No Win Race. Derek A. Bardowell

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СКАЧАТЬ whole issue [of race and apartheid] is quite central to me,’ said Richards. ‘I believe very strongly in the black man asserting himself in this world and over the years I have leaned towards many movements that followed this basic cause.’⁵

      In the end, a West Indian team comprising world-class batsmen like Lawrence Rowe and Alvin Kallicharran, all-rounder Franklyn Stephenson and fast bowlers like Colin Croft and Sylvester Clarke went on tour, much to the wrath of the Caribbean. Each had been paid allegedly around US$100,000, huge sums at the time, for two tours against the banned South African team. Upon arrival in 1982, they had been honoured/insulted by being classified as ‘honorary whites’. The tour had been a low point in the history of West Indies cricket. An unforgiveable stain. The ‘rebel’ players were less than ‘house negros’ and more like slave traders in the eyes of the Caribbean.

      Former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley summed up the feelings of Caribbean people in A History of West Indian Cricket when he wrote: ‘To the members of the black diaspora the oppression which continues unabated in South Africa has become the symbol of more than a tyranny to be overthrown. Apartheid points like a dagger at the throat of black self-worth in every corner occupied by the descendants of Africa.’

      In South Africa, these players became heroes. In the Caribbean, they became outcasts, banned for life from playing for the West Indies. Some of the players moved to the United States, hiding until the controversy died down. Others resumed their careers in England, away from the gaze of the Caribbean authorities, media and fans. For the lesser players on that tour, those who could not command interest in teams outside of the Caribbean, they were not so fortunate. Richard Austin, who would later be known as ‘Danny Germs’, ended up a cocaine addict, begging on the streets of Kingston. Herbert Chang would end up losing all his money. According to Robert Craddock of The Courier-Mail, Chang was last seen ‘standing listlessly in the middle of the road … clearly out of it.’⁶ Chang had allegedly been heard saying, ‘Man, man, man, I just, I just wanna know which end I bowl from tomorrow.’⁷

      The West Indies team that toured England in 1984 remained strong. In captain Clive Lloyd, opening batsmen Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards and fast bowlers Marshall, Holding and Garner, the team were fielding seven legends in every match they played. Think Brazil’s 1970 World Cup football team, the All Blacks rugby union team from 2010 onwards, the Soviet Union’s great ice hockey teams in the seventies or USA basketball’s Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics. That West Indies team may have been the greatest Test side ever assembled.

      In the first meeting between England and the West Indies that summer, a one-day international match at Old Trafford, Richards set the tone. He hit a then record 189 not out off 170 balls in what had been considered the greatest one-day batting performance in the history of the sport. But the one-day games had only been warm-up matches, starters. The main course would be the Test series.

      Test cricket. Two teams. Five days. Two chances for each team to score the most runs. Team game. But a sequence of one-on-one challenges, bowler versus batsman. Difficult to follow all the way through. Long. Too long for even the most rational sports fan to follow. But surely one of the greatest of tests for any sportsman. Batting. Bowling. Fielding. Tactics. Weather. Violent weather. Control. Uncontrol. Beyond control. Pitches can dictate, be it hard, cracked, flat, great for batting, bad for bowling, bad for batting, great for bowling. It can all change from day to day. Momentum swings. Swinging all the time. Need for concentration, patience. Need your team, need all eleven men. Tuned in. Tuned on. Ready to battle, ready to roll, to play their role.

      Couldn’t imagine. I played cricket to a high level at school. At one point, I represented four teams. These were one-day games. A few overs. A few hours to compete. Half a Saturday or weekday evening lost to the game. Exhausting. Couldn’t get over the powerlessness of cricket. During the many hours you play, you have a limited amount of time to have a direct impact. You may bowl five or ten overs. Can’t bowl all of them. If you’re batting and you’re bowled out, you’re out. No second chance. Better make the most of your time. The rest of the time you’re either fielding while teammates are bowling or sitting in the pavilion watching the game while your teammates are batting. If you don’t seize your moment with bat or with ball, you spend a lot of time limply thinking about what could have been, while trying to motivate your teammates to seize their moments. Too much damn time to think. Couldn’t imagine having to do it for five days.

      For the viewer, bliss. A friend for five days. You end your week on a high. In those days, a Test match in England started on a Thursday (the build-up), reached its peak over the weekend (when you could go to see it live if you had been working during the week) and, if you were lucky, it would reach a conclusion on the Monday (a great way to start the new week). A novel. A box set. For the live audience, unpredictable. They don’t know what they’ll get. Five days can at times blend into one. But the 1984 series was different. The games didn’t blend. The results were predictable, but the drama within the games was unpredictable.

      First Test: A Malcolm Marshall bouncer strikes English Test debutant Andy Lloyd in the head. Dramatic. As the ball rises towards Lloyd’s head, he twists to avoid it. Too late. Hits. Hurts. In a split second, it looks as if the ball has spun Lloyd round 180 degrees. Pause. He’s down, toppled, facing the stumps that had once been behind him. Lloyd is hospitalised. He never played Test cricket again. West Indies win.

      Second Test: England are close to victory but West Indies’ opening batsman Gordon Greenidge starts limping. Hobbling as if struck with cramp. Greenidge’s limp is like Michael Jordan’s tongue sticking out or Zinedine Zidane puking up on a football pitch. Something beautiful is about to happen. Greenidge scores 214 not out. West Indies win.

      Third Test: Malcolm Marshall, the best bowler in the world, arguably the greatest fast bowler ever, a man at/near the peak of his powers, breaks his thumb. Larry Gomes is close to getting a century, but nine West Indian wickets are down. Either Marshall comes out to bat with a broken thumb (in two places) or Gomes will be disappointed. Marshall comes out. Cast on one forearm, holding the bat in his other arm. Batting with one arm, he fends off England’s meagre attack. Gomes gets his century. Marshall returns, cast on forearm, cricket ball in the other. He is now bowling. Decimates England. Gets seven out of 10 English batsmen out. Michael Holding, a great bowler but a poor batsman at best, also demolishes the bowling of Bob Willis, hitting five sixes on his way to 59 runs. Willis retires from Test cricket. The West Indies win.

      Fourth Test: Winston Davis is a fast bowler who cannot get a game for the West Indies because of Holding, Marshall and Garner. He gets his chance here and fractures English batsman Paul Terry’s arm. Terry returns, arm in sling to help teammate Allan Lamb get a century. But he never plays for England again. Davis, like Holding, is a mediocre batsman. But he scores 77 runs. West Indies win.

      Fifth Test: England blackwashed. West Indies win the series 5–0.

      Gordon Greenidge was voted Player of the Series, with an average of over 81. Marshall, Garner and Holding scooped almost 70 wickets between them. For Viv Richards, it had been a relatively quiet series. He averaged just under 42 with the bat. But for the best part of the summer, Richards had been subdued, which was unusual for a player who saved his best for England.

      During the ‘grovel’ series of 1976, Richards hit 291 in the fifth Test at The Oval. In the 1979 World Cup final at Lord’s, it had been Richards’ 138 not out against England that had been the game-winning performance to secure victory. Later, in 1986, in front of his home fans in Antigua, Richards would hit the then fastest Test century ever, in just 56 balls. The combination of Richards’ cruel excellence and posturing on the pitch, his aloofness and politics off the field made England’s cricketing establishment uncomfortable. He did not fit their notion of what a black man should be. Didn’t come across as grateful enough.

      Former Wisden СКАЧАТЬ