2 months ago
9
YESTERDAY, FANS of West Indies cricket celebrated the 40th anniversary of the team’s famous ‘blackwash’ over rivals England on English soil. The Clive Lloyd-captained team defeated England 2-1 in the One-day series and then followed up that feat with a 5-0 hammering in the Test series.
According to wicket-keeper batsman Jeffrey Dujon, who was 27 years old at the time, while the series might have seemed one-sided on paper, it took hard work to destroy England.
Dujon added that playing in England, especially in 1984 when racism, unemployment and poverty were extremely high, the victory gave West Indian supporters reasons to be happy.
“It’s hard work to win but we obviously had a strong team and I can’t discount the local support we had from people in England. You always felt the pressure to do well for them, and we were playing some really good cricket. As far as thinking we would win all five Test matches, that came through playing hard cricket and it ended that way,” said the Jamaican mainstay behind the stumps.
GOOD MEMORIES
The West Indies squad during that 1984 series boasted two other Jamaicans, fast bowlers including a young Courtney Walsh and the experienced Michael Holding. Dujon explained that he only harbours good memories of that series, and that wicket-keeping to the great fast bowlers of the time was, interestingly, easier under English conditions.
“To be honest, I always found keeping wicket in England to our fast bowlers to be less stressful than in other places. This is because the ball doesn’t come off the batsmen edge as fast. The conditions were also good, it wasn’t very hot and I always enjoyed keeping wicket to our fast bowlers, as I wasn’t that great up to the stumps,” said Dujon.
The West Indies’ bowling unit was led by Joel Garner, who captured 29 wickets, and Malcolm Marshall, who followed closely with 24. Gordon Greenidge led all scorers, piling up 572 runs at an average of 81. According to Antigua-based cricket analyst Vernon Springer, who did radio commentary at the time, with the majority of West Indies players playing county cricket, the team was more than familiar playing under those conditions.
“That was a period of time where a lot of our players played in England, around 26 of our players were playing county cricket. So West Indies cricket was at a heightened interest and you always heard that, if you wanted to learn cricket, you have to play in England, and we executed that perfectly. They knew the conditions and they had something to prove,” said Springer.
Springer also pointed out that English rules for internationals playing county cricket were impacted by the dominance the West Indies team showed.
“The door was then closed on West Indies and, since then, we haven’t caught ourselves. We were never strong in the boardroom, therefore negotiations for West Indies cricketers always came last. The powers at the time were Australia and England, and they couldn’t handle West Indies dominance,” said Springer.
English (US) ·