Image Credit- The Hindu.
Venue – M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Madras [24-29 December 1983].
In the winter of 1983, the West Indian cricket team toured India to play 5 ODIs and 6 test matches. The Windies were out for revenge. On the other hand, Indians were determined to prove that their World Cup triumph was not a fluke, and they were a world-class team. However, by the time action reached Chennai for the final test, the tables had completely turned. The Windies had won the ODI Series 5-0 and were leading the Test Series 3-0 at the conclusion of the 5th Test. Hence, the Windies got their revenge. The question now was whether Indians will get something to cheer about.
In the final test at Chennai, Windies won the toss and elected to bat first. Riding on Jeff Dujon's 62, the visitors piled up 313 runs in their first innings. In response, India was 0/2 when Gavaskar came to face the hat-trick ball of Malcolm Marshall. This was the first time in his career when Gavaskar opted to bat at number 4. Unfortunately, he has to face the first over once again. Luckily, he survived the hattrick ball.
This is when we heard the famous sledge of Viv Richards – "No matter, no matter, no matter at what number you bat, man. The score is still 0." However, what happened next no one could have ever imagined. Sunil Gavaskar played his career-best innings in one of the toughest situations. Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 236 off 425 deliveries. His innings comprised 23 boundaries, and he batted for 644 minutes. He literally took the challenge upon himself and blew the punch on his opponents. The trio of Marshall, Holding and Roberts were unable to break his spirit.
The Indians declared at a score of 451/8 as the match eventually ended in a draw. Even though we did not win a single game in this series, the knock of the Little Master will be remembered for ages to come.
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