by Abhishek Mukherjee
West Indies had crushed England by an innings in the first Test. Then, against Gloucestershire, they finished on 284/6 – in pursuit of 285. Hall had played in that match while Griffith had been rested, so they reversed that at Hove.

Led by Pataudi, Sussex were a strong unit that season. They had Parks, Suttle, Oakman, and a young fast bowler.

But this youngster, John Snow, turned out to be more than a handful. Carew (56) was the only one to put up a resistance as they were bowled out for 123 after being 60/2. Snow finished with 7/29. Sobers got a duck.

But West Indies hit back. The retaliation was led not by Griffith but by Rudolph Cohen, who would never get a Test cap. Sussex were soon 40/6. Sensing trouble, Pataudi had promoted himself to 3, above Graves and Oakman; he scored 32 of these 40 runs.

But Graves and Oakman took Sussex to 122/7 by stumps. They trailed by one run.

The rest day passed by. A group of University of Sussex students at Brighton invited the tourists for the night after that. As the partying went slightly out of hand, the local police had to be called. However, no known case was filed.

The West Indians woke up with hangovers. The match slipped away as they saw Graves (64) push Sussex to a 62-run lead.

If the hangover had affected their bowling and fielding, it was nothing compared to what it did to their batting. Reduced to 20/5, West Indies sort of recovered to 67. Snow took 4/18.

Sussex won by 9 wickets, but not before an incident. Griffith, who had hit Suttle in 1963, hit him again, and Suttle had to leave ("he's not as fast as he used to be," he would later say).

This happened on 13 June 1966.

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There is a postscript to this story.

The students with whom the West Indians got drunk that night included, among others, two South Africans. These were not random youngsters.

One, Thabo Mbeki, went on to become the second post-Apartheid President of South Africa, succeeding Nelson Mandela.

Essop Pahad, on the other hand, served as Parliamentary Counsellor. And when Mbeki became President, Pahad was appointed Minister of Presidency.