West Indies v Pakistan 3rd Test

A young side against a young batter

The third Test of Pakistan's 1957/58 tour of the West Indies began at Sabina Park in Kingston in late February 1958, with the series level. Pakistan won the toss and chose to bat, sending in Hanif Mohammad, who had famously batted for more than 16 hours to save an earlier Test in the series with a score of 337. Nobody at the ground that first morning could have known they were about to watch an even longer, even bigger innings from the opposite side, played by a 21-year-old left-hander named Garry Sobers who had barely established himself in the West Indies side.

Pakistan post 328

Hanif Mohammad, so watchful in the earlier Test, fell early this time, caught by the wicketkeeper Gerry Alexander for just 3. Imtiaz Ahmed and Saeed Ahmed then added 118 for the second wicket, before Saeed was out for 52, and Imtiaz kept going with Wallis Mathias, the pair putting on 101 more before Imtiaz was finally out for 122, one of the longest and most productive innings of his career. Alimuddin made 15 before he too was out, and Mathias went on to 77 in a later stand with Abdul Kardar, who also made 15, before the innings settled into a series of short, useful contributions from the rest of the order, Mahmood Hussain, down at ten, striking a rapid 20. Alexander took four catches in the innings, and Pakistan were bowled out for 328.

Hunte and Kanhai open up

West Indies' reply began with Conrad Hunte and Rohan Kanhai putting on 87 for the first wicket before Kanhai was caught by Imtiaz Ahmed for 25. From there, Hunte simply kept batting. He and Garry Sobers, who had come in at number three, added 446 for the second wicket, a stand that on its own would be remembered as one of the great Test partnerships, before Hunte was run out for 260, having faced the best part of two days of Pakistani bowling without giving a real chance.

Sobers passes Hutton

Sobers went on well past Hunte's score. He reached his century, then his double century, and kept going through a Kingston crowd that grew larger and louder with every session, past 300 and towards the world record for an individual Test innings, which had stood since 1938 to Len Hutton's 364 for England against Australia at The Oval. Sobers passed it, and with the record his, he and his captain chose not to push on much further. He finished 365 not out, having batted for more than ten hours, with 38 fours and a six, the highest individual score in Test cricket at the time and the innings that first announced him as one of the game's great batters, still five months short of his 22nd birthday.

790 for 3

Sobers had support throughout. Everton Weekes made 39 before he was caught by Hanif Mohammad, and Clyde Walcott, the third of West Indies' three Ws, was unbeaten on 88 with three sixes when the innings ended. Captain Gerry Alexander declared at 790 for 3, a total built by only five batters getting to the crease across the entire innings, since Collie Smith, Alexander himself and the rest of the order never had to bat. It remains one of the highest totals ever recorded in a Test innings, and the lead over Pakistan's first innings stood at 462 runs.

The tail that nearly disappeared

Because West Indies' declaration came with only three wickets down, six of the eleven named players in the side never had to walk out to bat at all. Collie Smith, the wicketkeeper Gerry Alexander, the off-spinner Lance Gibbs and the fast bowlers Eric Atkinson, Roy Gilchrist and Tom Dewdney all sat through the entire innings without getting a turn, a reminder of just how long two batters, and then three, had occupied the crease between them. It is one of the more unusual features of the scorecard: a total of 790 built by fewer than half of the side that scored it.

An innings victory

Facing that deficit, Pakistan batted again and fought harder than the scoreline eventually suggested. Wazir Mohammad made 106 and Abdul Kardar 57, the pair adding 166 for the sixth wicket after Pakistan had slipped to 120 for 5, but there was never a realistic path back from such a heavy first-innings deficit. Pakistan were bowled out for 288, and West Indies won by an innings and 174 runs, a margin built almost entirely on one innings from one batter.

The record that followed

Sobers's 365 not out stood as the highest individual score in Test history for 36 years, until another West Indian left-hander, Brian Lara, passed it with 375 against England at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St John's, in 1994. Sobers went on to captain West Indies and to be regarded as one of the finest all-round cricketers the game has produced, batting left-handed, bowling both pace and slow left-arm variations, and fielding brilliantly close to the wicket, and this innings, played before he had turned 22, remains the one most often cited as the moment his career changed gear. Hanif Mohammad, whose marathon 337 earlier in the series had set the tone for a summer of long innings, never quite had an equivalent moment against Sobers's side at Sabina Park, watching from the Pakistan dressing room as the record he might once have expected to challenge himself passed to someone else entirely.

The full scorecard for this match, including every fall of wicket and partnership, is on this page. You can follow both sides further on the West Indies and Pakistan team pages, and in The Follow-On you can pick either XI and try to build an innings anywhere near the size of the one Sobers played at Sabina Park.

Sources

• CricArcade Test archive: the full scorecard, fall of wickets and partnerships on this page
• ESPNcricinfo: Pakistan in West Indies 1957/58, third Test scorecard and report
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1959: the Pakistan tour of the West Indies