• Home
  • Cricket News
  • Most Exciting Day In Test Cricket History Can Now Be Watched On Youtube

Most exciting day in Test cricket history can now be watched on YouTube


High-quality batting, top-class bowling, intense drama, flaring tempers, twists and turns – that day of cricket had everything. It was May 12, 2003 – the fourth day of the final Test in a four-game series between Australia and West Indies. The venue was Antigua and the match had gained great importance. 

Brian Lara-led West Indies had lost all the three Tests in the series so far. If they had lost this match as well, it would have been the first whitewash suffered by that illustrious cricketing nation at home, in a series of four matches or more. What followed was a day of cricket with unprecedented drama and action in the annals of cricket. Thanks to Cricket West Indies, all that action can be relived, or experienced as a viewer for the first time. But before we tell you how, let's give you a summary of what transpired on that day in Antigua and why it is so historic. 

How the match set-up?

Steve Waugh’s Australian team, at the peak of their powers at the time, seemed highly likely to condemn their opponents to the ignominy of a home whitewash. But the hosts, still boasting a group of highly-capable batsmen, were not going to go down without a fight. They managed to restrict Australia to just 240 in the first innings. However, they also scored the exact same number of runs in their first innings.

Matthew Hayden’s big hundred led Australia to 417 in their second innings, giving West Indies a target of 418 to win the match and avoid the whitewash. Time was not an issue. Things seemed bad for the beleaguered Caribbean side, especially since such a big target had never been successfully chased before in Test cricket. 

Roller-coaster ride on Day 4

On the penultimate day of the match, at the famous Antigua Recreation Ground, West Indies lost the wickets of their openers – Chris Gayle and Devon Smith – early. Darren Ganga, who had scored two hundreds in the series so far, was also dismissed cheaply when the score was at 74. Hosts seemed doomed. 

But then, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Brian Lara, the latter in great form throughout the series, decided to dig in and fight it out. Lara soon started unleashing those strokes from his repertoire which used to mesmerize all connoisseurs of the game. Not surprisingly, he decided to most severely attack Stuart MacGill – the leading spinner for Australia due to the ban on Shane Warne for taking banned substances. 

In his characteristic style, Lara charged down the wicket several times to the leg-spinner and hit him over long-on for sixes. The partnership between Lara and Sarwan bloomed and the score reached 165. But then, at the personal score of 60, Lara came down the wicket to MacGill again, only to be beaten this time by the leggie. The ball went through the left-hander’s defences and hit the stumps. 

This brought to the wicket West Indies batting line-up’s rock, Shivnarine Chanderpaul. The two Guyanese batsmen then formed a wonderful partnership that started to revive West Indies’ hopes. In the meanwhile, Glenn McGrath, whom we later learned had just discovered about his wife’s cancer, got into a very ugly verbal spat with Sarwan which involved blatant finger-pointing and vile personal abuses. 

The highly animated West Indian crowds let McGrath have a piece of their mind when he went to field on the boundary after this altercation. Waugh then changed McGrath’s position to get him away from the Windies supporters’ ire. But this didn’t derail the partnership and Sarwan eventually reached his hundred. 

Following a 123-run partnership, Sarwan was dismissed when he top-edged a pull shot off a Brett Lee delivery. After taking the catch off his own bowling, Lee rushed towards McGrath and grabbed his legs to hoist him up. The score was 288/5. 

The very next delivery was a sharp bouncer from Lee that lobbed up in the air after hitting the new batsman Ridley Jacobs’ elbow. However, the pacer started celebrating even before wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist took the catch. After much wait, umpire David Shepherd raised his finger, much to the amazement of the batsman. When the replay was shown on the big screen and the error of the umpire revealed, angry crowds couldn’t hold back their emotions and started throwing bottles and other stuff on the field of play. 

After a brief halt, play resumed. Amidst, all this drama, Chanderpaul retained his unflinching focus and continued to bat smoothly. Eventually, the left-hander reached his century. The man at the other end, 20-year-old spinner Omari Banks, came close to getting out on multiple occasions. He was dropped in the slips twice and another edge went over the cordon. 

Conclusion of the story

But Chanderpaul and Banks saw the day’s play to a close, adding 83 for the seventh wicket. West Indies now needed just 47 to win on the final day. Despite losing the wicket of Chanderpaul with the addition of just one run on day 5, the hosts ended up making the world record for the highest successful chase thanks to Banks and the number 9 batsman Vasbert Drakes. 

How to watch it all?

Now, you can watch almost the entire innings, with all the drama on day 4 of the Test, on YouTube thanks to West Indies cricket board’s YouTube channel. The nearly 8-hour video would take you down the memory lane and also let you witness one of the greatest days in Test cricket history. Watch it here 

Powered by Froala Editor

Discover more

Top Stories
news

Couldn't watch New Zealand vs West Indies? Here's why

The first T20I in a three-match series between hosts New Zealand and West Indies turned out to be a high-voltage affair, albeit in a truncated form. The Kiwis were able to register an impressive 5-wicket win in this 16 overs-a-side match after the Windies recovered from 59/5 to post 180/7 in their innings. But if you were an Indian cricket fan who wanted to watch this match, alongside or instead of the India vs Australia ODI, you would have been left frustrated searching for the live telecast on TV and prominent streaming platforms. So, where was the live coverage? Well, the answer lies in the new deal that New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has signed for the coverage of cricket they host in India. Till now, matches played in New Zealand were telecasted by the Star Sports network through their channels and Hotstar on internet. But now, NZC has struck a deal with Amazon that gives the latter’s video streaming platform – Amazon Prime Video - the exclusive rights to telecast cricket played in New Zealand in India. This is a major breakthrough for Amazon as they enter the cricket telecast market for the first time. Amazon Prime Video has been making quite a splash in the entertainment sector with various movies and drama series gaining attention. The gaining of cricket broadcasting rights might signal Amazon India’s intention to get into the cricket broadcasting business in a big way. It already streams sports like football and tennis from prestigious tournaments. The deal with last until the 2025/26 season. New Zealand Cricket’s broadcasting rights don’t have as much value in India as those of Australia and England in India due to the inconvenient timings. Test matches in the country get underway at 3:30 AM IST while even the day-night ODIs have to begin very early in the morning. Still, international cricket’s value as a television commodity remains substantial. The improved performances of the Kiwi side as well as the growing popularity of cricketers from the country also provide some special attraction to the matches played New Zealand.

news

Found his hands: Twitter reacts as Smith & Finch tear apart Indian bowling

The three Australian batsmen who had to bear the brunt in the Indian Premier League for not being able to play to their potential, once again proved that they are worth the talk and they know how to probe potential. While Skipper Aaron Finch and former skipper Steve Smith hit brilliant hundreds and shaped the two phases of the Aussie innings in Sydney, Maxwell was the much-needed injection to boost the innings and get it past 340-350 score to a huge 373. Twitteratis, while appreciating the Aussie batsmen, didn’t’ forget to mention the fact how badly they performed in the IPL. Smith, who had said earlier that he found his hands were also helped by dropped catches as two chances were given to the local boy, who cashed in brilliantly on them and scored 105 of 66 balls with the help of 11 fours and six sixes. Finch though, had started cautiously with fellow opening partner David Warner, scoring a fabulous hundred (115 of 124 balls) and thereby laying down a solid foundation for the hitters to exploded. And rightly did Glenn Maxwell. The Big Show indeed showed how important a place he holds in the team as it was with his 19 balls 45 that lifted Australia after the fall of two quick wickets in the form of Finch and Stoinis. While most of the tweets were cricket related, one tweet that got the love of even the entertainment industry was in a reference to Big Boss contestants Siddharth Shukla and Shehnaaz Gill. The Indian batsmen have a tough job in their hands now but have started strongly as at the time of writing this news, they were none for 46 after four overs.