1st May 1995 is remembered as the day of power shifting in world cricket. The International Labour Day was celebrated by one of the most hard-working cricketers by delivering one of his best innings.
West Indies did not lose a test series for 15 years till the day. Even after the greats like Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, and Malcolm Marshall were gone still they showed the ability to perform that little extra to win the difficult moments against their opponents. By mid-’90s Australia proved that they could be the worthy successor and when they toured the Caribbean in 1995, fans marked that as a battle of the two powerhouses in world cricket.
Australia took the initiative to win the first test but as always West Indies came back strongly to level the series and when the teams met in Jamaica in the fourth and last test, the series was all square. West Indies won the toss but could not capitalize. Only Captain Richie Richardson and Brian Lara added some value as the former scored a century and Lara contributed with 65. But the other nine players together scored only 80 runs and they were bowled out for 265. Australia did not have a good start and at 73/3 the match was in balance. But then came Steve Waugh, a veteran for nearly 10 years and one of the most hard-working and determined cricketers from Australia. His reputation for giving a fight in tough conditions was already famous and he did exactly the same. He and his twin brother, Mark added 231 runs in the 4th wicket.
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On 1st May, the third day of the match, Steve reached his first and only double century in test match cricket. It was a wonderful innings against Ambrose, Walsh, and two Benjamins but none of them could stop him and he finally perished as the last Australian wicket with the total of 531 taking a lead of 266 runs.
In the Windies' second innings, it was time for some Warne magic as he took four wickets along with Paul Reiffel. For West Indies, there were not many proper contributions with night watchman Winston Benjamin top-scoring with 51. An innings and 53 runs victory for Australia finally broke the 15-year streak and a new powerhouse of world cricket started their journey of success which went on for nearly 15 years.
