5 incredible fourth innings centuries in a winning cause

Sunil Gavaskar 102 : West Indies vs India – Port of Spain, 1976

Sunil Gavaskar scored 102 in the historic Port of Spain test

India were trailing West Indies 1-0 when they came to Trinidad with hopes of levelling the series. Windies scored 359 in the first essay while India responded with just 228 runs. In the second innings, Alvin Kallicharran's brisk hundred enabled Clive Lloyd to declare at 271/6, setting India a humungous target of 403 runs; something that had not been achieved till then.

India on the pursuit of a world record, opened with Gavaskar and Anshuman Gaekwad. After a 50 run opening partnership, Gaekwad perished for 28 and Mohinder Amarnath joined Gavaskar at the crease. The Mumbaikar played the quicks – Michael Holding and Bernard Julien brilliantly and scored his runs at a nice pace.

Gavaskar and Amarnath put on a century partnership of 108 to take India closer to the target. Gavaskar played the spinners tactfully in that period and eventually got to his hundred.

He got out to the left-arm spinner Raphick Jumadeen but by then he had laid a solid foundation for the likes of Gundappa Vishwanath and Brijesh Patel in the middle order. Vishy scored a fantastic 112 to help India beat the hosts by 6 wickets and create a world record by doing the unimaginable; becoming the first team to chase a 400 plus total successfully in the final innings of a test match.