50 years ago: When Dilip Sardesai gave West Indies a double dose

Dilip Sardesai during his innings against Windies. Pictures/ mid-day archives

Exactly 50 years ago, Dilip Sardesai became the first Indian batsman to score a double century in an overseas Test.

He performed this feat in the opening Test at Kingston in Jamaica, where his 212 helped India put up a competitive total of 387 to challenge Garry Sobers' West Indians.

The West Indies pace bowling attack (Vanburn Holder, Grayson Shillingford) didn't have Wes Hall like it did in 1961-62 and Sardesai thrived in his comeback Test to play a big role in gaining an early advantage in the series.

Shillingford got rid of opener S Abid Ali and debutant Kenia Jayantilal (brilliantly caught by Sobers at second slip) quickly and skipper Wadekar, ML Jaisimha and Salim Durani couldn't come up with a revival.

That job was successfully performed by Sardesai, who found an able partner in fellow Mumbaikar Eknath Solkar. Sardesai stressed to Solkar that he should play as if he was playing a club game for PJ Hindu Gymkhana at they put on 137 for the sixth wicket.

Tony Cozier reported in the 1971 West Indies Cricket Annual that Sardesai was flawless in his unbeaten 81 on the second day which India ended with 183-5 by which time Solkar had reached his first Test half-century. With Solkar gone early on Day Three, Sardesai decided to take his chances and dominated his small partnerships with S Venkataraghavan, P Krishnamurthy and more significantly EAS Prasanna. A caught and bowled chance to leg-spinner Arthur Barrett and an unsuccessful stumping effort off Jack Noreiga, the debutant off-spinner, didn't deter Sardesai. As Cozier wrote, "He (Sardesai) gradually realised that Prasanna had no intentions of tossing his wicket away and he settled down to accumulate his second double century in Tests."

With satisfaction, there could have been relief. For, Sardesai had bagged a pair in his last Test in the Caribbean - at Trinidad - in the April of 1962.

His 1971 innings of 212 (17x4, 1x6) ended when wicketkeeper Mike Findlay had him caught off Vanburn Holder, seven minutes after the vigil reached its eight-hour mark.

The spin of Prasanna, Venkataraghavan and Bedi was good enough to bowl the West Indies out for 217. It is not uncommon nowadays for captains to decide against enforcing the follow on. This is done for various reasons that are projected - bowlers are tired, fears over having to bat on a last-day pitch. Also, the so called need to grind the opposition and make their bowlers tired.

The jury is always out there on whether a certain follow on should be imposed.

That said, enforcing the follow on sends out a message to the opposition camp that we boss the game, we can bowl you out again and you are under immense pressure. This is probably how the Indian team felt exactly when Ajit Wadekar asked Garry Sobers to bat again on Day Four.

The West Indies camp had forgotten that the washed-out first day made the follow-on deficit to 150 instead of 200. So, Sobers' team had to bat again and Rohan Kanhai came up with a brilliant 158 not out to help his team draw the Test.

India went on to create history by winning the next Test at Trinidad, their first ever in the Caribbean. Sardesai played his part there too, with a century. He carved another one in the hard-fought fourth Test at Barbados, but his double century at Jamaica on February 20, 1971, would hold special significance.

For the statistically-minded, it was the highest individual score by an Indian batsman in a Test against the West Indies. Sardesai never boasted of his feats; he didn't rate that 1971 West Indies bowling attack too highly. Had he been living today, he would have probably told us not to make too much of it.

Sorry Sir, we can't help doing this. It was that monumental.