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Dilip Sardesai, Steve Camacho, Charlie Davis and Salim Durani look back at India's famous first win against West Indies


Interviews by Nagraj Gollapudi


West Indies 214 (Davis 71 not out, Kanhai 37, Prasanna 4-54, Bedi 3-46) and 261 (Fredericks 80, Davis 74 not out, Venkataraghavan 5-95, Durani 2-20) lost to India 352 (Sardesai 112, Gavaskar 65, Solkar 55, Noreiga 9-95) and 125 for 3 (Gavaskar 67 not out, Barrett 3-43) by seven wickets

After over two decades of Tests between the two sides, India's first win over the mighty West Indies came at a most apposite venue - the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad, cheered on by thousands of their East Indian brethren. The tour was one to remember for two men in particular: Wadekar in his first series as captain, and Gavaskar, who made the series his own with four hundreds and an average of over 150. Old campaigner Sardesai wasn't far behind either, and it was his solid century in the first innings that set up the Port-of-Spain win.




Even stevens
Dilip Sardesai Before the start of the series I was not sure if I was going to be in the first XI. But [Gundappa] Viswanath got injured at the beginning of the tour, and I came in for the first game, against Jamaica, and got 97 runs. Then in the first Test in Kingston, at one stage we were 75 for 5, but I went on to score a double-century. We made West Indies follow on for the first time ever, and that told us that they weren't as great a side as they were made out to be - as far as their bowling was concerned - and that we had every chance to beat them since we had great spinners.


Steve Camacho We thought we had a good chance as India themselves were going through a change, with a new captain taking over just before the series. But [Ajit] Wadekar welded them into a very close-knit team.


A turner in Trinidad
Camacho My abiding memory of the game was the Trinidad pitch. I watched the first ball of the match from the non-striker's end. It was a shooter from Abid Ali, and it hit Roy Fredericks's pads before going on to hit the stumps. The pitch behaved erratically, at least in that first session, but it improved after lunch and in essence became a slow turner.

Salim Durani When I went to the West Indies for the first time in 1962, most of the wickets were quick, but on this series there was no life in most of them. The Trinidad pitch was a slow turner, but there were no problems if a batsman was prepared to wait.

Charlie Davis As I walked in to bat, my first impression was that it was a plain wicket with uneven bounce.

The Oval was jam-packed. About half our population was East Indian, so there were a lot of fans rooting for the Indians. Garry Sobers always said that when they play at Trinidad it is like a home game for India. So it was little scary for me, but I had played a series in England the previous year, and I kind of knew what to expect.


Where have all the fast men gone?
Camacho Garry was past his peak as a bowler certainly. A lot of the time he bowled quickish, and mixed it up with orthodox left-arm. Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith weren't around anymore, and Vanburn Holder and Grayson Shillingford weren't by any stretch of the imagination fast bowlers. So it was a period of transition for us.


Durani The West Indies' bowling at the time was nothing compared to the earlier Caribbean teams, and that is one reason they didn't stand a chance of beating us.

Sardesai Even if they didn't have good fast bowlers, they had a couple of good medium-pacers, Vanburn Holder and Uton Dowe. Dowe didn't play in the second Test as Jack Noreiga was picked for the spinner's track at Port-of-Spain.


Venkat v Sobers
Davis One problem was that most of our top order were left-handers and for the Indian spinners, especially Venkataraghavan, that was an advantage.

He bowled tight, flat offbreaks, pitching them on middle and leg, and he once caught Garry in no-man's land, but since the bounce was uneven, the ball pitched and jumped over the off stump. The Indians knew that once they got Garry, who batted at six, they were home and dry. So in the next over Venkat brought the mid-on fielder to gully to force Garry into doing something stupid. He bowled the exact same ball, and seemed to catch Garry again playing half-and-half. But at the last minute Garry got back and hit it to the mid-on boundary. He then came up to me and said. "This man must be mad to bowl me without a mid-on." I laughed and said, "You were definitely gone to the cleaners in his last over." But that was Garry: he could do anything. Eventually Venkat bowled him in that first innings to have the last laugh.


Sardesai takes charge
Camacho The most important factor in the whole series was Sardesai's double-century in Jamaica. He followed that up with another good century at Port-of-Spain. He was given able support, again like in the first Test, by Eknath Solkar, who we dropped quite a few times.


Davis Sardesai was an accumulator, b

The Yak-141M project started In November 1973. It’s predecessor, Yak-38 didn’t live up to expectations, in fact it’s abilities were miserable. The future fighter was design around (specially ordered for this plane) lift/cruise engine Soyuz R-79V-300. On 26th June 1974 project was officially started. At first, designers wanted R-79 to be the only engine of new fighter, but quickly it became clear, that the plane would not be able to balance in hover mode. After many experiments with different configurations, designers revert to Yak’s-38 powerplant layout, with one main lift/cruise engine and two lift engines only for hover mode. The two lift engines were Kolesov RD-41 turbojets. The final design, was finalized in July 1980. Whole project had many delays, especially there were problems with R-79 engine – it was supposed to be the first engine in the world, to be capable of afterburner usage in both horizontal and vertical thrust mode. To enable the plane vertical takeoff, engine was capable of thrust-vectoring up to 95 degrees- solution used here by designers was for years a secret, and today F-35B is using exactly the same idea. General layout of new fighter wasn’t a revolution, it’s similar in general shape to the Mig-25 – Yak-141M was originally projected to be an interceptor, similarly to Foxbat. As a carrier fighter, Yak featured folding wings. The airframe was mostly made of composites (26% of aircraft weight) and . However in the mid 80’ Soviet military changed their requirements- they wanted Yak-141M to be a true multi-role fighter, what resulted in big changes in aircraft systems. Yak-141M used S-41M radar, it was a derivative of N001 Zhuk radar, used in Mig-29M. It was a multi-role radar, that permitted the fighter to carry , new advanced missiles, both air-to-air and air-to-ground. The airframe was ready in late 1984, but due to engine problems, the first flight took place on 9th March 1987. After another period of engine/airframe problems, in 1989 began manufacturer’s flight tests. Yak-141M hovered for the first time on 29th December 1989. The tests showed, that Yak-141M with full ordnance load, clearly outperformed the Harrier in similar configuration. However in clear configuration, there wasn’t a clear-cut winner. Yak-141M was viewed, as a replacement for Yak-38, on Type 1143 aircraft carriers (Novorossiysk, Minsk Baku (Admiral Gorshkov) and Kiev). On 26th September 1991 Yak-141M made its first landing on carrier. The same day, another prototype, made first, fully vertical landing. On 5th October prototype “77 Yellow”, during vertical landing, fell onto the deck and burst into flames, pilot ejected safely. Although the trials were resumed, with “75 Yellow”, this crash served as a pretext for ending Yak-141M project. Due to collapse of Soviet Union, Soviet Navy had to make cutbacks, and Yak-141M was one. In fact it wasn’t needed anymore: Russia scraped three Kiev-class carriers: Novorossiysk, Minsk and Kiev. Fourth one, Gorshkov was later sold to India. Without suitable carriers (Kuznetsov was able to carry more capable Su-33), Yak’s fighter lost it’s sense. Yak-141M was displayed at Farnborough 92 and MAKS 1991 and 1993 airshows, for few years Yakovlev tried to attract foreign investors but without success. Yak-141M in 1991 established many world records (taking them from Harrier) in its class. There were projects of new versions of Yak-141M, but none of them become real.

Length: 18.30 m (60 ft 0 1/2 in)
Wingspan: 10.105 m (33 ft 1 3/4 in)
Height: 5.00 m (16 ft 5 in)
Wing area: 31.7 m? (341 ft?)
Empty weight: 11,650 kg (25,683 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 19,500 kg (42,989 lb)
Max vertical take-off weight: 15800kg (34840 lb)
Maximum/vertical take-off external stores load: 2600kg (5730 lb)/1000kg (2205 lb)
Internal fuel load: 4400kg (9700 lb)

Maximum speed: 1,800 km/h (1,118 mph, Mach 1.4+)
Range: 2,100 km (1,305 mi)
Service ceiling: 15,000m (49200 ft)
g-load: 7G

Armament;
5 external stores with capacity of 2600kg
Air-to-air (4 underwings stores): R-77, R-73, R-27
Air-to-surface (centerline store): Kh-31A/P, Kh-35, Kh-58, Kh-25MP
Canon- one GSz-301 caliber 30mm