"You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that do ya, on a weekday?"

"Is this a … what day is this?"

Jeffrey Lebowski didn't know what day it was. The Spin often knows the feeling. At the moment we're not sure what year it is. The state of English cricket leading up to Thursday's Test against South Africa is part 2012, part 1990s. If the Kevin Pietersen business is emphatically of its time, involving social networking and the confused entitlement of modern society, then the more important element of this week – England's need to win the final Test to square the series – feels like a throwback to the previous generation.

It actually didn't happen as often as you might think, yet it's still evocative of those late 20th century days. England in disarray going into the final Test, the selectors making multiple changes and being slaughtered for the aesthetic vandalism of omitting Jack Russell and/or the specialist spinner. The most obvious reference point is 1994, against South Africa, but we covered that a few weeks ago, and although we were tempted to reprint the whole thing and hope nobody noticed, we've always wanted to bask in the victory over West Indies in 1991, one of the most life-affirming Test matches of modern times. There were no tweets, no texts, no YouTube interviews and no parody accounts – even if Ian Botham did take the proverbial with his Beefy's Own comeback.

Happiness may be a cigar called Hamlet, finding a pencil or even a warm gun; it is also the memory of those five days at the Oval in 1991. This was a magical match played in gorgeous sunshine that almost had a fairytale quality. England beat West Indies, still the undisputed world champions, by five wickets to secure an heroic 2-2 series draw. Younger readers may wonder what the fuss is about (a draw against West Indies? Whatever) but a drawn series was as joyously improbable as victory in the 2005 Ashes. England had lost seven series in a row against West Indies, going back to 1974. In this paper, Mike Selvey wrote that "for England and English cricket … [the draw] represents quite possibly the most stirring of post-war deeds and arguably the grandest of them all". Like 2005, the series ended on an unforgettably crazy Monday (we did think about calling it a manic Monday but, y'know). In the Times, Alan Lee said that "one of the great games in Test cricket history climaxed in a rare and precious sporting day".

For England, a happy ending seemed utterly improbable a week earlier. After starting the series with an immense victory at Headingley, when Graham Gooch made his astonishing 154 not out, they had been slowly brought to heel by West Indies, who won the third and fourth Tests to take a 2-1 lead. Now the Windies were coming to the Oval, their favourite English ground and the one most suited to their phalanx of fast bowlers. The bookies made England 5-1 before the match. OK, there was two 00s missing from Headingley 1981, when England were 500-1, but it was still not exactly a vote of confidence. England went for their 007, the all-action hero Botham, who had once been pitched as the next James Bond. Botham had not played Test cricket for two years but was part of a dramatic reinvention of the team that even the chairman of selectors Ted Dexter said was "high-risk".

That was a generous description. The selectors basically went rogue, ripping up the existing XI and taking myriad gambles in a bespoke team that never played together before or after. Out went Graeme Hick – who had been persecuted by Curtly Ambrose – Allan Lamb, Richard Illingworth, Jack Russell and the injured Derek Pringle. In came Botham, the fit again Robin Smith, Alec Stewart, Phil Tufnell and David 'Syd' Lawrence. Four of the five were significant risks. Even though Botham had panelled 161 against West Indies for Worcestershire earlier in the summer, his Test record against them was poor and nobody knew whether, at 35, he could still cut it at international level. Stewart had not kept wicket in first-class cricket for Surrey all summer. Tufnell had been ostracised after the previous winter's tour of Australia because of his inability to fit in with the new professional ethos of Gooch and Micky Stewart; and Lawrence, though genuinely fast, was inexperienced and erratic. All four would play vital roles in the match.

The Stewart selection was particularly controversial. At that stage he was a batsman who kept only in limited-overs cricket, but England wanted five bowlers and that meant a keeper who could bat in the top six. A Guardian leader called it "crazy" and said he had "demonstrated before that he isn't up to the job". In his Times piece ahead of the squad selection, Lee said "surely the idea is not even worth discussing". Even Gooch, whose idea it was, said "I don't like the principle, and I wouldn't say for a minute it wasn't a gamble." Stewart said he was "very pleased but surprised." Russell kept his own counsel. "The outrage of almost everyone in the game speaks eloquently enough for the wicketkeeper England have discarded on entirely spurious grounds," wrote Lee in the Times. He and others were more than happy to praise Stewart after an almost flawless performance. "The selectors … are to be congratulated," wrote Lee nine days later. "Stewart did both jobs commendably well."

Most of the build-up, inevitably, was dominated by another all-rounder, the returning Botham. He celebrated his recall by taking seven for 54 against Warwickshire on the Monday before the game, the best figures of his long County Championship career. "MR INCREDIBLE" roared the back page of the Express. It was pitched as Both v Viv, one last time: Botham's comeback and Viv Richards's farewell. With West Indies having no Tests scheduled for the next 15 months (in the end they played the newly reintegrated South Africa in April 1992), it was widely and correctly assumed that this would be the Test match farewell of three West Indian greats: Richards, Malcolm Marshall and Jeffrey Dujon.

The cricket-loving philanthropist Patrick Whittingdale arranged a pre-match dinner at which Fleet Street's finest paid tribute to Richards. Perhaps the greatest of them all, John Woodcock, said: "If I were to choose two players to watch between lunch and tea, of all those I have ever seen, I would want to watch Denis [Compton] and you – and I hope he would not run you out." Viv said he was a "bit moved" – akin to most men admitting they'd gone a big rubbery one – although he was not in the mood mood to get too sentimental. "You'd think," he said, "that Viv was dead or something." His old mate Beefy was certainly back. With his first ball in the nets he sent Smith's stumps flying. "If one did not know better," wrote Selvey in this paper, "one would say it was a set-up."

Botham spent most of the first day struggling with a virus. If his sense of smell was compromised, then the England's batsmen's was more acute than ever. And the only thing they could smell was leather. Presented with the first fast pitch of the summer after a series of slow seamers, the quartet of Ambrose, Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Patrick Patterson enjoyed themselves. There was another reason to pummel the pitch halfway down: it would be the West Indies' last Test before the introduction of a regulation limiting bowlers to one bouncer per over. One last blast of chin music for the road – and on the road, for the Oval was like a concrete slab.

For England to close on 231 for four was an outstanding effort. "England survived relatively intact against the most torrid three sessions they have experienced since they were steamrollered in Antigua 18 months ago," said Selvey in this paper. In the series, their scores had been 198, 252, 354, 300, 211, 188 and 255. They had been taking on the West Indies' pace quartet with just two and a half batsmen. Gooch and Smith were simply magnificent – "It would hardly be an exaggeration," wrote Scyld Berry in Wisden, "to say they both batted virtually as well as humanly possible" – while the 21-year-old Mark Ramprakash, in his debut series, showed plenty of moxie even if he kept getting stuck in the twenties. But Hick, Lamb and Mike Atherton made 242 runs at 10.52, while Hugh Morris had failed twice on his debut in the previous Test at Edgbaston.

When England won the toss and batted, Gooch and particularly Morris were subjected to a brutal working over. They somehow got through to lunch at 82 for none, and were even applauded off by some of the West Indian team for their performance. Morris, only 5ft 8in, showed almighty courage. "By lunchtime," wrote Woodcock in the Times, "Gooch knew he had found a kindred spirit." As they walked off Gooch put a paternal arm round his new opening partner.

After lunch, Ambrose moved things up a notch. He smashed Morris on the jaw, breaking his helmet in the process. It was the first of five bouncers in seven balls to Morris, the last of which brought his wicket. Morris's 44, made in 189 minutes, was worth plenty more. It was, said Lee, "an ordeal he is unlikely ever to forget". His wicket sparked a collapse of three for eight in 21 balls. Atherton went for a duck, fending a beast from Courtney Walsh to slip. "It would have ripped out his throat had he not got a glove there first," said Selvey. Gooch went to the magnificent Ambrose.

In the Times, Lee described that afternoon session as "two hours of purgatory", with only 23 overs bowled and barely an idea where the next run was coming from. In the Express, Colin Bateman said "the batsmen's sole intention was to leave the middle on two feet as opposed to a stretcher". But Smith, promoted to No4, and Ramprakash, calmly rebuilt the innings. At that stage Smith was one of the world's best – third in the official rankings behind Gooch and Richie Richardson – while Ramprakash seemed undeniably to be made of the right stuff. If you had pencilled him in for 5000 Test runs, the only query would have been why you set the bar so low. His temperament and technique under the most extreme pressure were revelatory. He batted over 15 hours in the series, even though he never got beyond 29, and each of his innings lasted at least an hour. His scores in the series were 27, 27, 24, 13, 21, 29, 25, 25 and 19.

When he was hit early in his innings, Ramprakash did not rub his body and stared straight back at Ambrose. When a nastier blow on the wrist precipitated treatment, Richie Benaud observed on the BBC that Ramprakash had "a ton of courage". He made a calm 25 from 78 balls before, the hard work done, falling tamely to Carl Hooper. It was another immensely promising innings, and Selvey wrote that "he had established himself as a batsman of undoubted Test-match temperament". This is the true sadness of Ramprakash's career: many unfulfilled talents look out of place in Test cricket at the start, like Hick, yet he could barely have had a more impressive debut series.

Or a more impressive partner in this innings. After a traumatic winter in Australia, Smith was in the form of his life. He resumed on 54 for the second day, and went on to make his second century of the series; his 109 was an innings of monumental mental strength and physical bravery. He had a badly injured finger on the right hand and was also suffering with a virus, yet nothing was going to curb his almost masochistic enthusiasm for facing the West Indian quicks. He took his blows, one on the glove and two in the stomach, and landed them too. The speed-of-light square cut was in full evidence, with two in two balls off Ambrose, and he also drove handsomely on the rare occasions the opportunity presented itself.

Smith reached 2,000 Test runs in what was only his 27th Test, and his performance in this match took his average to 52.58 – outrageous for that era (Andrew Jones, Javed Miandad and Mark Taylor were the only contemporary players with a higher average), especially because 20 of his 27 Tests had been against the world's best, West Indies and Australia. It's often said that South African-born batsmen have to work 10 times as hard to win affection in England, yet Smith would walk into an XI of England's most-loved cricketers. His magnificent performances against West Indies are one of the main reasons for that. "If a Test of a batsman's rating is reckoned to be how he fares against a latter-day West Indian attack, Robin Smith is just about at the top of the tree," wrote Woodcock in the Times. "No one counter-punches against them with the same resilience and aggressiveness."

Smith's hundred helped England to the holy grail of 400 – a total they had not reached in an amazing 66 innings against the West Indies. They had to beg, steal and borrow every run. There were 54 in extras, 39 of them no-balls, and their 419 took more than 150 overs. Stewart and Botham each made 31 – Botham's was a responsible effort that took over two hours – and Chris Lewis punched a superb 47 not out from No8.

At that stage Lewis seemed to be maturing beautifully – on the fourth day of the match he would bowl an outstanding spell of 15 overs for 16 either side of lunch, including seven overs for one run at one stage – and was a potential successor to Botham. Not that anyone could deny Botham the spotlight. The end to his innings, when he tried to hook Ambrose and staggered towards his own wicket, dislodging the bails as he unsuccessfully tried to hurdle the stumps, was the moment of the day. Not least because of the impact it had on Test Match Special, where it prompted the legendary 'leg over' commentary from Brian Johnston and Jonathan Agnew. It's an appropriately abiding memory of such a feelgood match. Twenty one years on, it remains instant serotonin.

After reaching 419, England began their search for 20 wickets with almost manic desperation. At slip, Botham became the first Englishman to wear sunglasses in a Test (a big deal at the time, believe it or not). Phil Simmons went early, but West Indies ended the second day on 90 for one after England put down both Desmond Haynes (off Botham's fourth ball; so nearly another who-writes-your-scripts moment) and Richardson with the score on 85. An eventful day also included a 10-minute delay while he groundstaff cleared paper from around the ground, which had been thrown like ticker tape during a Mexican wave. "One of the more brainless things you could ever see at a cricket match," said Benaud on the BBC.

It was nowhere near as brainless as what we saw the following day, when West Indies ushered themselves towards defeat with an absurd display against Phil Tufnell. "Somewhere in the history of Test cricket," wrote the BBC commentator Jack Bannister, "a team may have tossed away a near-unassailable position in a five-match series with as abject a batting display … but I doubt it." They were 158 for three when Tufnell came on for his first bowl of the day; in the next 63 balls they lost seven for 18, most to ridiculous slogs. Tufnell finished with figures of 14.3-3-25-6. His figures for the day were 5.3-2-4-6. The last six batsmen scored four between them.

Tufnell was a genuine matchwinner around that time, a Cockney with craft who flighted the ball and outwitted good batsmen. He took five-fors in his next two Tests as well. He bowled impressively here, too, but the West Indian batting was at best lamentable, at worst disgraceful. It started when the debutant Clayton Lambert (covering for the injured Gus Logie, only because a young Brian Lara was injured) slogged his first ball miles in the air. Richards, down the order because of a migraine, sliced a wild on-the-run drive and was beautifully caught by Stewart, and the tail continued to die by the long handle. Haynes was alone as the others jumped off a deck that wasn't even burning. He carried his bat for 75 not out, an innings of serene authority that put the pitch in the context.

The upshot of all these upward shots was that West Indies followed on against England for the first time in 22 years. This time they batted properly, downgrading their approach against Tufnell from demented swishing to calculated aggression. (Having taken six for 25 in the first innings, Tufnell ended up a sixth of the wickets for six times as many runs: one for 150, even though he actually bowled pretty well.) Botham picked up a couple of important wickets, and then Lawrence dismissed Haynes, who left the field for the first time in the match. West Indies closed day three on 152 for three, a deficit of 91.

At that stage, Test cricket on a Sunday was still an unusual occurrence. We might have expected a quiet, respectful start. Some chance. Hooper, his genius in full flow, hit three sixes in the first six overs of the day, two of them off Tufnell. But Tufnell kept his nerve, kept flighting the ball, and had Hooper caught on the drive at short extra cover for a lustrous 54. It was one of only three wickets England took all day; any tentative hope that victory might come easily soon disappeared. Richardson – who before the series was disparaged as somebody who could not bat in English conditions – made his second century in a row, a high-class 121 from 312 balls. It was a masterful display of how to judge and sometimes dictate the mood of a tense day's play. At times he was becalmed, especially in excellent duels with Lewis and Tufnell in the afternoon session, at others freewheeling. He raced from 85 to 99 in four deliveries from Lawrence.

And then there was Viv. He walked to the crease for his final Test innings needing 20 for a career average of 50. The parallels with Don Bradman 43 years earlier were obvious; in this paper, Selvey joked that he might be bowled for nought by an Atherton googly. Richards reached 20 with one of the few all-run fours of his career and played with furious determination. "He played the innings of a batsman pouring every last drop of experience, technique and willpower into a final effort, taking no risks, playing exclusively on merit and punching boundaries only when presented with an unequivocal case for dispatching the ball," wrote Selvey. "It was classical batting against fine bowling."

Having reached 50, Viv's temperature was rasied by the hustle and bristle of Lawrence. He was, as Frank Keating put it, "beginning to get on the great man's wick". Two disdainful boundaries were followed with a drag to Morris at mid-on. One of the greatest batting careers was over. Richards walked off to a standing ovation, cap pulled down over his eyes, the window to his soul kept shut. We will never know if there were tears at that moment, and it is right that it should be that way. There were certainly tears around the ground. "Cricket provides its moving moments," wrote Selve, "and this stung the eyes more than most." A banner on the Harleyford Road flats said simply: 'Thanks Viv, we'll miss you'.

We would miss the brilliant Dujon too, even if by now he was a fading force. Two years before the debut of Glenn McGrath, he became the first Test batsman to lose his Test wicket to a pigeon. He was unsettled by its seed-gathering presence at silly point, and stopped play to shoo it away. After a delay of 93 seconds, Dujon wafted absent-mindedly at the next ball and was caught behind. That was 311 for six, but when the players came off at 4.55pm West Indies had moved on to 356 for six, a lead of 113, For England fans, The Fear was making its presence known, even if excitement remained the principal emotion. In the Express on Monday morning, the first line of Bateman's report captured the mood. "Take a day's holiday, get a sick note, fake amnesia – whatever it takes, forget work and don't miss the cricket in SE11 today." By lunchtime the ground was full, with shiny happy people basking in a rare sporting occasion.

Phil DeFreitas completed a wonderful series (22 wickets at 20.77) by dismissing Marshall and Ambrose in the first over, and then Lawrence completed his first five-for for England with the wickets of Walsh and Richardson. England's target was 143. Any suggestion it might be easy was dispelled when Patterson gave Morris the definitive snorter. Three for one. Wickets fell with troubling regularity, but England – running with the mood of the day – rattled along at a crazy run rate. Ambrose and Patterson ended with one-day figures of 8-0-48-0 and 9-0-63-2. At 80 for four, with Gooch and Smith gone, England were in a bit of trouble. But Ramprakash, indecently calm again, took 27 minutes to get off the mark while Stewart counter-punched at the other end to make a rapid 38 not out.

They took England to within one run of victory when Richards threw the ball to the part-timer Lambert to finish the game. Absurdly he dismissed Ramprakash, but that allowed the dream ending. Botham strode to the wicket and pulled his first ball for four to Compton's Corner. "Compton's famous sweep for the Ashes triumph of 1953 had finished in the same spot," said Wisden, "and in many ways this match was just as memorable in Oval Test history." Botham may not have got his leg over but he had got England's leg over the line: it was his first ever Test win in 20 attempts against West Indies, and he had hit the winning runs in his first Test for two years. Who wrote his scripts? He did, of course.

If Botham had inevitably stolen the show, nobody doubted that the biggest hero was the captain. "GOOCHIE'S FINEST HOUR!" was the Daily Mirror headline the next day. His unimaginable excellence had driven England to such rare heights. A couple of years earlier, the chairman of selectors Dexter said Gooch had "the charisma of a wet fish". Now he called him "a very special guy". Gooch looked shattered, having given his soul and body all summer. As champagne was sprayed all around him, he sat nursing a cup of tea. Forget the run orgy of 1990; this was Gooch's summer.

West Indies were not too sad, despite their defeat. They retained the Wisden Trophy and remained unbeaten in a series since 1979-80. A match and series full of decency of dignity left little scope for regrets. Two decades on, the memories have added poignancy because of the fate of some of the players. Marshall, the greatest of all fast bowlers, would die aged 41 in 1999; Lawrence's career would effectively be ended by an horrific knee injury during the tour of New Zealand that winter. (If you want to see, or rather hear, the injury – although it is truly horrible and we don't recommend it – you can click here) Lawrence was one of a number of the England team who did not or were not allowed to fulfil the considerable promise they showed in the match or the series: Ramprakash, Morris, Lewis, Tufnell, DeFreitas, maybe even Smith.

At the time the future was not ours to see, and there was only a warm, fuzzy feeling. "It has been a wonderful summer," said Richards. "We go back with our heads held high. The series was played in a wonderful spirit of keenness and generosity, and as it's level, the only outright winner is this wonderful game, which we all love dearly." The tour manager Lance Gibbs said it was "the happiest and most sporting of tours I can remember", a status that was even more striking because it followed a nasty series between West Indies and Australia earlier that year.

Wisden concurred that the series was "staged in the best of spirit", as did the Guardian. "Of all the good things to come out of this series," wrote Selvey, "perhaps the most significant was the manner in which the contests were conducted, proving conclusively that to compete fiercely – and there is no more ferocious contest than that between batsman and mega-fast bowlers on a surge – it is not necessary to drag the game into the gutter." Instead, for five days in August 1991, it was elevated to the stars.

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