Remembering the enigma, Lawrence Rowe

Recently Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne took cricket to the USA in a three-match veterans series. It was highly publicised as part of an overall effort towards the globalisation of sports.

However, yesteryear’s star West Indies batsman Lawrence Rowe, currently a businessman in Florida, has also done his bit by organising a weekend cricket event two years in a row.

Stars such Sir Garry Sobers, Brian Lara, Lance Gibbs, Desmond Haynes, Sir Andy Roberts and Alvin Kallicharran, Joel Garner, Rohan Kanhai, Dwayne Smith, Courtney Walsh and former South Africa star Barry Richards have taken part.

One of the objectives is also to provide assistance to former sportspersons who are currently not doing well. The first two beneficiaries are former star batsman Seymour Nurse and speedster Patrick Patterson.

Rowe has to be one of the unluckiest cricketers ever. He started with a bang and remains the only player to score a 200 and 100 in debut Test. Newspaper headlines were, “Bowlers of the world beware, Lawrence Rowe has arrived”.

Both Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall have called him the best batsman they have seen. His batting style was compared to the legendary Frank Worrell and the best appreciation to Rowe was by Frank Worrell’s father-in-law who said, “God put a bat in Lawrence’s hands and counselled him, Go Thou and Bat”.

Rowe himself was not short of confidence and has said that he was more talented than Viv Richards.

Interestingly, Rowe once refused to bat in a county social game, even though people had come everywhere to see him bat. As explained in Holdings’s autobiography, “There had been rain, the pitch was damp and he protested that, in the conditions, he could not be the Lawrence Rowe the people were expecting.”

However Rowe, who batted with so much ease that spectators were spellbound, played only 30 Tests and scored only 2047 runs at 43. He remains one of only four West Indies batsmen to score 300 in Test cricket, the others being Sobers, Lara and Gayle.

What went wrong? Sadly this great batsman developed eyesight problems, and also hayfever and headaches. Of all things, he was allergic to grass. For a batsman who was dependent on hand-eye coordination, eyesight problems and grass allergies were devastating blows and slowed down his career.

Unfortunately this hero turned into villain as he led a team to South Africa which was severely criticised. Later he was honoured with Sabina Park named after him in 2011 and he stated that he was sorry for the South African tour, but later in 2011 the honour was taken back after he said that there was nothing wrong with his tour of South Africa.

Rowe was probably destined for a life in the USA. As a schoolboy cricketer he was supposed to migrate there with his family, including his elder brother who Rowe said was a better batsman than himself.

However, he decided to continue cricket after much appreciation of his centuries by many including Sir Everton Weekes. He could have been one of the greatest ever, but it was not to be.

Statistics have denied him, but still he is remembered for his craftsmanship

Here’s wishing him luck in his stint as a Miami/Florida-based businessman and hoping that the Lawrence Rowe Foundation will come to the help of more former sportspersons who have fallen on bad times.