5 fascinating contributions by players in series losses

#5 Allan Lamb – 386 runs at 42.66 versus West Indies in 1984

Allan Lamb stood up to the might of the West Indies

England had done nothing of note against West Indies for almost a decade and certainly didn’t seem like they would cause the slightest dent in the Caribbean juggernaut when Clive Lloyd’s team arrived in 1984.

West Indies had risen to the top of the Test world in the last few years and showed no signs of wear and tear as the series began in Edgbaston. The visitors did not have Andy Roberts but with Marshall at his absolute best, in partnership with Holding and Garner, they knew that they had the upper hand going into the series.

Just a few days before the first Test, Vivian Richards played what was arguably the greatest ODI innings ever to remarkably turn around the first game in Manchester. He destroyed England’s bowling and treated the quality bowling attack of Willis, Botham and Pringle with disdain.

England never quite recovered from this battering and subsided to an innings defeat in the first Test. Lamb, who had had an ordinary game in Edgbaston, scored an excellent century in the second innings to set West Indies a target of 342 in just over 70 overs – a seemingly impossible one. Nothing seemed beyond the West Indies though as they cruised to the target in just 66 overs with Greenidge cracking an unbeaten 214. England, it seemed, had already thrown in the towel going into the third Test in Headingley.

Lamb continued to impress against the exceptional West Indies attack, scoring another century and keeping England in the contest at the end of the first innings. However, a terrible collapse in their second innings against Marshall bowling with a fractured hand (he picked up 7/53) meant that England went down meekly.

Lamb fought again in the fourth Test, scoring a century, but the hosts went down by an innings. His performance ranked among the finest ever against high-quality pace bowling. England were crushed 5-0 and drubbed by a similar scoreline in the series in the Caribbean a few months later. That series, however, turned out to be a failure for Lamb as he averaged just over 22.

In a decade where most players struggled to come good against the mighty West Indies, Lamb was one of the stars. He added three more centuries to his tally and ended with six centuries against the indomitable West Indians. His performance in the 1984 series, however, ranks right up there among the best batting displays given that the opposition were arguably the finest team ever in the history of the game at their peak.

Series Performance	Innings	Runs scored	Average	Balls per dismissal	100/50	% of team runs *
Allan Lamb	10	386	42.88	94.11	3/0	19.12
Top 5 batsmen (Eng)	48	1183	25.71	64.56	1/7	58.62
Top 5 batsmen (opposition)	37	1712	55.22	98.51	6/4	68.31

Form analysis	Matches	Innings	Runs	Average	100/50
Overall Career	79	139	4656	36.09	14/18
Before the series	21	38	1221	34.88	3/5
After the series	53	91	3049	35.87	8/13