April 27 witnessed the conclusion of two very memorable clashes between West Indies and Pakistan. Although the ’80s was the decade when India made their big stride with the wins in world cup and World Championship of cricket, Pakistan was also not behind with stars like Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Wasim Akram, and Abdul Qadir. West Indies were the strongest team in that era despite not winning the 1983 and 1987 World Cups and were unbeaten in test series at home since 1973. As we move towards the latter part of the ’80s and early 90’s Pakistan showed their superiority and West Indies were in decline. But in between all those, they delivered some astonishing matches.
In 1988, Pakistan traveled to the West Indies. Imran Khan did retire after the 1987 world cup but came back again for another go. Pakistan lost the ODI series 5-0 and then surprised everyone by winning the first test by 9 wickets. After a gutsy draw by Pakistan in the second test, the teams met at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, considered to be a West Indies fortress. In an extremely well-contested match, Pakistan took a three-run lead in the first innings but West Indies came back strongly thanks to Malcolm Marshall’s match figure of nine for 144 runs. With 266 to defend for a brilliant test series win Pakistani bowlers gave their all including Imran whose bloody toe was not a sight to remember. But West Indies lower order batted with lots of determination and some questionable decisions by the umpires helped Winston Benjamin to play an innings of a lifetime. He remained unbeaten on 40 as West Indies won the test by two wickets and saved the series which ended on 27th April 1988.
Five years later it was a different story altogether. By that time Pakistan won the world cup champion in 1992 and West Indies lost the old glory. Still, they were a strong test team and the series was marked as the unofficial World Championship of test cricket. But it was not as exciting as expected. Despite the pace duo of Akram and Younis, Pakistan lost the first test by 205 runs. In the second test at Kensington Oval, they were never in the hunt as Desmond Haynes’ second century of the series meant that Pakistan had to follow o. S finally on 27th April 1993 West Indies completed a 10-wicket win to win the series 2-0. With this win, Windies completed a run of a dozen consecutive wins in Bridgetown, the proudest fortress of their golden era.
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