Replacing the rested Michael Holding at Sabina Park in February 1986, Patrick Patterson took 4 for 30 and 3 for 44 on his Test debut on what Graham Gooch later called 'the only pitch I have ever feared for my life on'.
Holding was rested for the first Test; the Jamaicans persuaded the selectors to debut Patterson on his home ground.
The Sabina Park pitch had been re-laid and was unusually grassy and uneven for the start of the series.
England arrived in the Caribbean for the 1985-86 series braced for the Marshall-Holding-Garner pace barrage but were instead introduced to a new horror. With Holding rested, the Jamaican selectors gave a Test debut to 24-year-old Patrick Patterson on his home Sabina Park ground. The pitch, as Gooch later wrote, had grass and ridges and the ball was leaping past chins from the opening over. Patterson, all bow-legged action and a long, hostile run-up, hit Mike Gatting's helmet grille so hard in the warm-up ODIs that it sliced his nose; in the Test he took 4 for 30 in the first innings and 3 for 44 in the second to win the Player of the Match award. Gooch later said Patterson was 'much quicker than Marshall' and that Sabina Park was 'the only time in my career I genuinely feared injury'. Patterson played only 28 Tests but for two years in the late 1980s was as feared as anyone in the world. He took 93 Test wickets and effectively disappeared from cricket after 1992, retreating to Jamaica.
Holding rested; Patterson debut
Patterson 4/30 in 1st innings
Patterson 3/44 in 2nd innings
Gatting nose injury in ODIs from Marshall
Player of the Match
Pre-series ODIs
Gatting hit by Marshall; nose broken
Day 1
Patterson 4/30 on debut
Day 4
Patterson 3/44 in 2nd innings
Result
WI win by 10 wickets
“He was much quicker than Marshall.”
“It was the only time I genuinely feared for my life on a cricket field.”
England lost the series 5-0 — the second Blackwash. Patterson played 28 Tests in total before fading from cricket.
The most ferocious debut of the West Indian fast-bowling era and the day Sabina Park established its 1980s reputation as cricket's most frightening pitch.
Patterson is one of the most-feared bowlers of the era despite his short career. Gooch and Botham have both said publicly that he was the fastest they ever faced.
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.