Cricket: 'Weekes is out!' echoed all over NZ

They say that people facing sudden death can have all the details of their past lives flash before their eyes - their careers somehow frozen in a split-second of time.

As that great West Indian batsman Everton de Courcy Weekes swung his bat like an executioner's axe at the juiciest of long-hops that cloudy afternoon of March 13, 1956, 10,000 Eden Park spectators (and thousands more huddled over their wireless sets across the land) plunged into that fatal coma.

Since January 1930 New Zealand had played 44 tests, 22 draws and among the 22 losses that totally humbling 26 on this same ground 12 months before.

Sometimes New Zealand had been in sight of that magical first test win, and never as close as they had come in that fourth test against Weekes' West Indians in March 1956.

Aided by showers which nourished the devils in the pitch, the New Zealand medium-fast bowlers, Don Beard, Harry Cave, Tony McGibbon and John Reid with his bursters, had smashed the West Indian batting armour.

West Indies had won the first three tests by the length of the finishing straight, but this time they were out for 145 in their first innings, and eventually were offered the last four hours of the fourth and last day to score 268 runs.

Better still, the New Zealand bowlers, aided by flawless catching, had West Indies 16 for four, 18 for five, 22 for six.

The news flashed around Auckland, and the long-suffering faithful rushed to what looked like becoming the altar of victory.

But wait. Weekes was still there, and a tough little lad with the earthy name of Alfie Binns was with him.

Weekes needed only one innings in each of the three test triumphs - 112 at Dunedin, 103 at Christchurch, 156 at Wellington.

He had, God-like, led West Indies to three easy wins, but now he must return to human form and fight for the draw.

Reid, the New Zealand captain (who with coach Mervyn Wallace had tightened the technique and the confidence of the New Zealanders) brought on the leg-spinner Jack Alabaster, 25 years in age, but very young in experience. David versus Goliath, perhaps, and the chance for Weekes to unsheath his sword.

So a sob throbbed from 10,000 throats when Alabaster, seeking a little extra tweak, instead bowled the friendliest of long hops.

Weekes' eyes flashed, his feet flitted into the scoring zone, the miraculous bat started its murderous arc.

But he was out-witted. Alabaster's eager spin spoiled the length, but added sharpness to the turn. Weekes, all of a sudden, tried to re-fashion the stroke that would smash the ball into the crowd on the terraces.

He put it this way: "Ah got the ball in the middle of the bat, maaan, but ah got it maybe three-four inches too high up the blade."

The miscue put elevation rather than distance on the ball as it soared toward the terrace fence.

And there stood Spencer Noel McGregor, the Dunedin dasher. But could he catch?

So, as that ball curled high in the air, time stood still for all those New Zealanders whose brave faith in their team was yet to be rewarded with a solitary victory.

And then down it came, obviously short of the boundary fence, and as he bent his knees wee McGregor looked as tense as a teenager dreading what might happen (escape into the terrace crowd did cross his mind) if he dropped the catch.

But McGregor stood firm, the ball dropped perfectly into two hands in front of his eyes, his knees sinking to the turf - and throughout the land the words echoed: Weekes is out!

West Indies 68 for seven. Alabaster added Binns to his bag, West Indies soon out for 77, New Zealand victors by 190 runs, and their joy enhanced by the genuine congratulations of the West Indians.

And then the New Zealand cricket heart began to beat again.

There have been better and bigger wins in the 58 that have followed - but they never grabbed the battered old heart of the New Zealand game like that one in 1956.

* DJ Cameron reported on the match