Another special day from the history of West Indies and Australia rivalry!
The year was 1955, Australians were already leading 2-0 with a strong performance away from home when the two team met at Kensington Oval in Barbados.
Ian Johnson from Australia won the toss against Denis Atkinson from West Indies and decided to bat. A strong batting effort from Australia which included two centuries, one 98 and three more half-centuries including a 53 from Gil Langley resulted in them scoring 668 in their first innings. West Indian top order batters had decent start but could not bat long and they lost wickets at regular intervals. At 147 for 6, another huge loss looked certain for West Indies and no one expected the events of the following day.
On 18th May Atkinson and West Indian keeper Clairmonte Depeiaza was at the crease and both of them did not have any huge reputation for their batting. In previous 13 tests, Atkinson scored 429 runs with an average of 25. Depeiaza on the other hand was playing just his second test match. Atkinson was lucky early on the previous day when he was dismissed of a no-ball from Keith Miller. But on day four the story was different and as the innings progress both Atkinson and Depeiaza looked more and more confident. Atkinson played more freely and reached his century in quick time with quite a few boundaries. Depeiaza was more reserved and played patiently to provide the support required to Atkinson’s onslaught.
Both Miller and Lindwall were ineffective as well as the spinners. Even spells of intimidating bowling from the pace bowling duo did not impact the batsmen and they scored adding important runs and kept breaking records on the way. First the record of the highest seventh wicket partnership against Australia was broken followed by the same highest seventh wicket partnership for West Indies. Once they passed 246, the test record for highest seventh wicket partnership was also broken. The individual records started coming on the way. Depeiaza scored his only first class hundred and Atkinson converted his maiden test hundred to a double. Finally the first class record for the highest seventh wicket partnership was broken when they passed 344 recorded by KS Ranjitsinhji and William Newham for Sussex against Essex at Leyton in 1902. They also became just the second set of batsmen to bat a whole day without losing a wicket.
Next day Depeiaza was gone early on after adding 347 runs in the partnership but by that time the safety had been reached. Atkinson finally scored 219 and West Indies were all out for 510. But the sting of Australia was gone and the test match ended in a draw.
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