By sheek
November 30th 2009 @ 6:23am
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My best Windies cricketers 1968-2009
I knew a little of cricket before 1968, but not much. On holidays in Australia from our then home in PNG, I saw a little of the 1967/68 series against India, but it didn’t really register with me.
I then heard about some ‘Ashes’ series against England, but then, there wasn’t any TV in PNG to follow the series through the news.
But when my father bought me my first ABC tour guide in late 1968, I was hooked. My father told me all about the 1960/61 series, about the drawn first test, and all the great players.
Reading through the tour guide and Alan McGilvray’s pen-portraits of players from both Australia and West Indies, I became intimately connected with the players for the very first time.
Sadly, while that 1968/69 series was basically a walk-over for the Aussies, too many of the aging Windies players failed to measure up against the Aussie young guns.
I was back in Sydney to begin boarding high school in early 1969 and a visit to the SCG for the 5th test was my first introduction to live sport.
A composite best Windies team from that series was:
Roy Fredericks, Joey Carew, Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Gary Sobers(c), Clive Lloyd, Jackie Hendricks(k), Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, Lance Gibbs, David Holford(12th).
Great players, cool names.
Fredericks and Lloyd were just starting out, while Sobers, Kanhai, Gibbs and Holford would also play-on for another 5-6 years. But by the end of 1969 Carew, Butcher, Nurse, Hendricks, Hall and Griffith were gone.
So who are the best Windies players I have seen in 40 years of following test cricket? Well, here it is:
Gordon Greenidge – punishing right-hand opener.
Desmond Haynes – sublime right-hand opener.
Brian Lara – exotic left-hand bat.
Viv Richards – intimidating right-hand bat and useful off-spinner.
Clive Lloyd (c) – powerful left-hand bat, a brilliant cover fielder and very good right-arm medium pacer in his younger days before a serious back injury.
Gary Sobers (vc) – the world’s greatest-ever all-rounder, left-hand bat, left-arm medium fast, left-arm slow orthodox, left-arm chinaman. He did everything and was also a freakish fielder.
Jeff Dujon (wk) – competent keeper and right-hand bat who epitomised Caribbean cool.
Malcolm Marshall – right-hand bat and right-arm fast. Short and slippery, with the ball skidding through dangerously fast.
Curtley Ambrose – left-hand bat and right fast-medium. Menacing intent from a great height.
Mike Holding – right-arm fast, fast, fast. Whispering death they called him with a beautiful, languid, long run-up.
Lance Gibbs – miserly and dangerous right-arm off-spinner.
Backups:
Roy Fredericks – whirlwind left-hand back-up opener.
Rohan Kanhai – sublime right-hand back-up bat. Famous for the falling hook and pull shot.
Ridley Jacobs – combative left-hand back-up keeper-batsman.
Andy Roberts – right-hand bat and right-arm fast. Revered as the ‘father’ or ‘older brother’ of the modern Windies pacemen.
Joel Garner – right-arm fast medium. ‘Big bird’ they called him, and he gave nothing away.
So there you have it, a powerful line-up indeed. How good is the line-up? Well, consider these players who couldn’t make the list:
Lawrence Rowe, Seymour Nurse, Richie Richardson, Alvin Kallicharran, Basil Butcher, Shiv Chanderpaul, Deryck Murray(k), Ian Bishop, Sylvester Clarke, Courtney Walsh, Colin Croft, Keith Boyce, Collis King, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, David Holford, Merv Dillon, Carl Hooper, Jimmy Adams, Larry Gomes.
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(7)
Freud of Football said | November 30th 2009 @ 7:45am | Report comment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_knighted_cricketers#West_Indies
- How a cricketing team so diverse and hailing from such a small population could be so good defies logic. They produced 6 knights, names that stand above some of the best from Aus and England.
Savvas Tzionis said | November 30th 2009 @ 10:23am | Report comment
What I find interesting is that their period of greatness from the late 1970’s til the mid 1990’s precluded virually any input from players of Sub-Continental background once Alvin Kallicharan departed the game.
YET, as cricket in that area has continued to descend into farce over the last 15 years, it is the Sub-Continentals who have held on to their interest in the game and perobably saved West Indian cricket to some extent.
sheek said | November 30th 2009 @ 1:59pm | Report comment
Savvas,
Maybe the Caribbean youths of West African heritage were lost to American & European sports – baseball, basketball, American football, association football, athletics. In most cases, these are explosive sports, requiring strength & power.
This left cricket largely in the hands of Asian Caribbean youths. Just a thought…..
Paul J said | November 30th 2009 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
IMO Malcolm Marshall was the best of the lot.
376 test wickets at 20.94, an unbelieveable average.
And he averaged almost 19 with the bat coming in at no. 8.
vinay verma said | November 30th 2009 @ 12:47pm | Report comment
Sheek..the music has gone out..No Rap,no Reggae only a mournful dirge. Bob Marley said..”If you cant run the Race,it Mean you cant stand the Pace.”
They were at their best when they had no coaches. Their cricket was an expression of their character. They have the natural talent as shown by Barath and Bravo. Their coaches need to harness the natural talent and not change it to suit their own ideology. Gayle is a destabilising influence. he doesn’t much care for playing Test Cricket. They need someone who has real pride. Make young Ramdin the captain.
sheek said | November 30th 2009 @ 1:56pm | Report comment
Vinay,
In the first place I think Windies administrators, & possibly everyone in the Caribbean were guilty of complacency, or that fine feeling of hubris. There was also not a little hint of black superiority, as this was the time of many African & Caribbean countries gaining political independence (60s through 80s).
They simply thought great cricketers would continue to fall out of coconut trees. The second reason, if you believe the pundits, is American & European sports, whereby young Caribbean sportsmen saw a better future in baseball, basketball, American football, association football & of course, athletics.
Whichever way you look at it, considering the composite team I chose, & the quality of players who missed the cut, it’s a crying shame…..
Greg Russell said | December 1st 2009 @ 12:46pm | Report comment
http://www.theroar.com.au/2009/11/30/windies-selectors-slammed-over-pace-spearhead-breakdown/ says that there is just one – ONE! – journalist from the whole of the West Indies covering this tour. Does any single statement better symbolize the decline of West Indian cricket?
Bruce, where did you go to boarding school?
I really can’t see how a bowler as fine as Courtney Walsh could be left out of this “squad”, but try as I might I can’t find room for him.
Re Freud’s comment about small size, the jewel in the crown is Barbados: just 167 square miles in size, but it has produced Sobers, Worrell, Weekes, Walcott, Nurse, Marshall, Haynes, Greenidge, …
Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Barbados_cricketers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados