On 2nd July 1969, the touring West Indians played a very famous one day-two innings match against Ireland at Sion Mills. Ireland were far far away from the test status and played matches against international teams very rarely. West Indies were touring England and was scheduled to play this match against Ireland. The second test finished on 1st July and then the players were rushed to the airport and took a flight to reach Ireland on that night also. The players had dinner quite late in the night and then went straight to sleep.
Next morning, the teams gathered in the ground. It was a big occasion and lots of exciting Irish cricket fans were in the ground. One of the main attractions was Garry Sobers stayed back in London to treat his injury. Also, Roy Fredericks, Lance Gibbs, Vanburn Holder, and Charlie Davis were rested. The team was led by Basil Butcher and even the manager Clyde Walcott stepped in as a player, almost a decade after his retirement.
It was exceptionally green pitch which got affected by rain and was drying under the Sun. Despite that, the West Indian captain Butcher decided to bat as he wanted to entertain the public. But he misread the conditions and did not realize that the batting would be impossible on that pitch.
West Indies were soon 2/1 runs and then 3/3. Butcher went with the score on 4/6, Clive Lloyd made it 5/ 6 and soon they were 9/12. Till then Walcott was the highest scorer with six. Grayson Shillingford hit the only boundary of the innings and raced to nine before his partner, number 11 batsman, Philbert Blair was bowled and West Indies ended with 25 all out. It was an astonishing scorecard and the spectators could not believe what they were seeing. For Ireland, their captain Douglas Goodwin finished with 12.3-8-6-5 and his opening partner Alec O’riordan finished with 13-8-18-4.
Ireland declared after scoring 125 runs for 8 wickets and although West Indies were 2/2 in the second innings, there was not much drama and then finished with 78/4 and hence conceding the match based on the deficit in their first innings.
It was an shocking result and something which is still being discussed in cricketing circuit as a prime example of unexpected result in a cricket match.
