My first memory of the West Indies was Geoff Lawson’s jaw being shattered by Patrick Patterson. It seemed an appropriate image to sum up the experience of my generation of Australians in relation to the Windies.
I was quickly fascinated by an exotic array of giganti fast bowlers and extravagantly brilliant batsmen, men with bizarre names like Courtney and Curtly and Vivian, and a team that had been invincible for years.
They were so good, so ruthless, yet so laid back.
When Carl Hooper bowled, he almost fell asleep halfway through his delivery stride. Not that he bowled very often – spin was only really used as a laugh by the Windies back then.
They’d bring on Hooper or Richards or Roger Harper for a trundle to give everyone a quick giggle, then resume their sincere attempts to decapitate the opposition batsmen.
They were so disdainful of spin that Allan Border took 11 wickets in a Test match against them simply because the idea of a little man bowling slow to them seemed so preposterous they got out due to shock more than anything.
Four years later, the new boy Shane Warne stunned everyone in Melbourne, and Tim May with bat and ball almost pulled off a miracle in Adelaide.
However, the miracle disappeared in one Courtney Walsh bouncer, and in the next Test, normal service was resumed. Curtly Ambrose bowling a spell of sheer terror in Perth to shred Australia like rice paper.
That was the last hurrah of the invincible Windies really. Not long after that, they were dethroned. But what a hurrah it was.
Ah, Ambrose was a bowler, wasn’t he?
Enormous, loose limbs flailing, loping to the crease like an insouciant giraffe, somehow coiling and releasing those giant elastic bands to hurl bolts of pure malice at the batsman with suffocating accuracy.
He was relentless, and on a dodgy pitch, dangerous. If there was a crack, he’d hit it, again and again, and he’d likely do the same to your head.
Some said Mark Waugh was cowardly when he hit a hundred mainly by backing away and flipping Curtly over the slips. In fact, it was the gutsiest tactic he could have avoided. Every time he did it, it just made Ambrose more determine to kill him.
When Dean Jones complained about Curtly’s wristbands, it went beyond gutsy and into suicidal.
Ambrose’s predecessor as the Lord of Windies Quicks was Malcolm Marshall, a man half Ambrose’s size but possessed of even more skill, and a hostility that belied his small frame.
Before and after Ambrose was Courtney Walsh, a bit player in great teams, and a colossus in mediocre ones, who looked like he was made of bamboo, but somehow kept going, and going, and going, until he’d knocked over more batsmen than any of his former teammates.
And, of course, there was cool Ian Bishop and mad Patrick Patterson, and before them, lethal Michael Holding and brutal Joel Garner. They just kept rolling off that assembly line.
Meanwhile, when the West Indies took strike, opposition bowlers were being cowed and terrified almost as much as the batsmen by an array of whirling axemen that brutalised attacks around the world.
Viv Richards, with that supreme gum-chewing arrogance, making it clear that he considered a bowler merely a not-particularly-troublesome species of insect. The savage double-barrelled shotgun at the top of the order, Greenidge and Haynes. \\
The freewheeling Richie Richardson.
Big cat Lloyd.
At the tail-end of the dominant era, the rising prince Lara.
Pounding team after team into bloody submission with big smiles on their faces.
That’s how the Windies appeared to me, and somehow, they always will. That era of rubber-armed fast men and blazing willowsmiths is frozen in the mind, even though it was just one segment of the West Indies story.
They entered Test cricket in the 1930s, and up till the late 50s were always captained by white men, an absurd thought to those, like me, reared on the 80s terrors.
At the start, the heroes were the Black Bradman, George Headley, and the erratic but electrifying all-rounder Learie Constantine.
After the war, West Indian cricket was defined by the three Ws, batting giants Walcott, Weekes, and Worrell, and spin magicians Ramadhin and Valentine.
In the 60s, the team rose to the top of the world with Sobers, Gibbs, Hall and Kanhai, before something of a decline in the 70s was followed by Lloyd’s world-crushing revival with the four-pronged pace battery strategy.
West Indian cricket has been all sorts of things.
And now, we see a struggling, but improving team, battling against the rising Australians, led by a big-hearted, determined, yet limited captain in Darren Sammy, batting held together by an ageing champion and bowling led by a promising pair, one fast firebrand and one tricky offie.
It’s very different from the old days.
Nobody was determined yet limited in the 1980s teams.
Some were lazy, some were mercurial, but all were ridiculously talented and walked the earth like gods, deigning to grace we mortals with a glimpse of their divine abilities.
But such freakish happenstance of collective brilliance couldn’t last forever.
And there are reasons to delight in the current team. We still can enjoy the presence of men called Kraigg and Kemar and Carlton. We can enjoy a pack of underdogs grinding and heel-nipping their way to a better future.
We can enjoy the particular flavour that the rise of a generation of talented players of Indian descent has brought to the Caribbean. And we can rejoice in the Windies’ rediscovery of the virtues of spin.
But most of all, we can breathe a sigh of relief that, though they may lose this series, there seems to be some fight back in the Windies.
For no matter how things change, everyone knows that when the West Indies are putting up a fight, the cricket world is an infinitely more interesting place.
formeropenside
Guest
Bacchus, with the initials S.F.A. ? One for the ages, that. Not as good as batsman as Greenidge or Haynes though.
Evan Askew
Guest
Just look at the fast bowlers who couldn't crack the team in the 70's and 80's. Sylvester Clarke, Wayne Daniel, Winston Davis and Winston Benjamin. And though he was a spinner Roger Harper was also a class player who took 50 test wickets at an average in the 20's. He was also a good lower order batsman.
Evan Askew
Guest
You know I lament the fact that batsman wear helmets all the time instead of a cap in the modern game but I guess this show why you should wear a helmet, with a face guard. Funy thing is that this was one of the few tests where Lawson didn't wear a face guard. Oh the irony. I do believe he also went out once without a box to face the West Indies so perhaps old Henry had a bit of a sado masochistic side.
Disco
Roar Guru
Ah-ha.
Disco
Roar Guru
The Windies actually had Marshall for that series. Bishop only played in the ODIs from memory.
Mickyt
Guest
And lets not forget the devastating opening bastmen Faoud Bacchus. Agree that cricket needs a great WI side. Politics and telecommunications sponsorship has created issues. Hopefully the twenty20 comps put money in the pcokets so they can afford to play test cricket for love and fiscal reward.
M-Rod
Guest
remember it being a tough job in the 1989 series I think it was for the Aussie batting openers... once they'd seen off the opening attack of Ambrose and Courtney Walsh they could then relax against the gentle pace of the 1st & 2nd change bowlers being Patrick Patterson and Ian Bishop*! (*could have been Eldine Baptiste...can't remember... either way there was no let up for the 1st 100 overs!).
Brendon
Guest
Yer, the ABC used to broadcast tests in the 80's. I vaguely remember as a kid. Wasn't there a time delay or something so they were a couple mins behind or something?
MrKistic
Guest
Surely the cricket wasn't on the ABC at this point in time??
Pope Paul VII
Guest
Tops Ben. My earliest memory of the West Indies was the 1975 world cup and West Indians spilling over the boundary line. Can't stand one day cricket now but I was only a lad and easily impressed. Clearly remember Roy Fredericks stepping on his stumps hooking my hero Lillee for six. I felt sorry for Roy. Roy's rollicking 169 in Perth not long after is very vivid also. I went on to greatly admire them for several years ( their gleeful stitch up of the 1978 establishment side gave me some qualms though ) thereafter but by 1984 I was over the calypso the charm. Anyone who got runs against their frightening fast bowlers was an instant legend. Or wickets for that matter. So I started to measure how people went against them. Some fave knocks were Kim Hughes 100, Border's 98*, Hoggy's 52 at no 11! Steve Waugh's back to back 90s Brissie and Perth (and bouncing Viv!) Dyso and Hilditch 100s to save games, Mark Waugh and Allan Border 100s at Melbourne '92 to name a few of the few. Agree with you Ben re Tim May no one made a better 42 not out. England's Gooch and Lamb were also brave and weirdly enough daffy Graeme Fowler can count a 100 against the West Indies during their supreme reign. Their batting wasn't half bad either. Favourite bowling efforts against were Allan Border walking on water 7/46 at Sydney, Bob Holland/ Murray Bennett, Mike Whitney 7/83 at Adelaide, Lillee 7/89, Thommo 6/77. McDermott giving it back in 1991 when they accused him of being chicken. By 94 I was heartily sick of them. Now I'm willing them back to provide the ultimate challenge because that's what it's all about.
Street rat
Guest
It is a really positive sign that development programs have been put into place for juniors, because so much ground was lost to basketball in recent years as American culture and money proved far more attractive to young West Indians. You get a sense that West Indian cricket just expected players to keep emerging and didn't properly plan for the future. As a side note, think of how many fine Caribbean cricketers couldn't get a game in the '70s and '80s but would walk into the team today. When the Windies are strong cricket is so much more vibrant. The colour, the swagger, the charisma, the untamed violence... No other team provides it to the same degree, nor with the same nonchalance. One of my favorite names: Vasbert Conniel Drakes.
Col
Guest
Ambrose broke Lawson's jaw at the WACA.
Jason
Guest
This might help... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmagl3Q_4VE
Ben Pobjie
Guest
Names to conjure with...although few will ever match the majesty of Eldine Ashworth Elderfield Baptiste.
Ben Pobjie
Guest
Now I don't know what to think! I may have misremembered though - I remember Patterson was utterly murderous that series.
Ben Pobjie
Guest
An excellent point sheek - you're right of course.
Sailosi
Guest
The most promising thing about west indies cricket now is that their juniors now have development programs in place which will go along way towards creating better cricketers in the future. The reality was that in the 70's and 80's the best west indian cricketers learnt their trade in England and openly admit that they have a lot to thank England for in allowing them to become better cricketers through playing league cricket and county cricket. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
Fivehole
Guest
I loved watching in the 80s the players mentioned in the article, as well as the likes of Gus Logie, Larry Gomes, Jeff Dujon. I remember going to maccas and getting a poster of the team. Cricket is not the same with a weak Windies side.
Disco
Roar Guru
No, it was Courtney Walsh actually.
sheek
Guest
Ben, I was born & raised in PNG, which is relevant to this story I'm about to tell. On holiday in Australia in the summer of 1967/68 (age 11), I watched cricket with my dad who explained to me the leading Aussie & indian cricketers. But the grainy black & white images & apparently 'slow" play didn't grab my attention for long. Back in PNG, I followed the Aussies through England on their Ashes tour, but again, it didn't really grab me. It was only when my father brought home a copy of the ABC tour guide of the West Indies tour of Australia in 1968/69, that my imagination was finally riveted. I grew up with blacks all around me, & fancy them being able to play cricket! And well!! But it was more than that - these guys came from a similar environment that I grew up in - palm trees, beaches, coral reefs, humidity, natural paradise. I devoured the contents of the book, & the Windies became instant heroes of mine. The 1968/69 Windies team was aging & declining, but on paper they looked so awesome. Dad had told me stories of the previous series in Australia in 1960/61 & the tied test. I remember the Windies team of 1968/69, now seared in my memory. Even the names, while mostly Anglo-Saxon, were unique. Garfield (Gary) St.Aubrun Sobers, 32 (c) - champion all-rounder Lancelot (Lance) Richard Gibbs, 34 (vc) - magnificent long limbed off-spinner Rohan Babulal Kanhai, 33 - mercurial batsman Michael (Joey) Conrad Carew, 31 - gutsy opener Stephen (Steve) George Camacho, 23 - stylish opener & 'baby' of the team Roy Clinton Fredericks, 26 - whirlwind opener Basil Fitzherbert Butcher, 34 - the batting anchor of the team Seymour McDonald Nurse, 34 - brutal batsman Clive Hubert Lloyd, 24 - brilliant bat & brilliant cover-field & cousin to Gibbs Charles (Charlie) Alan Davis, 24 - promising batsman David John Anthony Holford, 28 - useful leg-spinning all-rounder & cousin to Sobers Jackie Lee Hendricks, 34 - 1st choice wicket-keeper Thaddeus Michael (Mick) Findlay, 25 - back-up wicket-keeper Wesley Winfield Hall, 31 - champion fast bowler Charles (Charlie) Christopher Griffith, 30 - Hall's fast bowling buddy Lester Anthony King, 29 - backup fast bowler Richard (Richie) Martin Edwards, 28 - backup fast-bowler (& a white guy) Don't you just love some of those names.....