Earlier in the 1975/6 Season the West Indies had toured Australia and played a six-Test series that was billed as an unofficial World Championship between the two strongest teams.

Gordon Greenidge described the tour as a 'collective debacle and a personal nightmare', whilst Michael Holding recalled, 'There was plenty of argument and dissent at meetings and in the dressing room.

Centuries from Gundappa Viswanath and Sunil Gavaskar enabled India to reach this target for the loss of four wickets (two of which were run-outs) and created a new record for the highest ever successful fourth-innings' run chase in a test match (surpassing Australia's 404/3 at Headingley against England in 1948) For Clive Lloyd this was the final humiliation he was prepared to let his team suffer.

He felt that West Indian strength lay in their crop of young fast bowlers, and the experiences of his team in Australia had demonstrated how the high-quality, hostile pace attack of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson could intimidate the opposition batting.

[3] Going into the deciding test at Kingston, Jamaica at 1–1, the West Indies duly picked a four-pronged pace attack of Michael Holding, Wayne Daniel, Bernard Julien and Vanburn Holder.

Then Anshuman Gaekwad, a tall bespectacled batsman who had batted bravely to reach 81 not out began to show signs of backing away to leg as the onslaught of bouncers continued.

The West Indies scored 391 in their first innings, and when India went out to bat again they made a solid start but lost Amarnath, Madan Lal and Venkataraghavan in quick succession to slump to 97/5.

[4] According to Michael Holding: 'On that surface it was inevitable that some batsmen would be hit against such a pace-based attack as ours, especially as we adopted the tactic of bowling round the wicket, aiming the ball at their bodies.