West Indies legend, Deryck Murray believes that having the desire to succeed is one of the integral factors to coming out on top.
Speaking on the Mason and Guests radio programme in Barbados on Tuesday evening, the 76-year-old Trinidad and Tobago High Commissioner to Jamaica recalled, “People talk now that cricket is a job, it’s a profession, you have to do this, you have to hit a 100 balls in practice,” but suggested differently.
“That’s not what international cricket is about.
International cricket is about having the desire to play a Test match, to win a Test match, to win a series,” he said.
The former wicketkeeper batsman highlighted that often non-cricketing aspects such as pay are considered to be more substantive but opined, it has “nothing to do with how much you get paid or how much the coach gets paid or whatever.”
Murray, who served as vice-captain to Clive Lloyd when West Indies won the World Cup in 1975 and 1979, stated that it is often a personal commitment rather that the popularization of having more than one coaches guiding you along.
“It is about wanting to do something and you want to do it that you go out to train so much of it now depends on who are now coaches and assistant coaches but sometimes too many coaches spoil the broth,” he said.
During his Test career that spanned from 1963 to 1980, Murray scored 1993 runs at an average of 22.9, while he scored 294 runs in his 26 ODI matches, with an average of 24.5.
In his 20-year first class career that started in 1961, Murray scored 13,325 runs at an average of 28.2.
But it was his wicket-keeping that gave him prominence. He took 181 test catches and eight stumpings, in ODIs, 37 catches and one stumping, and in first-class matches 740 catches and 108 stumpings.
