An online poll being conducted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in recognition of its centenary anniversary celebrations has former West Indies and Guyana captain Clive Lloyd leading the greatest captain poll.
The ICC recently announced a list of 55 former test greats including WG Grace, Sir Donald Bradman, Sunil Gavaskar, Sir Richard Hadlee and Sir Garfield Sobers, as the first batch to be inducted. The poll for the greatest captain has the “Super Cat,” as Lloyd was known during his heyday, way in front.
Australians Greg Chappell and Steve Waugh and Pakistan’s Imran Khan are also in contention but Lloyd has taken 44% of the votes compared with five per cent for Waugh and four per cent each for Chappell and Khan. Forty-three per cent of the voters have decided to cast their votes for other captains.
The poll, which has attracted some 21,000 votes, has the West Indies great leading his closest competitor Waugh by almost 8,000 votes.
Lloyd, named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1971, is widely regarded as the greatest ever West Indian captain ahead of the late Sir Frank Worrell for leading the West Indies team to the top of world cricket.
Lloyd’s team dominated world cricket from 1974-1985. During that era the West Indies won the inaugural Prudential World Cup competition in 1975 with Lloyd leading from the front scoring a masterful 85-ball, 102. The West Indies reached a formidable 291/8 in 60 overs and in reply, the Australians ran themselves out for 274 in 58.4 overs with five of their batsmen going via the run out route.
Lloyd’s West Indian repeated as champions in 1979 beating England in the final before losing to Kapil Dev’s Indians in the 1983 final. In his long test career where he became the first West Indies player to earn 100 test caps, Lloyd, a tall, gangly middle-order batsman, scored 7515 runs in a career that spanned 110 tests and registered 19 centuries including a highest score of 242 not out, averaging 46.67.
In his relatively short one day career he scored 1977 runs from 87 matches and averaged 39.53 with his lone century being his 102 in the 1975 World Cup final.
The 64-year-old Lloyd since retiring as a player managed the West Indies team in the 1990 and was an ICC Match Referee from 2001-2006.
