India chased down 403 to win at Port of Spain in April 1976, finishing on 406/4 to claim the third Test by six wickets — the second-highest successful fourth-innings chase in Test history at the time, after only Bradman's 1948 Invincibles. Gavaskar 102, Mohinder Amarnath 85, Gundappa Vishwanath 112, and Brijesh Patel 49 not out drove the chase across the final two days against a four-spinner West Indian attack. The result so embarrassed Clive Lloyd that, three weeks later at Kingston, he selected four genuine fast bowlers — the moment generally identified as the start of the West Indian pace strategy of the next two decades.
India had drawn the first Test at Bridgetown and lost the second at Port of Spain by ten wickets. Lloyd's side, leading 1-0 in the five-match series, was in transition: the four-pronged pace attack of Roberts, Holding, Daniel and Holder was not yet fully assembled, and at Trinidad — where the pitch traditionally took spin — Lloyd had played four spinners and only one specialist quick.
Bishan Bedi captained an Indian side missing several senior bowlers; the slow-bowling triumvirate of Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Prasanna had taken India through the Test, and the chase rested almost entirely on the batting.
Lloyd's declaration, with India needing 403, was made on the assumption that no team would chase the target on a fifth-day Trinidad pitch. The second-day pitch had taken sharp spin; he believed the spinners would carry the day. Bedi, asked at the lunch interval whether he thought India could chase, said only that he hoped their batsmen would believe they could.
Gavaskar's century took 245 balls and contained nothing in the way of premeditated aggression; Vishwanath's 112 was the more fluent and the more critical, coming after Amarnath had been dismissed and a wicket then would have ended the chase.
Lloyd had set India 403 on the morning of the fifth day, declaring at 271/6 in the second innings and giving India two sessions plus a full final day to chase the runs. The West Indian attack at Port of Spain leaned on spin — Imtiaz Ali, Raphick Jumadeen, Albert Padmore — and the pitch, by the fifth day, was offering turn but not the variable bounce that would later end the chase early.
Gavaskar and Anshuman Gaekwad opened with 69. Gavaskar reached 102 from 245 balls and was eventually bowled by Jumadeen. Amarnath made 85; Vishwanath 112 — the first time Gavaskar and Vishwanath, brothers-in-law and the two most accomplished Indian batsmen of the era, had each scored hundreds in the same Test. Patel saw India home with an unbeaten 49. The win came mid-way through the final session.
Lloyd declares West Indies second innings at 271/6 on day five morning, setting India 403
India 69 for 0 (Gavaskar/Gaekwad)
Gavaskar 102 (Bowled Jumadeen)
Amarnath 85; Vishwanath 112 (first time Gavaskar and Vishwanath both reach 100 in same Test)
Patel 49 not out sees India home
India 406/4 — won by six wickets
7 April 1976
Day one — West Indies 359 a.o.
9 April 1976
India 228 a.o.; trail by 131
11 April 1976
West Indies 271/6 declared; India set 403
12 April 1976 (final day)
India 406/4 — won by 6 wickets
“I declared because I did not believe any side could make 400 on this pitch. I was wrong.”
Lloyd was embarrassed enough by the result that for the fourth Test at Sabina Park three weeks later he discarded his spinners and selected Roberts, Holding, Daniel and Holder. The Sabina Park Test was disfigured by short-pitched fast bowling that hit Indian batsmen repeatedly; Bedi declared India's first innings closed at 306/6 and the second at 97 all out (effectively forfeited) in protest at what he considered intimidatory bowling. India lost the series 2-1.
The Port of Spain chase remained the second-highest successful Test chase until West Indies themselves passed it, scoring 418/7 to beat Australia at the Antigua Recreation Ground in May 2003.
India won by six wickets. India 406/4 chasing 403, the second-highest successful fourth-innings chase in Tests at the time. Records broken: highest team chase by India; highest chase ever to win a Test (then), bettered only by Australia's 404 at Headingley in 1948.
Two legacies: a record that stood for twenty-seven years, and a tactical pivot. Lloyd's response — the conversion to four fast bowlers — defined West Indian cricket from 1976 to 1995 and set the template that other sides would copy. Indian cricket, on the other hand, took the chase as proof that batting alone could win Tests in the Caribbean, an article of faith that would not be tested until the late-1980s tours.
Wisden's later assessment placed the Port of Spain chase among the half-dozen finest team batting performances of the 1970s.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.