England vs West Indies: When the Windies team collapsed in front of the British, such a record was made after 54 years

The biggest format of cricket, Test match, has its own thrill. Although a Test match can continue for five days, but if a match ends in two days, it deserves to be recorded in the pages of history. In the year 2000, one such Test match was played between England and West Indies.

That fourth match of the five-match Test series was played at Headingley ground in Leeds. On the first day of that Test match, i.e. on 17th August, 15 wickets fell. Then on the second day, i.e. on 18th August, the same number of wickets fell. England won that Test match by an innings and 39 runs.

In the match, West Indies captain Jimmy Adams won the toss and decided to bat first because the pitch was expected to help the fast bowlers. Anyway, England included four fast bowlers in the playing-11. In the morning session on the opening day, the English fast bowlers shook the top order of West Indies. After losing 5 wickets for 60 runs, young batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan and wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs (35 runs) tried to handle the West Indies innings by making a partnership of 68 runs.

Then Dominic Cork ended this partnership by dismissing Jacobs. From here on, the rest of the West Indies batsmen could not do much and their first innings collapsed at 172 runs in 48.4 overs. Sarwan played an unbeaten innings of 59 runs with the help of 9 fours. For England, Craig White took five wickets, while Darren Gough and Dominic Cork got three and two wickets respectively.

The special thing is that England’s start in the first innings was also not very good and by the end of the first day’s play, they had scored 105 runs for 5 wickets. However, on the second day, Michael Vaughan played an important role in giving England the lead by making a partnership of 98 runs for the seventh wicket with Graeme Hick.

England scored a total of 272 runs in 81.5 overs in their first innings. That means England got a lead of just 100 runs. Michael Vaughan scored the highest 76 runs with the help of 7 fours, while Graeme Hick scored 59 runs (7 fours). For West Indies, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose got four wickets each in the first innings.

Now the West Indies batsmen were expected to give a fighting performance in the second innings, but it did not happen. The visiting team surrendered in front of the English fast bowlers. Five West Indies batsmen could not even open their account in the second innings. The West Indies team could score only 61 runs in 26.2 overs in their second innings, due to which they had to face defeat by an innings and 39 runs.

For England, Andy Caddick took five wickets and Darren Gough took four wickets in the second innings. After this, England won the fifth Test match by 158 runs and captured the series 3-1. This was the last Test series in which Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose were seen playing together.

This is the first time since 1946 (Australia vs New Zealand, Wellington) that a Test match was over in two days. So far, there have been a total of 25 Test matches in which the winning team was decided in two days. India has also been successful in winning Test matches in two days on three occasions. First, it defeated Afghanistan in the Bengaluru Test match in 2018 in two days. Then in 2021, India did the same to England in the Ahmedabad Test match. After this, India won the Cape Town Test match against South Africa in two days this year.