By Scott Heinrich

1968 - A LONG TIME BETWEEN RUM PUNCHES FOR ENGLAND 1st Test, Trinidad: England 568 drew with West Indies 363 & 243-8 (f-o) 2nd Test, Jamaica: England 376 & 68-8 drew with West Indies 143 & 391-9 dec. (f-o) 3rd Test, Barbados: West Indies 349 & 284-6 drew with England 449 4th Test, Trinidad: West Indies 526-7 dec & 92-2 dec. lost to England 404 & 215-3 by seven wickets 5th Test, Guyana: West Indies 414 & 264 drew with England 371 & 206-9

England's only tour victory in the Caribbean in 1968 was a narrow one.

The margin was 1-0, but tell Jim Parks it was a close Test series and he'll calmly tell you otherwise.

The decisive victory came in the fourth match in Trinidad, but it was bookended by dramatic draws, including in the final match when Sir Garry Sobers' men came within one wicket of squaring the series.

Parks, now 73, ended his 46-Test career on a high note on that tour, keeping wicket for the first three drawn Tests before injuring himself.

"It was my last tour and I only went out there as a back-up for Alan Knott, but something went wrong with Alan and I played the first three Tests before breaking a finger," Parks tells BBC Sport.

"We went out there a little bit apprehensive because of [fast bowlers] Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith.

"We'd taken a battering from then in '63 and '66, but after the first day of the first Test we were 244-2 and I think the myth of Hall and Griffith disappeared.

"To be honest, we were in such commanding positions we ought to have won the first three Tests, but something went wrong each time."

Colin Cowdrey's England endured a chequered first half of the tour, with events ranging from selectorial disputes, boating accidents and crowd riots conspiring against them.

Titmus's freak injury was a blow, but Boycott starred in Trinidad

It all started when the omission of temperamental paceman John Snow from the first Test divided the dressing room.

"For some reason they didn't pick John but we needed him and I think it cost us the first Test," Parks, now president of county champions Sussex, recalls.

"We did the wrong thing but I think it fired him up for the rest of the series."

Fred Titmus, England's star off-spinning all-rounder, lost four toes in a boating accident before the third Test in Barbados, meaning Tony Lock had to be extracted from a bar in Tasmania to fill the breach.

"Fred and I have been great friends for many years as we were in the air force together and he was best man at my first wedding," Parks continues.

"So when I heard he was hurt I charged off to the hospital, where I found him with a great big bandage on his foot and a gin and tonic in his hand. He said he didn't feel a thing."

We couldn't believe it when Sobers declared Parks recalls the fourth Test

Parks recalls some poor umpiring decisions and a crowd riot in the second Test that forced a whole afternoon's play to be abandoned.

"A few calls went against us - I had a couple that were given not out - and we had them on the run in Jamaica before the crowd turned the match and we ended up fighting to hold on.

"We worked out that Basil Butcher kept on gliding down leg stump, so I stood up to the stumps to Basil D'Oliveira and we got him caught behind.

"The umpire gave him out but he hung around. When he eventually walked, the crowd starting throwing bricks onto the ground and Sobers and Cowdrey had to go over and talk to them."

A frustrated England ventured back to Trinidad, where another draw looked certain until Sobers declared for the second time in the match, setting England 215 to win at less than four per over.

Amazingly, some members of the team suggested playing for a draw, but England coasted home by seven wickets.

Sobers and Knott met again on the Windies' 1973 tour of England

"We couldn't believe it when Sobers declared," says Parks.

"There were murmurs in the dressing room that we shouldn't go for the runs, but we did and Geoff Boycott and Cowdrey got fifties and we won.

"We knew then that the series was ours because we had been so commanding, even though there was one Test to play."

Parks' successor Knott kept a tiring England afloat in the final Test in Guyana, which started on the day future captain Nasser Hussain was born.

Knott, who would go on to play 95 Tests in a glittering career, scored a heroically defiant 73 not out off 260 balls as England clung on for the draw.

It was a taxing end to a taxing tour for England, while Parks went on to be named Wisden Cricketer of the Year that very year, a time he remembers with great fondness.

"I was 36 then and knew that my Test career was almost over, but I enjoyed it and that was what mattered in those days."