Dear Editor,
Professor Winston McGowan’s article in the History this week series on November 26, 2009 entitled ‘Guyanese single Test centurion (Part IV)’ whetted my appetite to further analyze the rise and demise of Guyana and West Indies opening batsman Leonard Baichan. Despite having a successful first class career Baichan hardly got a good chance to prove his ability at the Test level, and was permanently discarded by the West Indies selectors without any major failure. This will remain a subject of some controversy.
Let me first of all congratulate Professor McGowan on his recent milestone, being awarded the Emeritus professorship at the last convention of the University of Guyana. Professor McGowan’s scholarship is well recognized among the intellectual and academic community and he did some ground-breaking research in the area of history, politics and sport, especially cricket in Guyana, while being the most recent scholar to hold the Walter Rodney Chair at the University of Guyana created by the then newly elected President Dr Cheddi Jagan in November 1992 in his address to Parliament.
Baichan’s rise as an opening batsman took place when both Guyana and the West Indies cricket team were on the verge of an upward momentum in 1972 after a lean period. Even though Baichan had the most successful Shell Shield tournament in 1972, he was omitted for the first three matches in 1973 due to the success of Roy Fredericks and Stephen Camacho as Guyana’s opening pair. He was eventually called for the last match against Trinidad and Tobago and scored a century while batting at number three. Guyana won the Shell Shield series for the first time under the captaincy of Rohan Kanhai in 1973.
After that, Baichan became a permanent fixture in the Guyana side as the opening partner with Roy Fredericks. He was a solid batsman with a good defence and immense concentration. He was not an attractive stroke player, and would have been outshone by the glamorous Alvin Kallicharan, who was not only a crowd favourite but an attractive star in the eyes of cricket commentators such as the late Fred Wills, Reds Perreira, Brian Sadler, etc.
However, Baichan could adjust in keeping with the dictates of the game. He played one of his best first class innings when Guyana chased an ambitious target of over three hundred runs at the Skeldon Cricket ground in 1972 against the Combined Islands. Baichan played in my view the best innings, scoring 116 not out while rotating the strike to the more aggressive Roy Fredericks and Alvin Kallicharran who tore the Combined Islands’ (Leewards and Windwards) attack apart led by Shillingford, Phillips, Willet, and Francis, giving Guyana a victory by six wickets in even time.
By 1974 Baichan was seen as the ideal partner for Roy Fredericks, who had more than twelve opening partners while playing for the West Indies. However, Baichan was unlucky to be injured just before the first Test in India, which made way for Gordon Greenidge who had a successful first Test match. That was Greenidge’s only success, as the Indian spinning trio of Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Prasanna under the leadership of Mansoor Ali Khan and the last Nawab of Pataudi in India created numerous problems for Greenidge that resulted in a series of low scores.
An injury to Greenidge allowed Baichan to earn his first Test cap, and as alluded to by Professor McGowan he scored his first century at the most critical time on the most difficult wicket in the second innings to earn a draw that looked difficult. In difficult batting conditions on a wicket that kept low against some of the world’s fastest bowlers, namely, Asif Masood and Safraz Nawaz, Baichan defied a hostile attack in a match marred by a record number of controversial LBW decisions.
Greenidge returned to the West Indies squad for the first World Cup in England in 1975, the outcome of which is now history. The speed of Pakistan and the express speed of Australia proved too much for him. When the West Indies toured Australia later in that year the express speed of Dennis Lillie and Jeff Thompson might have brought his career to a premature end, but the selectors kept faith with him. In that series Baichan played his last Test match, and had scores of 20 and 3 in the last test. After a number of trials Greenidge eventually found his way to become a permanent member in the West Indies team by 1977.
The discarding of Baichan without any major failures is debatable and a number of reasons could be advanced such as his slowness, a kind of lacklustre approach in the field, and his suspicion of the short pitch delivery that did not find favour with the selectors. There is even the argument that too many Guyanese were in the side, since nearly half of the players in the West Indies were from Guyana in the mid ’70s. However, in a consistent and successful run that lasted more than five years in the regional tournament he could be considered unlucky not to have played more Test matches.
Yours faithfully,
Rajendra Rampersaud
