[VIDEO] West Indies win a thriller versus Pakistan at Bridgetown (3rd Test last day, 1988)

[MenInG]

32 years today Pakistan won a famous Test Match in Georgetown.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...1st-test-pakistan-tour-of-west-indies-1987-88

However, there is limited footage available from that famous hard fought series which is a great shame. There is newly uploaded footage available from the 3rd Test of the same series however which West Indies narrowly won to tie the series 1-1. It is worth having a look at. Pakistan came so close to doing the unthinkable of winning a series in the West Indies during a dominant era in West Indies cricketing history.

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Scorecard:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...3rd-test-pakistan-tour-of-west-indies-1987-88

 

[Robert]

A brilliant series. WI were creaking a little by then, but it was a tremendous achievement by Pakistan to hold them in their yard.

 

[Deewana Mastana]

A brilliant series. WI were creaking a little by then, but it was a tremendous achievement by Pakistan to hold them in their yard.

Indeed it was a brilliant series. I remember watching it live, Pakistan played some really good cricket coming so close to beating WI in their own backyard while they were a force back then.

 

[Junaids]

The coverage was uploaded for the first time ever a few months ago.

It bears out the story that the umpires won it for the West Indies: in reality they weren’t deposed as world champions by Australia in 1995 but rather by Pakistan in 1988.

 

[jeeteshssaxena]

The coverage was uploaded for the first time ever a few months ago.

It bears out the story that the umpires won it for the West Indies: in reality they weren’t deposed as world champions by Australia in 1995 but rather by Pakistan in 1988.

Well the umpire logic works well for pakistan but not for indians in 2007.

 

[Junaids]

Well the umpire logic works well for pakistan but not for indians in 2007.

India and the West Indies played with neutral umpires.

Pakistan and the West Indies played with West Indian umpires.

Big, big, big difference.

 

[Junaids]

This coverage is really the Holy Grail for cricket lovers over the age of 45.

This was the most important Test series for decades, and was the highest quality Test series ever played: the West Indians and Imran Khan agreed unanimously that it came closer to the quality of Packer’s SuperTests than any other Test series they ever played.

But it wasn’t televised. I followed it via Ceefax teletext in the UK, with hourly score updates. And the BBC World Service and Radio 2 had hourly radio updates for the Port of Spain and Bridgetown Tests, but not the Georgetown one due to the primitive conditions in Guyana.

This sole piece of surviving footage was made for Barbados TV news. But neither this tour nor India’s twelve months later was broadcast live.

The first televised series in the West Indies came two years later, when England toured and Sky provided live coverage from the West Indies for the first time ever.

 

[Savak]

It was unacceptable for Pakistan to fail to take the last 2 wickets, missed opportunity in 1988 and then in 2000 and even worse in 2005 and 2011. Its fitting that a weaker Pakistan team in 2017 finally beat WI in WI

 

[ManFan]

It was unacceptable for Pakistan to fail to take the last 2 wickets, missed opportunity in 1988 and then in 2000 and even worse in 2005 and 2011. Its fitting that a weaker Pakistan team in 2017 finally beat WI in WI

You can’t take two wickets with the umpires being the 12th and 13th man on the field.

Billy Doctrove’s 2000 officiating was a disgrace and he even apologized to Wasim Akram personally years later for it.

 

[Junaids]

It was unacceptable for Pakistan to fail to take the last 2 wickets, missed opportunity in 1988 and then in 2000 and even worse in 2005 and 2011. Its fitting that a weaker Pakistan team in 2017 finally beat WI in WI

You can’t take two wickets with the umpires being the 12th and 13th man on the field.

Billy Doctrove’s 2000 officiating was a disgrace and he even apologized to Wasim Akram personally years later for it.

I don’t think you have understood the context: it might need a geriatric old fool like me to explain.

Test matches in the West Indies commonly descended into crowd riots when the West Indies were not winning in the days before the invincible team.

In 1973-74 umpire Douglas Sang Hue precipitated a riot at Port of Spain by giving Kallicharran out. Five years later a weakened West Indies was under pressure at Kingston and the same thing happened.

When Pakistan batted first at Bridgetown in 87-88 they probably gave away any chance of victory. The only way they were going to win was by hitting the stumps, but as this footage shows when they hit the batsmen on the back foot plumb in front with the West Indies 8 down, the inevitable decision was “Not Out”.

In many ways the most important legacy of Imran Khan in international cricket was Neutral Umpires. And this footage shows why.

 

[Savak]

You can’t take two wickets with the umpires being the 12th and 13th man on the field.

Billy Doctrove’s 2000 officiating was a disgrace and he even apologized to Wasim Akram personally years later for it.

When you have Imran Khan, a young Wasim Akram, Abdul Qadir bowling, you can take the umpires out of the equation as should have been done in 1988.

 

[Savak]

I don’t think you have understood the context: it might need a geriatric old fool like me to explain.

Test matches in the West Indies commonly descended into crowd riots when the West Indies were not winning in the days before the invincible team.

In 1973-74 umpire Douglas Sang Hue precipitated a riot at Port of Spain by giving Kallicharran out. Five years later a weakened West Indies was under pressure at Kingston and the same thing happened.

When Pakistan batted first at Bridgetown in 87-88 they probably gave away any chance of victory. The only way they were going to win was by hitting the stumps, but as this footage shows when they hit the batsmen on the back foot plumb in front with the West Indies 8 down, the inevitable decision was “Not Out”.

In many ways the most important legacy of Imran Khan in international cricket was Neutral Umpires. And this footage shows why.

The bowlers on display in 1988 were good enough to take the umpires out of the equation. They should have been able to clean bowl the batsmen.

 

[ManFan]

When you have Imran Khan, a young Wasim Akram, Abdul Qadir bowling, you can take the umpires out of the equation as should have been done in 1988.

Easier said than done.

Same can be said of Australia when they failed to remove Mushtaq Ahmed in 94’ or Walsh in 99’.

 

[Junaids]

The bowlers on display in 1988 were good enough to take the umpires out of the equation. They should have been able to clean bowl the batsmen.

I know!

But if you watch the footage, the batsmen ended up batting ridiculously deep in their crease because they knew they would not be given out LBW in any circumstances.

Also:

1. Imran Khan was worn out by the final Test: he had bowled his 35 year old body into the ground and struggled with the footmarks at Bridgetown.

2. Wasim Akram had torn his groin, and most of the Bridgetown Test he bowled off a three or four pace run-up.

3. Abdul Qadir was always mentally fragile. If you watch his bowling in this clip - and remember that he punched a spectator that day - you see that he was actually bowling rubbish, in my opinion because he couldn’t handle the pressure.

And the third seamer was Saleem Jaffer, and Imran just did not trust him. Not at all.

 

[Savak]

I know for a fact that if a 95-96 mph Waqar or Akhtar failed to clean up No 10, No 11 if 60 runs were required and 2 wickets were remaining regardless of whether the umpires were biased in favor of the home team, they would be crucified like no tomorrow.

 

[Junaids]

Let’s be honest: Imran Khan bottled it in the fourth innings.

He overbowled Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir - for 63 overs out of 77.

He got spooked by himself and Saleem Jaffer getting attacked, and he hid both from the batsmen.

But in the clip on display he probably needed the extra variety of a different angle - not just his own right-arm inswing but also that whereas Wasim mainly bowled at the stumps, Jaffer angled his left-arm across the batsmen towards the slips. And with LBW out of the equation that might have been invaluable!

 

[Savak]

This was the last time Imran ever picked 10 wickets in an innings in a series. After this the team went to NZ and from there on out Imran as a bowler was finished. He started to utilize himself as a part time all round bowler who would help to share the workload but decided to make the likes of Wasim, Waqar, Aqib the spearheads of the bowling attack

 

[Junaids]

I know for a fact that if a 95-96 mph Waqar or Akhtar failed to clean up No 10, No 11 if 60 runs were required and 2 wickets were remaining regardless of whether the umpires were biased in favor of the home team, they would be crucified like no tomorrow.

Very true.

But 87-88 was a complicated time.

Imran Khan had “retired” for six months after the World Cup, and that had taken the edge off his pace and stamina.

Wasim Akram was half-fit.

Abdul Qadir was a shadow of his former self, but Mushtaq Ahmed had only exploded onto the scene in the side match at Sahiwal five months earlier and wasn’t ready for Tests, let alone against the West Indies.

If you go forward 18 months to the tour of Australia, Imran Khan was utterly finished and Abdul Qadir was already gone and replaced by Mushie.

 

[Savak]

I feel the Pakistani team in that tour don't get enough credit for their performances. They were battered 5-0 nil in the ODI series but they showed tremendous character to win the first test match and almost win the last one against a great side which was at the end of its reign at the top. Ramiz Raja calls it one of his favorite tours and attributed Imran's competitive hard working spirit behind the turn around whereas the rest of the team was demoralized after the odi series but imran came from the school of thought that you don't run away from your challenges thinking they will go away, he demanded all the Pakistani batsmen put in the hard yards in the nets and the team practiced very hard against the short pitched deliveries with a wet tennis ball so that they could be prepared for the barrage to come from the West Indies pace attack.

Imran came back specifically for this tour and he wanted one final crack at the West Indies in the West Indies, he was always motivated by the highest possible challenge.

 

[Junaids]

I feel the Pakistani team in that tour don't get enough credit for their performances. They were battered 5-0 nil in the ODI series but they showed tremendous character to win the first test match and almost win the last one against a great side which was at the end of its reign at the top. Ramiz Raja calls it one of his favorite tours and attributed Imran's competitive hard working spirit behind the turn around whereas the rest of the team was demoralized after the odi series but imran came from the school of thought that you don't run away from your challenges thinking they will go away, he demanded all the Pakistani batsmen put in the hard yards in the nets and the team practiced very hard against the short pitched deliveries with a wet tennis ball so that they could be prepared for the barrage to come from the West Indies pace attack.

Imran came back specifically for this tour and he wanted one final crack at the West Indies in the West Indies, he was always motivated by the highest possible challenge.

Perfectly put.

I’ve lost it, but there’s a brilliant write up of this tour in the 1989 Benson and Hedges Caribbean Cricket Annual.

Tony Cozier made the same point as Richards, Greenidge, Haynes and Imran: this was the highest standard of official Test cricket ever played, and came close to the level of the Packer SuperTests.

 

[Kaddy]

Wow this is the first time ever, i saw any footage of that historic series.
I always thought Imran khan must have been injured in the last innings because he bowled only 6 overs in the fourth innings. But in this footage i saw him bowling on the last day. So, if he wasn't injured, he should have bowled more. He gave too many overs to Abdul Qadir, against whom batsmen were scoring freely.
His indippers would have been more effective against tailenders.

 

[Markhor]

Daylight robbery.

Still, that was a fantastic trilogy of series in 1986, 1988 and 1990 between two of the best sides of the 1980s.

The defeat in Guyana was the only home Test defeat for West Indies in the 1980s, and this series was the only time a touring side avoided defeat in the Caribbean between 1974 and 1995 !

 

[Junaids]

Wow this is the first time ever, i saw any footage of that historic series.
I always thought Imran khan must have been injured in the last innings because he bowled only 6 overs in the fourth innings. But in this footage i saw him bowling on the last day. So, if he wasn't injured, he should have bowled more. He gave too many overs to Abdul Qadir, against whom batsmen were scoring freely.
His indippers would have been more effective against tailenders.

People often think that Imran was more attacking than he really was.

He was tactically a very defensive, attritional skipper whose first instinct was to avoid defeat. He had his triumphant first series wins in India and England in 1987......but actually drew 8 of those 10 Tests, and each series ended up

Won 1
Drew 4
Lost 0

But Imran wasn’t an early Misbah. He played similar tactics, but tended to blood very young players as captain, whereas Misbah just wouldn’t.

With the West Indies needing 266 to win, Imran got freaked out when he and Saleem Jaffer were attacked by Richie Richardson on the fourth afternoon. He decided to stick with Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir, and Qadir removed Richardson and Logie so the West Indies closed at 154-5.

The problem was that Imran had shown Richards - who was still at the crease - his fear and that he would rely on Wasim and Qadir if he and Jaffer were attacked.

The next morning, Wasim quickly removed the night-watchman Ambrose. But Richards again attacked and again Imran responded by bowling Wasim and Qadir into the ground.

The two bowlers are absolutely exhausted by the time you see them in this footage.

Yes, the umpiring was clearly biased and determined not to provoke a riot by letting Pakistan win. But Imran Khan didn’t handle his attack well: with only 110 more required he overbowled two bowlers terribly, and that was very costly when you consider that the underbowled pair were of the quality of himself and Saleem Jaffer.

 

[Swashbuckler]

T
This was the most important Test series for decades, and was the highest quality Test series ever played

For those of us who didn't follow this series, how did you come to that conclusion? Was it of higher standard than 2001 Ind-Aus or 2005 Ashes? Sure these were all legendary encounters but how to rank the quality? #1 and #2 can come up with a low quality albeit thrilling match while some lower ranked team can peak out of nowhere against #1 and elevate quality, we see that in many sports.

 

[Savak]

People often think that Imran was more attacking than he really was.

He was tactically a very defensive, attritional skipper whose first instinct was to avoid defeat. He had his triumphant first series wins in India and England in 1987......but actually drew 8 of those 10 Tests, and each series ended up

Won 1
Drew 4
Lost 0

But Imran wasn’t an early Misbah. He played similar tactics, but tended to blood very young players as captain, whereas Misbah just wouldn’t.

With the West Indies needing 266 to win, Imran got freaked out when he and Saleem Jaffer were attacked by Richie Richardson on the fourth afternoon. He decided to stick with Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir, and Qadir removed Richardson and Logie so the West Indies closed at 154-5.

The problem was that Imran had shown Richards - who was still at the crease - his fear and that he would rely on Wasim and Qadir if he and Jaffer were attacked.

The next morning, Wasim quickly removed the night-watchman Ambrose. But Richards again attacked and again Imran responded by bowling Wasim and Qadir into the ground.

The two bowlers are absolutely exhausted by the time you see them in this footage.

Yes, the umpiring was clearly biased and determined not to provoke a riot by letting Pakistan win. But Imran Khan didn’t handle his attack well: with only 110 more required he overbowled two bowlers terribly, and that was very costly when you consider that the underbowled pair were of the quality of himself and Saleem Jaffer.

Saleem Jaffar and Imran Khan should have bowled more to distribute the workload

 

[Junaids]

For those of us who didn't follow this series, how did you come to that conclusion? Was it of higher standard than 2001 Ind-Aus or 2005 Ashes? Sure these were all legendary encounters but how to rank the quality? #1 and #2 can come up with a low quality encounter while some lower ranked team can peak out of nowhere and elevate quality, we see that in many sports.

The difference was the pressure every second of the last two Tests.

From the beginning to end of both those Tests the match and series could have gone either way.

It was a little like when Flintoff comforted Lee in 2005. Except every minute of every session for 9 days and 1 session was constantly like that. Again, the amazing Stokes performance at Headingley 2019 was a tenth wicket thing. This was every second of the last two Tests.

Between Ceefax and BBC Radio I had roughly four score updates per session, and it was heartstoppingly exciting, and just changed so fast.

 

[Junaids]

It’s hard to explain to younger people how that series was “watched” overseas. I’m not sure how old [MENTION=9]Saj[/MENTION] is, but if he is over 45 he will remember what I say next.

Ceefax was a teletext service in which you could get rudimentary internet style updates on TV on certain channels.

In the UK there were roughly hourly score updates but only if your TV channel was BBC1.

I remember in the First Test at Georgetown in the First Innings the West Indies went to Tea just before the all-female Police show “Cagney and Lacey” was broadcast. And they were 220-4, which was a dominant position in an era in which 350 was a gigantic score.

Ceefax updated at the end of the show, 50 minutes later. Imran Khan had taken 7-80 and the West Indies had collapsed to 292 all out!

That’s how you followed overseas Tests in those days!

 

[Mainul]

It was one of the greatest choking in test cricket history. What a failure by Pakistan. A great mistake by Imran to bowl Qadir in tandem even when he was being hit fours and sixes even by Benjamin. A great opportunity missed.

 

[Kaddy]

People often think that Imran was more attacking than he really was.

He was tactically a very defensive, attritional skipper whose first instinct was to avoid defeat. He had his triumphant first series wins in India and England in 1987......but actually drew 8 of those 10 Tests, and each series ended up

Won 1
Drew 4
Lost 0

But Imran wasn’t an early Misbah. He played similar tactics, but tended to blood very young players as captain, whereas Misbah just wouldn’t.

With the West Indies needing 266 to win, Imran got freaked out when he and Saleem Jaffer were attacked by Richie Richardson on the fourth afternoon. He decided to stick with Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir, and Qadir removed Richardson and Logie so the West Indies closed at 154-5.

The problem was that Imran had shown Richards - who was still at the crease - his fear and that he would rely on Wasim and Qadir if he and Jaffer were attacked.

The next morning, Wasim quickly removed the night-watchman Ambrose. But Richards again attacked and again Imran responded by bowling Wasim and Qadir into the ground.

The two bowlers are absolutely exhausted by the time you see them in this footage.

Yes, the umpiring was clearly biased and determined not to provoke a riot by letting Pakistan win. But Imran Khan didn’t handle his attack well: with only 110 more required he overbowled two bowlers terribly, and that was very costly when you consider that the underbowled pair were of the quality of himself and Saleem Jaffer.

In that case he missed a great opportunity to create the history.
Regarding 1987 series against India, yes Pakistan played defensively in the first four test matches, pitches were good for batting and India had a very good batting lineup for those conditions. It wasn't easy for that Pakistani bowling lineup to take 20 wickets. So, i think what he did was right.
But anyway thanks a lot, i enjoyed reading your analysis. Your knowledge of the game is impressive.

 

[mobins]

Indeed it was a brilliant series. I remember watching it live, Pakistan played some really good cricket coming so close to beating WI in their own backyard while they were a force back then.

where did you watch it?it was not televised in pakistan