Peter May, Colin Cowdrey add 411 runs for 4th wicket against West Indies to save Test

On June 4, 1957 Peter May and Colin Cowdrey added a record-breaking 411 for the fourth wicket against the West Indies at Edgbaston. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back a partnership that helped thwart a nemesis that had haunted England for years. The history of any sport has been strewn with conquerors — players that have crushed oppositions and have oust them psychologically. Not only are the vanquished dead and dusted, they are so defeated psychologically that a comeback seems almost impossible for them. Something similar had happened during West Indies’ tour of England in 1950. After England had won the first Test at Old Trafford, West Indies hit back strongly to win the series 3-1. The wreckers-in-chief were the two rookie spinners — Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine. Ramadhin had ended the series with figures of 26 for 604 at 23.23 from 4 Tests; Valentine was even better — he picked up 33 for 674 at 20.42. Both of them had economy rates of 1.59. They had put the hapless English batsmen on a relentless leash, and picked them out one by one, forcing them into submission. West Indies won their first Test and series on English soil. Ramadhin, with his sleeves buttoned up, was the mystery man; he was as impossible to read from the hands as off the turf. Valentine, on the other way, was the perfect foil, wheeling down over after over with the mindset of a miser and could often turn the ball viciously. Both of them had phenomenal stamina, peerless imagination, and incredible variety. So, when John Goddard brought his team to England in 1957, the press obviously deemed them as the favourites, though the young English brigade was quite competent. It was also the first ever series to be covered by Test Match Special, which made the event more anticipated. The fact that Test cricket had returned to Edgbaston after 28 years also contributed. The Edgbaston Test Unfortunately for the West Indians, Valentine missed out on the first Test at Edgbaston. Valentine was unavailable, so the fearsome Roy Gilchrist made his debut, along with a batsman of Indian origin who would also keep wickets — and turn out to be one of the all-time greats — Rohan Kanhai. Day One: Ramadhin at work, again Fortunately for England, May won the toss for the 12th time in 16 Tests and decided to bat on a placid track. Gilchrist picked up his first Test wicket early, and it was Ramadhin all along after that. A sense of déjà vu sunk the English hearts as he wove his magic once again — picking up a career-best 7 for 49 as England plummeted to 186 — a score that seemed distant until Fred Trueman and Brian Statham decided to hit out against 'Ram’. A contented West Indies made merry despite the early departure of Bruce Pairaudeau. Kanhai and Clyde Walcott remained unbeaten at stumps, and West Indies were 83 for one, only 103 runs in arrears. Day Two: West Indies take big lead Kanhai departed without any addition to the score, making a composed 42 on debut. Though Everton Weekes didn’t last long, Garry Sobers did, and the two plundered runs at a steady pace, eclipsing the English total soon. Walcott (90) missed his hundred as he was stumped off Jim Laker and when Statham removed Sobers for 53, England whiffed a chance at 197 for 5. Frank Worrell walked out to join Collie Smith, and with the serenity that had always been the characteristic of his batting, he brought back the reassurance to the West Indies batting. Smith grew in confidence, and the duo added 119 when stumps were called. West Indies were 142 ahead. Day Three: England batted out of Test The Smith-Worrell partnership finally yielded 190 in less than five hours before Statham went past Worrell’s defence. The great man had scored 81, and Smith was already past his hundred in his first Test against England (he had done the same against Australia). Goddard kept Smith company with a 79-run partnership, and Smith eventually fell for 161 (25 less than England’s team score). Laker picked up the final wickets as West Indies finished with 474. With 288 runs in arrears and still well over two days to bat against Ramadhin, England had virtually no chance to survive the Test. On a side note, Pairaudeau, despite his 14-minute innings, spent close to 200 minutes running for Walcott, and then through the entirety of the 293 minutes of Worrell’s innings — which was a lot of time at the centre for someone who had scored a single! Things went further downhill. After a 63-run opening partnership, Ramadhin had Richardson caught, and then clean bowled Doug Insole for a duck. May walked out to join Brian Close at 5.40 pm, and the two batted till stumps, managing to reach 102 for 2, still a humongous 186 behind. Day Four: May, Cowdrey thwart 'Ram’ Play resumed after the rest day, and things began as planned. Gilchrist had Close caught by Weekes, and England were 113 for 3. Colin Cowdrey walked out to join May after only 20 minutes had elapsed on Day Four. What would the captain and his young colleague do? It was May’s 40th Test: he had scored 2,606 runs at 42.72 with 6 hundreds and a highest score of 138; Cowdrey, on the other hand, was playing only his 19th Test: his career had been relatively modest — he had scored 1,009 runs at 32.54 with 2 hundreds. Could the two bat England out of the hole? The rearguard action began. On the flat pitch May and Cowdrey slowly began to counter Ramadhin. Their ploy was to play forward, and using the pad efficiently as a second line of defence. Whatever was pitched outside the stumps was met with the pad; whenever the ball was pitched up, the batsmen stepped out and met the ball with the broadest of bats, smothering the turn. Ramadhin bowled short-pitched deliveries to catch the batsmen on the front foot; but the two batsmen were more than equals to the task, always ready for the sudden drop in length, thwarting the mystery-spinner and denting his confidence as time progressed. As the day passed on, the partnership grew in stature, and so did the self-assurance of the batsmen. Cowdrey played the role of a sheet-anchor, but May started to accelerate. May eventually scored his hundred in 250 minutes, whereas the dogged Cowdrey took 160 minutes to reach his fifty. The West Indian lead was eradicated, and May went past his highest score, and then reached his 150 soon. He was now playing like a batsman in control: the tall frame, the flawless footwork, the strong shoulders were all back. Gilchrist was tried, and so were Sobers and Smith. Worrell’s absence hurt Goddard, who even brought himself on. But the duo could not be separated. Ramadhin sent down over after over throughout the day with Denis Atkinson for company. His figures for the day read 48-20-74-0. Though he could not manage a wicket, he had not been easy to score runs off; however, he could not find a way to dent the England pair. England ended the day at 378 for 3 — 90 runs ahead. May was batting on a dominating 193, while giving him company was Cowdrey with 78. Day Five: Records tumble When the day’s play started, West Indies still had a glimmer of hope if Ramadhin could conjure the wizardry of old times. May and Cowdrey, though, carried on exactly from where they had left off things the previous afternoon, and batted on with the same poise. The day started with a record: Walter Hammond and Stan Worthington had held the English record for the fourth wicket — a 266-run stand against India at The Oval. May and Cowdrey went past that. Shortly afterwards, they became the fifth English pair to put on a 300-run stand. Once again, May kept on playing his strokes, while Cowdrey took the backseat. May brought up his double-hundred soon, and played a few imperious drives against Ramadhin and Atkinson. On the other hand, after Cowdrey brought up his hundred (his first on English soil) in over 7 hours and went past his career-best score shortly after. Runs now came rapidly as both May and Cowdrey scored at a decent pace. Cowdrey drove with panache, and whenever anything was pitched short, he cut powerfully. Cowdrey’s third fifty came up in only 55 minutes, in a complete contrast to his batting till now. The English record for any wicket — the 382 between Len Hutton and Maurice Leyland against Australia at The Oval in 1938 — was soon bettered; next went the world-record stand of 388 between Don Bradman and Bill Ponsford against England at Headingley in 1934; and then, the duo became only the fourth pair ever to register a 400-run partnership in Test cricket (after Bradman and Ponsford’s 451, Bradman and Sid Barnes’ 405, and Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad’s 413). The partnership finally broke at 524 after May and Cowdrey had added 411 in 500 minutes when Cowdrey was eventually caught by the substitute fielder Nyron Asgarali at long-on for 154. He had hit 16 boundaries, and had helped May put up a world-record fourth-wicket partnership of 411 — a record that stood for 52 years before Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera put up 437 against Pakistan at Karachi in 2009. May promoted the flamboyant Godfrey Evans over the stonewaller Trevor Bailey, and the shots continued. May had already gone past the Hammond’s 240 against Australia at Lord’s in 1938 — the highest score by an English captain (May’s record has only been surpassed by Graham Gooch, who scored 333 against India at Lord’s in 1990) and went on to score 285 not out and added an unbroken 59 in half an hour before he declared innings closed at 583 for 4 at 3.20 PM, setting West Indies 296 in 160 minutes. It was also his highest First-Class score, and the highest post-War Test score (the previous highest being Denis Compton’s 278 against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in 1954). From 42.72, May’s average was raised to 47.11 in this single Test (it stayed in that region and he finished with 46.77). Cowdrey’s average, on the other hand, lifted from 32.54 to 35.36 (and kept on increasing to 45.48, before he finished with 44.06 after he was asked to come back in the 1974-75 Ashes). May’s innings had lasted 595 minutes, and he had hit 25 fours and 2 sixes. Ramadhin, on the other hand, finished with the bowling analysis of 98-35-179-2, bowling 588 balls in the innings, and going past Valentine’s 552 balls at Trent Bridge in 1950. He had match figures of 129-51-228-9 (which weren’t really that bad), and ended up bowling 774 balls in the Test — going past Hedley Verity’s world record of 766 against South Africa at Durban in 1939. Atkinson wasn’t too far behind, finishing with 72-29-137-0, and match figures of 86.4-32-167-1. West Indies ran into trouble as Trueman removed both openers with 9 on the board. With Laker and Tony Lock bowling brilliantly in tandem, they lost Sobers, Worrell, and Walcott — though not before they had batted out of their skins to save the Test. Things didn’t look too good at 43 for 5, but Weekes and Smith battled it out. Forty minutes before stumps Weekes fell to Lock, which brought Goddard out to bat. The two seemed at peace, and just when it seemed that the Test was over, Smith was trapped leg-before by Laker for a 64-minute 5. Time ran out after Atkinson hit a four, and West Indies finished at 72 for 7. Goddard remained unbeaten without scoring a run in 40 minutes of batting. What followed? England won the next Test at Lord’s by an innings, and though the third Test at Trent Bridge was drawn, they also won at Headingley and The Oval to win the series 3-0. The West Indian dominance of spin had ended for good. The Ramadhin-Valentine partnership was also bettered for good. In fact, the following table sums up their performances on English soil before and after the May-Cowdrey partnership:

	Ramadhin and Valentine on English soil
	Till the 411-partnership			After the 411-partnership			Total
	Runs	Wickets	Average	Runs	Wickets	Average	Runs	Wickets	Average
Ramadhin	653	33	19.79	498	7	71.14	1,151	40	28.78
Valentine	674	33	20.42	88	-	N/A	762	33	23.09
Total	1,327	66	20.11	586	7	83.71	1,913	73	26.21

Brief scores: England 186 (Peter Richardson 47; Sonny Ramadhin 7 for 49) and 583 for 4 decl. (Peter May 285*, Colin Cowdrey 154, Brian Close 42) drew with West Indies 474 (Collie Smith 161, Clyde Walcott 90, Frank Worrell 81, Garry Sobers 53, Rohan Kanhai 42; Jim Laker 4 for 42) and 72 for 7. (Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ovshake and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)