To put it mildly, West Indies Cricket – especially Test Cricket – has fallen on parlous times. (Very) old timers like me can hardly bear to watch.
I much rather remember our days of glory. Here is an essay I wrote when West Indies bestrode the world of Cricket.
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As the tour of England begins (May 1984) the West Indies dominate the cricket world to an extent rarely known in the game’s history. Since the Packer era ended West Indies have enjoyed a winning steak probably unique in the history of the game. Out of 34 Tests we have lost only two. We have just given Australia the sort of thrashing a headmaster gives a wayward little boy (3-0, with victories by 10 wickets in Barbados and Jamaica, and by an innings and 36 runs in Antigua). In our last nine Tests we have not lost a second innings wicket which must be some kind of record. In limited-over contests we are, except for that one strange aberration in June last year (The World Cup Final v India, 1983) the complete masters. It is not only a question of superior playing skills. The West Indies have established a psychological ascendancy which exerts its influence before a ball is bowled in a new series. Even now you can be sure the English with chalk-white faces are shaking in their chalk-white boots.
What underlies this dominance? What is the secret? The captaincy of Clive Lloyd is a factor difficult to quantify but almost certainly more important than any of us fully appreciate. They used to say of the Emperor Napoleon that his presence was worth 100,000 men in arms on the field of battle. That is what happens when a man becomes a legend while he is still active. Lloyd’s stature in cricket now looms so large that merely his presence in the pavilion oppresses our opponents and undermines that confidence. Another factor, not very much mentioned, is the superiority of our fielding which is currently a class above anyone else. A third factor is the opening partnership of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, which late in their careers, has flowered into by far the best in the world. (They contributed 6,482 runs in their opening partnership in Tests, the highest for any partnership at that level.). Yet any analysis of why the West Indies are dominant and have been for so long must in the end focus primarily on our fast bowlers. They are the key. They are our Praetorian Guard. They have made the essential difference. Let us then for a little while consider fast bowling, this fearsome art which has given us our dominance in the game.
Cricket displays a more vivid gallery of beauty than any other game. The delicate late cut of a Frank Worrell, the delicious leg glance of a Stollmeyer, a gleaming Kanhai cover drive, the majestic power of a back-drive by Walcott or Richards, the swooping grace of young Clive Lloyd in the covers – these are portraits in the mind’s eye that will never fade as long as a sense of beauty lasts. But perhaps the most thrilling sight of all, a sense of danger mixing with the beauty, is that of a great fast bowler running in to bowl. In the whole sport in our time has there, in fact, ever been any sight which has more nearly stopped the heart with its combination of grace and savage excitement than that of Michael Holding gliding over the green grass in that marvellous run of his? Half the enchantment is in the beauty, half is in the menace.
When it comes to pure speed, every generation of cricketers has boasted its own contenders for the prize. Should it go to George Brown of Brighton (1783-1857: right arm fast underarm) who, legend has it, in the year 1818 once bowled a ball which beat bat, wicket, wicket-keeper, longstop, went through a man’s coat on the boundary, and killed a dog twenty yards the other side? Observers in the 1890s swore that no one had ever bowled, and no one would ever again bowl as fast as Charles Kortright (1871-1952), who is the only bowler so far in the history of the game to have sent a bouncer flying from the pitch clear over the boundary full for six byes.
Later generations have named Fred Spofforth (1853-1926): ‘the demon’ of Australia for the prize, and Learie Constantine (1901-71) at his fastest, and Harold Larwood (1904-95) of bodyline fame, and Frank Tyson (1930-2015) when he destroyed Australia in 1954-55, and the dreaded Charlie Griffith at his peak. Ray Lindwall (1921-96) once bowled a man’s middle stump and sent a bail flying 143 measured feet away. The argument will never end: some babe now softly at his mother’s breast will in years to come be crowned in his turn most terrifying of them all.
But let us give a roll call and observe an interesting fact: Richardson and Lockwood, Gregory and McDonald, Francis and John, Larwood and Voce, Martindale and Constantine, Lindwall and Miller, Statham and Trueman, Hall and Griffith, Lillee and Thomson. You will see that great fast bowlers have mostly hunted in pairs. But – and this is the essential point of recent international cricket – never in the whole history of the game have they hunted in a ravening pack like West Indies fast bowlers in the last seven or eight years: Roberts, Holding, Garner, Croft, Daniel, Clark and Marshall. It must be hard enough to steel the nerve to face twin-demons straining fiercely at the leash – four or even five, refreshed in relays, make the hardiest batsman wish to settle for a rainy day.
