Lara cover drove Caddick for four to reach 365. At 11.46 in the next over Shivnarine Chanderpaul took a single off Chris Lewis to give Lara the strike. Mike Atherton made his field changes deliberately, bringing his men in tight to save the single. At 11.47 Lewis ran in to bowl and, deserting the advice of Phil Tufnell, he tried a bouncer. Lara hooked; the ball beat the field and there was bedlam. Policemen and women ran on to the field as did hundreds of fans; more sedately Sobers, who was on hand to congratulate Lara, ambled out with his minders and gave the record-breaker a hug.
I’m sure that CMJ described the shot and the initial celebrations far better than I could possibly have done. And then he handed me the microphone … whereupon nothing happened for 10 minutes. The police officers, who seemed to be revelling in such proximity to history, ushered Sobers from the field and then they eventually turned their attention to the fans on the pitch. There was no cricket to report to the listeners for what seemed a very long time.
Like most others there I missed a tiny detail of the history-making shot. Years later Jack Russell, who was keeping wicket that day, revealed that Lara’s foot flicked the stumps as he completed his hook shot and that he was relieved that the bail stayed in place so that he did not have to appeal. “I thought to myself that if I do, I won’t make it home. I’ll be lynched” recalled Russell. “In the end the bail stayed on the stumps though slightly out of its slot.” Had it fallen I’m not sure this would have been spotted from the commentary box. Lara finished with 375 and apart from his landmark the match was a forgettable, run-soaked draw.
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