Sunil Gavaskar 220 against West Indies at Port of Spain in 1971
This was the first series for the real little master Sunil Gavaskar. He showed the world how much potential he has in the very first series of his career. India comes back to play the fifth and final match of the series at Queens Park Oval where Indians have won the second Test of the series and leading by a 1-0 margin.
Final Test was known for hundreds and plethora of runs. India batting first scored 360. It was Gavaskar’s turn who scored the third hundred of this series and in his career. His first two hundred came in Georgetown and Bridgetown respectively. Sardesai scored 75 and Venkataraghavan scored 51.
West Indies in the second innings scored heavily as Charlie Davis scored 105, captain Sobers scored 132 and Maurice Foster scored 99 that helped West Indies to post 526 on board.
Now it was India’s turn to give a fitting reply to save the match and to win the series by a 1-0 margin. Indians were already leading the series 1-0, so defeat in this match would spoil the hard work of this entire series.
Sunil Gavaskar after his first innings hundred stood tall on the pitch and scored his first double hundred. Gavaskar batted without a helmet. He never tried to play the ball over the boundary rope, he relied on ground shots as he hit 22 boundaries during his long innings of 529 balls. His scored was 220 before Jack Noreiga broke his defense.
Besides Gavaskar other batsmen too made some small contributions that helped India to draw the match and win the series.
If Sardesai began the journey then Gavaskar played the role of a finisher in this historic series.