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Over at Cricinfo, they are in the final stages of preparing the all-time West Indies Test XI, which will probably be announced in the coming week. In the meantime, I’m going to have a crack at my own all-time Windies Test XI.
But first, some background.
When you have the opportunity to select an all-time team from any sport or country, with players spread out from over 80 or more years, you can afford to pick a team based on a time-honoured structure.
In cricket, this time-honoured structure says you should have two openers, one right handed and the other left handed, followed by three middle order batsmen, preferably one of them left-handed.
Positions six and seven should be occupied by leading all-rounders, one of them also a front-line bowler, the other the wicket-keeper. Your bowling attack should then comprise five front-line bowlers, three pacemen and two spinners.
So this is the structure we will try to follow, capable of taking on all-comers in all conditions in all countries. But there will obviously be necessary deviations depending on the quality and type of candidates.
Openers. Roy Fredericks is the only quality left-hander up for selection. Chris Gayle doesn’t qualify as his batting average is too low. However, Fredericks is also just below par. As is perhaps Desmond Haynes.
So it comes down to 3 – Gordon Greenidge, Conrad Hunte and Jeff Stollmeyer. I’m going with the bajan pair of Greenidge and Hunte.
Openers: Gordon Greenidge, Conrad Hunte.
Middlers. Statistically, George Headley, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott have the highest batting averages of middle order batters. But what of Brian Lara, Viv Richards and Sir Frank Worrell? Or even Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse and Clive Lloyd?
Let’s look at Worrell first. The history of Windies cricket demonstrates that because of their different nationalities and cultures, despite sharing geographical proximity, the Windies need a strong leader, indeed a very strong leader. And Worrell was the best. So he’s in the team as captain.
His batting average was just under 50, so he’s up to the task. As both a right-hand bat and left-arm medium pacer, he brings extra variety to the team. Headley was known as ‘the black Bradman’, so obviously he must also be in.
This leaves one position for Weekes, Walcott, Richards and Lara. Talk about difficult decisions! Since I can’t separate the remaining two W’s, they both go. So it’s down to Richards and Lara. It has to be Richards because of his destructive batting, although Lara’s left-handedness offers the attraction of variety.
Middle order batsmen: George Headley, Viv Richards, Frank Worrell (c).
Batting all-rounder. There’s only one candidate – Gary Sobers. He could command his place in the team on batting alone. But in addition to his brilliant left-hand batting, he also bowled left-arm pace & swing, as well as left-arm offies and leggies. Oh, and he could field a bit as well!
Batting all-rounder: Gary Sobers.
Wicket-keeping all-rounder. It’s quite likely Cricinfo might select Walcott as keeper, since he kept wickets early in his test career. But not often enough for my liking. Jackie Hendricks is widely regarded as the best pure keeper in Windies history, but his batting was ordinary. So the candidate perhaps by default, who could bat well and keep competently, is Jeff Dujon.
Of course, if the batting wasn’t already so strong, I would probably plumb for Walcott. There is definitely an embarrassment of riches here.
Keeping all-rounder: Jeff Dujon.
Fast bowlers. Boy, what a selection to choose from – Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, Andy Roberts, Mike Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh, Curtley Ambrose, Ian Bishop, etc…
No discussion, just go with the flow and I’ve gone with Marshall, Ambrose and Holding, with Garner the next cab off the rank if required.
Fast bowlers: Malcolm Marshall, Curtley Ambrose, Mike Holding.
Spinner. From the mid 70’s onwards, the Windies decided they didn’t need a spinner. They were willing to go with an “unbalanced” attack of four quickies and no spinner. And it worked wonderfully well for them for the next 20 years!
In any case, there have only been three outstanding Windies spinners – leggie Sonny Ramadhin, left-armer Alf Valentine and offie Lance Gibbs. Gibbs is clearly the best, and thoroughly deserves his place in the all-time team.
Spinner: Lance Gibbs.
So here’s the team in batting order: Gordon Greenidge, Conrad Hunte, George Headley, Viv Richards, Frank Worrell(c), Gary Sobers(vc), Jeff Dujon(k), Malcolm Marshall, Curtley Ambrose, Mike Holding, Lance Gibbs.
Want to know how good this team is? Select a 2nd XI: Jeff Stollmeyer, Roy Fredericks, Rohan Kanhai(vc), Brian Lara, Everton Weekes, Clive Lloyd(c), Clyde Walcott(k) Andy Roberts, Wes Hall, Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh.
And to wrap things up, here’s a Windies all-time one-day cricket XI: Frank Worrell(c), Brian Lara, George Headley, Viv Richards, Everton Weekes, Gary Sobers(vc), Clyde Walcott(k), Malcolm Marshall, Curtley Ambrose, Mike Holding, Joel Garner, Learie Constantine(12th man – specialist fielder).
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