Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 06, 2012 Sports
Colin E. H. Croft
In a weekend which contained English Football Association (FA) Cup final at revered Wembley Stadium,
between Liverpool United Football Club and Chelsea United Football Club, consider this for a moment:
Premier League footballers, who are paid in excess of 100,000 Pounds Sterling (US$150,000), per week, for their skills and efforts, fall to ground, especially in or around the penalty area, even when a breeze, not an actual opposing player, touches them. They not only fall heavily, but feign serious injuries too!
Yet, if that same player scores a goal later in that game, seven team-mates jump on to his back and shoulders to congratulate him and celebrate that goal. Unbelievably, somehow, this man who could not stand up to breeze, remains standing upright, celebrating, with seven guys on his back! Incredible!
Yet the general press has the gumption to criticize cricketers who supposedly over-step for “spot – fixing”, or captains who deliberately slow down cricket games so that they could not lose. No, I am not defending any law-breakers here, just pointing out how some parts of the world of sports really works!
Anyway, with weather in United Kingdom being so atrocious, cricket is taking a massive beating. Football and that other sport that really separates the boys from men – rugby – which somehow, for all its ferocity, is known for fair play and beer-drinking camaraderie, continue. England has been very wet!
West Indies has been training indoors at Hove, Sussex, as they have found it very difficult to get anywhere dry outdoors. The sun has not been seen for weeks. One wonders how those new players who have not played much in England before would cope with the extremely wet and cold conditions.
Perhaps 2012’s summer is already gone. I arrived in United Kingdom mid-March to complete coverage of West Indies v Australia for Sky Sports Television and for three weeks after my arrival, I was almost sure that I was back in the Caribbean or Florida, USA, certainly not in UK. It was severely hot then!
London Summer 2012 Olympics would also be hoping that the sun comes out, so that the games would be the glorious, positive spectacle that it could be. After all, we all want to know if Usain Bolt can get down to 9.5 seconds for 100 meters. Surely, someday quite soon, that record would be 8.5 seconds!
When I first played County Cricket for Lancashire CCCC, May 1977, there was also much hope for that year too, weather-wise, as 1976’s entire summer was as hot as hell is generally regarded.
I was quite unprepared for the coldest five months of my life. From May to September 1977, I saw the sun once!
One of the qualifications to become a well-rounded international cricketer is to have experiences of playing cricket is all conditions. Playing cricket in England, though, is a special baptism. I actually played one Sunday afternoon v Derbyshire, after snow had fallen the previous Saturday night. Talk about cold!
Summer 1976 saw the maturing of Clive Lloyd’s cricket team, inherited in 1974/5 with his first captaincy to India. By 1976, after a diabolical tour to Australia months earlier, where West Indies had been annihilated 5-1, the tourists were ready to show that they belonged at the top table of world cricket.
In 1976, the run-in for West Indies to the first Test, at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, in June, no less, included many preparation games where all cricketers – bowlers, batsmen, and wicket-keepers – had a chance to get themselves in quite good form. In 2012, West Indies have been fortunate to have two!
The Counties Surrey, Hampshire, Kent, Somerset and Sussex, and Marylebone Cricket Club XI, all played 3-day games against West Indies in 1976, before that 1st Test. In 2012, only Sussex; three-day game; and England Lions; four-day game; would be preparation for West Indies for 1st Test at Lords; not ideal at all!
1976 was also that year when England’s captain, Tony Greig, suggested that he would put so much pressure on West Indies that ‘would make them grovel.” Being South African, Greig probably did not even entertain the thought that that word would affect West Indies psyche in exactly the opposite way!
West Indies pummeled England in 1976. By August 17, Day 5, Test 5, West Indies had torpedoed England 3–0. West Indies batsmanship and fast bowling were exactly in place to start “Fire in Babylon!” Maybe West Indies tour of England 2012 could restart that quest for F-I-B’s continuity and sequel!
By the end of that series, (Sir) Vivian Richards, who had played only four of the five Tests, had scored a monumental 829 runs. Having started Test No. 1 with 232 at Trent Bridge, Viv closed out Test No. 5 with a majestic 291. He had no ‘not-outs’ in the series, yet ended with the unbelievable average of 118.42.
Michael Holding’s match tally in Test No. 5; 8-92 and 6-57; 14 for 149, still stands out as pinnacle of West Indies fast bowling for an entire Test. Mikey bowled so fast that the grass was burnt brown! Ironically, spinners took only three wickets of 92 English Test wickets to fall that series!
West Indies batting was to drool for; Roy Fredericks, Gordon Greenidge, Viv Richards, Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Larry Gomes, Clive Lloyd, Deryck Murray, as wicket-keeper and Collis King and Bernard Julien as all-rounders. The bowling included Andy Roberts, Wayne Daniel, Michael Holding and Vanburn Holder, with sporadic inputs from Raphick Jumadeen and Albert Padmore.
From being potential “grovellers”, West Indies, after this series, were called ‘sadists”, “terrorists”, every “ist” known to man. No-one remembered that West Indies were only reacting to suggestions that they would lose badly. All they did was win well. As the late Lord Kitchener concluded; “Take that, England!”
For me, best Test of that series was Test No. 3, at my County alma-mater, Old Trafford cricket Ground, Manchester. Greenidge made 134 and 101, with Richards contributing the small matter of 135 in 2nd innings, as West Indies totaled 211 and 411, but it was West Indies fiery bowlers that impressed most.
Perhaps Special Air Service (SAS) should have been called out for West Indies bowlers in 1976, as would probably be done if anything untoward happens in London 2012 Olympics. England managed 71 and 126 of the most painfully achieved runs any team ever got in a Test anywhere. At Old Trafford, Daniel, Holding and Roberts put more fear in England’s batsmen’s hearts then than ever experienced before!
Frank Hayes, who played with me at LCCC afterwards, said: “There was a deadly ridge on that OT pitch. No-one could see the @#*& ball; all so @#$% fast!” Quite a story! For talent who debuted with a Test 100 v West Indies in 1973, Hayes played his only nine Tests against West Indies, and was soon discarded.
Cricketers and fans throughout United Kingdom are all fervently hoping, maybe even praying, that sun would come out, so that England could try to keep its No. 1 spot in Test cricket with a series win against West Indies. West Indies must remember 1976, when tables were turned around very quickly! Enjoy!
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