Twelve in eighty-two minutes

West Indies needed 308 at Bridgetown in March 1999 and were 248 for eight. They won by one wicket. Brian Lara made 153 not out and is the player of the match. The card’s next two lines are Curtly Ambrose, caught Elliott bowled Gillespie 12, 39 balls, 82 minutes, and Courtney Walsh, not out 0, five balls, 14 minutes.

How 308 was set

Australia made 490, Steve Waugh 199 and Ricky Ponting 104, with 34 no-balls in the extras. West Indies replied with 329, Sherwin Campbell 105 and Ridley Jacobs 68. Then Walsh took five for 39 and Australia were all out for 146, Shane Warne top-scoring with 32. The target was 308, and West Indies were 85 for three overnight, Lara 2 not out.

Full scorecard: West Indies v Australia, 3rd Test, Bridgetown, 26–30 March 1999 →

The fifth day, by session

Before lunch: Griffith leg before for 35 at 91, Carl Hooper caught behind for 6 at 105, and 161 for five at the interval with Lara 44. Between lunch and tea: Lara and Jimmy Adams took it to 238, a stand of 133, Adams making 38 in 170 minutes. Adams bowled McGrath at 238. Jacobs leg before at 248. Nehemiah Perry leg before, first ball, at 248. Tea at 254 for eight, Lara 112, Ambrose 0.

After tea: 54 needed, two wickets. Lara and Ambrose put on 54 for the ninth wicket, from 248 to 302, Ambrose’s share 12. Ambrose was caught by Elliott off Gillespie at 302 with six still needed. Walsh came in, faced five balls, and was there when Lara hit the runs.

The other guy, twice

Ambrose’s 12 took 39 balls and 82 minutes. In Australia’s second innings only Ponting had batted longer than that, and he was a specialist batter making 22. Ambrose made his against Glenn McGrath, who took five for 92 from 44 overs, and Jason Gillespie, three for 62. Warne bowled 24 overs for none, and the two Australian quicks bowled 70 of the 120.1.

Walsh’s line is shorter. Five balls, 14 minutes, 0 not out, and every one of the five balls was a chance for the match to end the other way. He had already taken five for 39 in the innings that set the target. On the card he appears as the bowler who made the chase possible and the batter who did not lose it.

What the card counts

Lara faced 256 balls for 153 and hit 19 fours and a six. The card’s match-flow notes give his fifty at 118 balls and his hundred at 169. From tea he made 41 of the last 57, and the 41 are the innings people describe. The card gives the other 16 to Ambrose, Walsh and extras, and does not distinguish between them in importance, because it cannot.

Elsewhere on the card

Ambrose split his shoe in his fifth over on the first day and Pedro Collins finished it. There was a five-ball over and a seven-ball over in Australia’s first innings, each attributed to the umpire who counted it. The twelfth men and the fourth umpire are named. The series line reads West Indies led 2-1, after a match in which Australia scored 636 runs and lost. The umpires were David Orchard and Eddie Nicholls, and the referee Raman Subba Row.

What the card holds

A 153 not out with a match award. A 199 for the losing side. Fifty-four for the ninth wicket, 12 of it from a number ten who batted an hour and twenty-two minutes. A number eleven with five balls and no runs and the winning line beside his name. And a margin of one wicket, which is the card’s way of saying that every line above it mattered.

••••••

No. 16 in The Other Guy, a series of 24.

NextDeclared at 952