Watch: During the Dunedin Test match of 1979/80, an angry Michael Holding kicked the stumps out of the ground.
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If one removes the Kerry Packer-affected era, the West Indies lost exactly one Test series between the Australian tour of 1975/76 and the home series against the same nation in 1994/95. In New Zealand, in 1979/80.
The West Indies were without Viv Richards, but they were still an incredible batting unit. Yet, in the first Test match, at Dunedin, they were shot out for 140 by Richard Hadlee (5-34). Colin Croft (4-64) hit back in response, but Bruce Edgar (65) and Hadlee (51) got the hosts a 109-run lead.
The onus now fell on Desmond Haynes, who had made 55 in the first innings. Haynes now made 105 as wickets fell around him. In this game, he opened the batting and was last out in each innings – a feat without parallel in the history of Test cricket.
Yet, Hadlee (6-68) ensured the West Indies did not get more than 212. The hosts needed a mere 104 to seal a win, but they had to deal with Croft, Michael Holding, Joel Garner.
Holding took out both openers, but captain Geoff Howarth and John Parker took the score to 28-2. Then Holding made a ball whoosh past the edge of Parker’s glove and landed into the gauntlets of Deryck Murray.
The West Indians went up in unison, but umpire John Hastie remained unmoved. “The ball didn’t brush the glove: it tore the glove off,” recalled Croft. “Deryck Murray took it in front of first slip.”
The West Indians had been fuming. On the rest day, just before Haynes made that hundred, a DJ at a local radio station called the West Indian cricket team “a bunch of whingers”.
It got too much for Holding, who walked up to the striker’s end and hurled an almighty kick at the wicket, knocking two stumps straight out of the ground. Though Croft felt that Holding “should have been signed up by Manchester United on the strength of it”, Holding himself later regretted the act.
Despite the reprieve, the hosts found things difficult, and were left reeling at 54-7. That man Hadlee resisted with 17 before Lance Cairns and Gary Troup took the score to 100-9. Cairns (19 not out) eventually sealed the chase in the company of last man Stephen Boock.
New Zealand clung on to the lead for the rest of the series amidst umpiring controversies. To quote the Wisden Almanack, “there is little doubt that if both sides suffered from difficult, debatable decisions, more went against West Indies than against New Zealand.”
Things reached a nadir in the third Test match at Christchurch, when the West Indians threatened to abandon the tour halfway. When play resumed, Croft shoulder-barged umpire Fred Goodall.
