Shane Warne gave the Aussies an early lead but Curtly Ambrose had the final say. Brian Lara relives the epic 1992-93 series with SHANNON GILL.
Bill Clinton hadn’t been inaugurated as US President, cable TV wasn’t connected in Australia, and Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” had just dethroned Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart” as the No. 1 song. 1 on the Australian Charts.
Pat Cummins and Kraigg Brathwaite weren’t even born yet.
The world was a very different place the last time the West Indies began a winning Test series with Australia in the summer of 1992-93.
“It’s going to be one of the best series I’ve ever played,” Brian Lara told CODE Sports.
The tournament team was seen as inferior to those that had preceded them; Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Jeff Dujon and Malcolm Marshall had all retired since the West Indies last played Australia in a Test series.
Lesser lights such as Phil Simmons, Keith Arthurton, Junior Murray and Kenny Benjamin took their place, with Richie Richardson, now captain. Richardson, it seemed, was presiding over a crumbling empire, and this series would be an official changing of the guard.
“He would have emphasized [Richardson] outside”, says Lara. “He was coming after some great leaders, Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards. Maintaining that record was always going to be difficult with the young players he had to deal with.
“We had a much younger team, we were cautious and Australia were pretty confident they could get a win for the first time in many, many years.”
The 91-day schedule was grueling and the cricket intense from the first Test.
Having passed on 58 at the Gabba, Lara was beaten in flight by Greg Matthews and the ball bounced off his pads to Ian Healy, who apparently bowled the ball over the stumps.
Lara walked out in a daze, but showed him Heal’s gloves.
Replays showed that Healy had broken the stumps, but by then the ball had clearly gone the other way. It never came out, but Australia’s consciousness didn’t extend to holidays in a pre-DRS era. It still bothers Lara.
“It was a big shock, to be honest,” says Lara. “It was an important test match for both teams, but a few things went out the window for me.
“I was an honest and impressionable young cricketer. It immediately showed how tough this was going to be.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQPHrcVyJqY
West Indies drew in Brisbane but lost heavily in Melbourne. First innings centuries from Mark Waugh (112) and Allan Border (110) were complemented by a masterful second innings from Shane Warne (7-52) as the Australians won the Boxing Day Test by 139 runs.
By that point, Lara’s image looming over the Gabba ground as jubilant Australians celebrated around him was symbolic of the West Indies’ summer.
“Getting on that plane from Melbourne to Sydney, we were very worried,” Lara recalls. “Three test matches left, one in Sydney. Shane Warne has just destroyed us at the MCG. So what will happen at SCG?
Then Lara himself went to the spin-friendly SCG for the third Test with his team in serious trouble. Steve Waugh’s century had allowed the Australians to declare their first innings closed at 9-503 and early strikes from Craig McDermott and Matthews had sent Phil Simmons and Desmond Haynes back to the pavilion.
Lara’s precocity was well known by that point, but options were limited. He reckons he had been 12th man for the West Indies “for 20 Tests” but soaked up the off-field experiences while he waited.
“I remember the day I started listening to cricket on the radio, Viv Richards was playing,” says Lara. “To be in the same team with players of his caliber and Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, it was unbelievable.”
At the SCG he combined the lessons of the legends with his secret weapon: an inner belief that his youth and schools career in Trinidad and Tobago had prepared him more for spin than the pace bowling associated with Caribbean cricket in that time.
He started his innings with the scoreboard at 2-31.
Three hundred and seventy-two balls and 474 minutes later, he had made history.
“The most significant moment in that tournament was coming off the field for a rain break and being congratulated by the players for my first century,” Lara told CODE Sports.
“[Coach] Rohan Kanhai said, “Just remember that your next innings starts with zero.” We were still in a precarious position, so I knew what he meant – don’t go out. From that moment on, I fell in love with the shot for long periods. It wasn’t just about getting another 50 or 100.
“I knew I had won the war with the bowlers that day and I wasn’t going to give it up until the cows came home. Everything was just perfect. At one point I felt invincible.”
Not only did he have 277 career hits, but it was also a streak.
Border said the innings damaged Australia’s confidence.
After such an imposing race, Lara would have preferred to start the next Test as soon as possible, but a one-day plate helped his team-mates find the winning tone as well as they took the World Series Cup from Australia.
****
A few weeks later, standing at the slips in Adelaide with Australia nine wickets down and batting the West Indies to a solitary run, Lara felt anything but invincible.
February Ambrose had already claimed 10 wickets for the match, but Tim May and McDermott had added 40 runs for the ninth wicket in a match defined by low-scoring fast bowling and brutal, painful overs.
“I was praying that the ball wouldn’t slide, my hands were sweating, I was nervous,” admits Lara. “I was almost in tears.”
Courtney Walsh eventually dismissed McDermott and gave West Indies a series-ending one-run win. It remains one of the most infamous sequences in Australian cricket history and, according to Lara, one of the most famous in the Caribbean.
“If we had lost that Test match, we would have lost the series and that would be the first time in 12 years,” says Lara. “So to win it like we did was unbelievable.”
With the series and West Indies’ era of dominance on the line days later in Perth, Lara and the team knew they were “now at the top of the series”.
However, despite that moment, Australia progressed to 2-85 at lunch on day one at the WACA Ground. Lara, just seven Tests into his career, decided it was time to speak.
“I mentioned it in a little huddle before we went out on the field [after lunch]”, says Lara. “‘These Australian batsmen are not supposed to be in the position they are in, we are taking it easy.’
“The pitch offered a lot to the fast bowlers at the start and we didn’t pitch in the right places and we had to fix that. Perth was known to be a pitch that cracked a lot, so coming in fourth, you don’t want to need to score over 200 runs.”
“Ambrose came out after lunch and it was incredible.”
Whether it was Lara’s words, or simply seizing the moment, Ambrose claimed seven Australian wickets in 32 balls.
Only one run was conceded in the spell.
Lara says it is the best bowling he has ever seen.
“We were back inside for an hour,” he recalls. “It definitely destroyed the confidence of the Australians, that was the end of their mental attitude in battle. We followed that.”
Ambrose and Ian Bishop took a combined 17 wickets in the match as the Australians were bowled out for 119 and 178. West Indies won by an innings and 25 runs and the series 2-1.
Richardson lifted the Frank Worrell Trophy and Ambrose was named player of the Test series, player of the final one-day series and won the international cricketer of the year award.
For the latter, he was awarded a Nissan Patrol that sparked some of the most iconic celebrations ever seen on a cricket pitch.
Lara says the Windies checked with the sponsor before creating the money-can’t-buy exposure. Accordingly, the entire West Indies touring team was packed into, or on top of, the vehicle as Ambrose toured the WACA.
“We asked permission how many of us could get in the car,” says Lara. “We were told you can come in, you can go to the top and you’ll get a new one, so get out there and celebrate.
“We were under pressure for a lot of that series, so to come out on top and win it … It was a great celebration.”
Richardson even strummed a guitar in the middle of it all, a precursor to the reggae group fronted by Ambrose and Richardson Big bad fear & Bald head that formed after the career.
“If you were on the same floor as them in the team hotel, you could hear them at an ungodly hour. I wouldn’t call it a group, I would call it noise”, laughs Lara.
It was the last victory party the West Indies had after an Australian Test series.
“It was a long time ago, but we still look at that Test series,” concludes Lara. “It has quietly held that group of cricketers together that no other series has done since.
“We still remember him.”
Catch every ball of the Australia v West Indies Test Series live and tune in ad-free during the game on Fox Cricket, available on Foxtel and Kayo Sports.
