On this day in 2000: England blow away West Indies in a two-day Test
The English summer of 2000 witnessed one of the best Test series of all time. West Indies arrived in England with an unstable top order and a middle-order that was short of confidence. However, they still had the services of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, two of the world’s best bowlers at the time.
The Caribbean team got off to a good start to the five-match Test series. They won the first Test in Edgbaston by an innings and 93 runs. They lost the second Test in Lord’s inside three days while they managed to escape with a fighting draw in Manchester in the third Test. With the two matches left, the teams arrived at Leeds in Headingley.
English pacers make a cracking start
West Indies captain Jimmy Adams won the toss and elected to bat first. England were playing with four seamers and somehow that didn’t bother the West Indies team. But on a cloudy Headingley morning, the English pacers ran through the West Indies top order. Craig White and Darren Gough reduced them to 60 for 5 before lunch on day one.
Then there was a fightback from a young Guyanese batter who would turn out to be a gem for West Indies cricket in the years to come. Ramnaresh Sarwan made a confident 59 runs from 82 balls while Ridley Jacobs managed 35 runs. But that was pretty much it. West Indies were bowled out for 172 runs in less than 50 overs. White finished with a five-wicket haul while Gough and Dominic Cork got three and two wickets each.
Collective collapses
What seemed like a great opportunity for England to capitalize was reduced to a Walsh-Ambrose show. By the end of the first day’s play, England were at 105 for 5. Michael Vaughan though held himself together to see through the day. The next morning, he along with Graeme Hick, forged a match-turning partnership. The 98-run stand between the two saw Hick score 59 runs. Vaughan with his 76 runs managed to take England to a lead of exactly 100 runs. Walsh and Ambrose got four wickets each in that innings.
What followed was another West Indies collapse. The horrors of being bowled out for 54 runs at Lord’s was still fresh and it didn’t take much England pacers to run through the visitors’ batting line-up once again. Gough got into the action first, by picking up the wickets of all the top five batters in the West Indies team. From 21 for 4, Adams and Sarwan managed to push their side to a little respectability. But, once Cork dismissed Adams, it was all Andy Caddick.
Caddick had gone wicketless in the match and managed six runs. But in the 23rd over of the West Indies’ second innings, he struck four times. He got the wickets with his first, third, fourth and sixth ball to deflate any hopes of a recovery. He got his fifth, which wrapped up the innings for just 61 runs. The match ended in just two days, the first of its kind since 1946.
England went on to win the final Test at the Oval and won the series 3-1. It was also the last time that the bowling pair of Ambrose and Walsh played together for the West Indies. This series and this match at Leeds had several classical Test match moments and remains iconic for the ones who have witnessed it.
