The draw the cricket world missed

Last week while the cricket world was consumed by the pink ball Test contested between Australia and England in the same hemisphere West Indies pulled off an amazing draw against New Zealand at ChristchurchFor the West Indian cricketers who have copped ire from the purists in recent times for giving the impression that they donrsquot prioritise Test cricket and putting franchise cricket before playing under the West Indies maroon cap this is nothing short of a heavyweight achievement in ChristchurchIndeed people in the Caribbean would not have believed their eyes when they read a report like this BBC Sport ldquoWest Indies had been skittled for just 167 in their first innings and were set an imposing target of 531 mdash 113 more than the highest successful Test chase mdash after New Zealand declared on 4668 but valiantly stood firm for the best part of two days Justin Greavesrsquos unbeaten 202 and Shai Hopersquos 140 contributed immensely to West Indies making the secondhighest fourthinnings total in history 4576rdquoLast weekrsquos draw at Hagley Oval will undoubtedly be an integral part of the West Indies vs New Zealand rivalry that began in 1952 While New Zealand won the second Test at Wellington on Friday the visitors will be hoping to duck another series loss in the next Test at Mount Maunganui starting on ThursdayHere are some NZ vs WI nuggets10The current scoreline of the 202526 Test series in favour of hosts NZ with one Test to goRevenge for WindiesViv RichardsViv Richards earned the highest accolades as a batsman but he also excelled as a captain taking over from Clive LloydThe 198485 home series against New Zealand was his first assignment as fulltime skipper and ended his career in 1991 without losing a Test seriesThe first two Tests in 198485 were drawn but the next two at Barbados and Kingston ended with 10wicket victories for the hosts who couldnrsquot be blamed for feeling that they got their revenge for the 197980 loss in NZKiwis land at lastNZ first toured WI in 197172 a good 20 seasons after the inaugural NZ vs WI Test at Christchurch in 1952 All five Tests were drawn and NZ became the first international team to end a tour without a result in any of the firstclass matches on tour Spectators and pundits found some of the Tests boring and far less interesting than the one India played the previous yearGlenn turns it on From the opposition opening batsman Glenn Turner stayed at the crease for more than nine hours for his unbeaten 223 in the opening Test at Jamaica Another double century from Turnerrsquos blade was witnessed in the fourth Test at Georgetown in a boring draw With Terence Jarvis Turner put on 387 runs then the highest stand for any wicket by a set of New Zealand batsmenRowe and beholdJamaican Lawrence RoweThe first NZ vs WI Test on Caribbean shores witnessed an amazing Test debut by local Jamaican Lawrence Rowe who followed up his first innings 214 with an unbeaten 100Unfortunately Rowersquos best in the remainder of the series was 51 in the second innings of the Barbados Test after his first ball duck Rowe amassed 419 runs in the seriesSeymourrsquos swan song Seymour NurseNZhosted contests in 195152 and 195556 were followed by a threeTest series in 196970 Before the third and final Test at Christchurch West Indiesrsquos No3 batsman Seymour Nurse announced that it would be his last Test The Barbados stalwart walked in at 161 on the opening day and continued batting till the middle of the next day for 258 34x4 1x6 Not only did he end his nineyear Test career with a massive innings but also topped the run charts on either side mdash 558 runs at 11160Windies groundedRichard Hadlee and Jeremy ConeyThe 198687 series in Kiwiland ended 11 After a draw in the first Test at windy Wellington West Indies won the Auckland Test by 10 wickets The third and final Test at Christchurch began with disaster for the visitors bowled out for 100 courtesy Richard Hadlee 650 and Even Chatfield 430 That NZ needed to get just 33 to win the Test showed how well they had batted and bowled Skipper Jeremy Coney hoping to stay unbeaten in his farewell Test when the target was reached was the fifth man dismissed and later admitted that it was hard to bat with tears in his eyes His side finally won with five wickets to spare Interestingly Hadlee who shared the player of the match with Chatfield nearly didnrsquot play in this Test In Rhythm and Swing he wrote that he was mentally ldquototally unprepared for the matchrdquo after a ldquobitter conflictrdquo with captain Coney He decided to play and quite naturally he didnrsquot regret his decision197980 The most controversial of all NZ vs WI seriesClive LloydWest Indiesrsquos fourth visit to New Zealand went down in history as a series that witnessed incidents that were nothing short of shocking Clive Lloydrsquos 197980 tourists who had just beaten Australia for their first Sir Frank Worrell Trophy on Australian soil lost the series 01 The West Indians were unhappy over the umpiring which led to Michael Holding kicking the stumps at his end when a caught behind decision against John Parker was not given by the umpire in the first Test at Dunedin Holding ran towards Deryck Murray to celebrate the dismissal only to discover the umpire unmoved Then he made his way towards the umpire and did what he did New Zealand ended up winning by one wicket The next two Tests at Christchurch and Auckland were drawnIn the next Test at Christchurch Colin Croft livid over being noballed flicked the bails as he walked back to his mark He later according to Wisden 1981 ldquoshouldered umpire ldquoFred Goodall heavilyrdquo New Zealandrsquos leading writer RT lsquoDickrsquo Brittenden wrote in the celebrated annual ldquoThe West Indians lost more than a Test series Their sportsmanship went too There were several extremely unsavoury incidents on the field in the first two Tests not improved by the extravagant statements made by their harassed managerrdquoTony Cozier the most influential of Caribbean writers didnrsquot mince any words in the 1980 edition of the West Indies Cricket Annual ldquoAbove all else West Indian spirit and morale was broken by a complete mistrust of the umpiring which permeated the entire team There was the conviction strengthened in their own minds with virtually every session of every dayrsquos play that they were engaged in a hopeless exercise that no matter how hard they tried they would not be allowed to winrdquo