When India-WI ODI in 1994 got delayed due to lost cricket kits!

There have been many encounters in the world of cricket which have remained the talking points within the public sphere, long after the cricket match concluded. A game which belongs to this category was played in India around 24 years ago. Viewed from the present-day perspective, it might seem a lite bizarre; but in this particular game, the allotted overs of both the teams were reduced only because the players had lost their cricket kits!

The game of cricket is full of surprises and it sometimes produces real-time situations that are beyond the imagination of the rational mind. Even cricket experts and fans are left stunned because of the nature of the game.

24 years ago, a game of a similar kind was played. In the 1994 West Indies tour of India, an ODI series was scheduled to happen. The third game of this ODI series was to be played at Visakhapatnam. Although the players reached the venue on time, the luggage of the West Indies players including their cricket kit, went missing.

As it was later revealed, their luggage and cricket kit had reached Chennai, instead of Visakhapatnam. The cricket kits then had to be sent back to Visakhapatnam and the delay caused because of this resulted in both the teams losing 6 overs each, and the match commenced only after the cricket kits were received.

Navjot Sidhu top-scored for India with an unbeaten 114 off 103

The touring skipper had won the toss and elected to field first. This Indian Team in 1994 was being led by Mohammad Azharuddin. India on the back of superb innings by Navjot Sidhu and Sachin Tendulkar set up a challenging target for the West Indies. The West Indies required 261 runs in 44 overs to win the game. In an interesting turn of events, the West Indies innings was further cut short by one over, as penalty for their slow over rate. This cost them dearly, as they only managed to reach a score of 256/7 at the end of 43 overs, falling short just by four runs. Sidhu was the highest scorer for the Indian side, having scored an unbeaten 114 off 103 balls.

Slow over rate penalty cost Windies the game

The Windes had a strong batting line up

For a batting line-up studded with stars like Brian Lara, Carl Hooper and Simmons, the target was never going to be impossible and the way West Indies batted, it felt like they could easily go past India in this game. However, the difference was caused by the West Indies bowlers. The Caribbean bowlers bowled with a slow over rate and hence as a penalty West Indies were allowed to bat only 43 overs instead of the pre-agreed arrangement of 44 to compensate for the time lost because of the slow over rate.

As it turned out, this one over proved to be the difference. At the end of 43 overs, the West Indies scoreboard read 256 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. Had they been allowed another over, West Indies would have needed 5 runs to win from 6 balls with 3 wickets remaining. However, West Indies lost the game by 4 runs in an exciting game of cricket which is remembered for the drama that surrounded it.