THE West Indies and New Zealand first contested a Test match in the Caribbean in 1972 when the two sides met at Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica from February 16-21 to usher in a five-match series which ended in a 0-0 stalemate.However, the teams had met nine times before-all in New Zealand-spreading over three series in 1951/52, 1955/56 and 1968/69. The West Indies were victors in five Tests and two series while the hosts won two matches, drew two and levelled the 1968/69 engagement at 1-1.
At the commencement of the 1972 contest the West Indies were at the crossroads since the team had not won a series in the last five attempts dating back to 1968 during which 21 Tests were played, two were won, eight were lost and 11 were drawn.
In addition, several players who had served the team with distinction, retired during the lean years such as batting stalwarts Seymour Nurse and Basil Butcher, pace terrorists Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith and wicketkeeper Jackie Hendricks.
For this series, batting ace Rohan Kanhai-nearing the end of his illustrious career-was not invited and Clive Lloyd was not considered for the early part of the action, since it was ruled that he had not fully recovered from his horrendous back injury sustained a couple of months ago in Australia.
The veteran off-spinner Lance Gibbs was not in the best of form but still managed to hold his place in the team.
The West Indies were led by the incomparable all-rounder Gary Sobers but it was generally a young, inexperienced team with a mission to turn the fortunes of the regional team around and win back the support of the cricketing public.
At the helm for the visitors was Graham Dowling who scored a double ton in his first Test in charge and though his team had no world renowned players they were a united, combative bunch willing to pull out all the stops to save if not win a Test.
The Sabina Park Test started on a Wednesday with Sobers calling correctly and deciding that he would bat first on a pitch that was compact and looked full of runs.
The two left-handers, Roy Fredericks and Joey Carew, laid a sound, solid opening stand of 78 with little bother before Carew was trapped leg before wicket by the medium pacer Bev Congdon. His exit triggered thunderous applause when the debutant and home-town batting stylist Lawrence George Rowe, who was in tremendous form, emerged.
The 23 year old, right-handed Rowe was a technically correct batsman who relied on nimble footwork, exquisite timing and precise placement to accumulate his runs. He had fashioned a fine double century (227) for Jamaica against New Zealand at Sabina Park in early February and later flashed 147 against Guyana in a Shell Shield encounter at the same venue.
Fredericks, on the other hand, had already played 14 Tests and in his characteristically free-flowing manner had racked up five fifties but his first Test hundred was proving elusive. The closest he had gotten to three-figures was a fighting innings of 80 against the famous Indian spinners in Trinidad in 1971.
He was in fine form too having cracked 75 and 84 when Guyana met Jamaica at Sabina Park and 21 and 90 against Trinidad and Tobago at the Queen’s Park Oval in Shell Shield matches a couple of weeks earlier.
To the delight of the crowd, the two batted to the close of play with Fredericks finishing on a superb 126 and Rowe on a cultured 94. The stand was already worth 196 and the total stood imposingly at 274 for one.
The next day, in front of a packed house, the partnership continued to flourish and pandemonium broke out in the stands when Rowe duly completed his pristine hundred early in the exchanges to become only the sixth West Indian to do so on debut.
The New Zealanders toiled manfully but the medium-pacers Bob Cunis and Murray Webb and the spinners Hedley Howarth and Jack Alabaster could not do much to stop the pair from piling on the runs.
Eventually, Fredericks fell to Howarth for an aggressive 163 stretched over six and three-quarters of an hour and studded with 16 fours. By that time the partnership was worth 269, the scoreboard read 347 for two and Rowe was in the process of re-writing the record books.
Joined by Charlie Davis, he soon went past his fellow Jamaican George Headley’s 176 compiled against England in Barbados in 1930 to become the West Indian with the highest individual score in his first Test.
As Rowe closed in on his double-hundred he lost Davis (31) at 428 for three but he was joined by his Jamaican team mate Maurice Foster as the crowd perceived that more history was in the making.
He did not disappoint, bringing the spectators to their feet with spontaneous dances and protracted hand-clapping as he crossed the 200 run mark to become only the second player after Englishman Reginald ‘Tip’ Foster, against the Aussies at Sydney in 1903/04, to register a double ton on debut.
Howarth, the pick of the bowlers with 44-6-108-2, claimed the wicket of Rowe who batted classically for 214, an innings studded with 19 fours and a six, whereupon, shortly afterwards Sobers declared at 508/4.
New Zealand began their innings late in the final session and closed the day in a perilous position at 49 for three as the West Indian pacers Uton Dowe and Grayson Shillingford got rid of the captain Dowling (4), Terry Jarvis (7) and Mark Burgess (15) in quick succession.
The leg-spinner David Holford had the overnight batsman Bev Congdon caught and bowled for 11 early on the third day and when Gibbs plucked out Brian Hasting for 16 at 108 for five the tourists were in dire straits and were in danger of following-on.