by John Wisden
So I recognised he was a soft touch when I put it to him that I should cover West Indies in England in 1963 for the Daily News. The deal was that the paper would look after the flight and provide a modest stipend, beyond which I would fend for myself. It meant staying in YMCAs and B&Bs unless I could bunk up with school friends who had gone on to further studies in the UK; at 23, it was hardly an imposition.
I spent the summer criss-crossing the counties, hitching a ride in the team’s baggage van or the Ford Zephyr of Roy Lawrence, the melodious Jamaican who was the West Indian voice on Test Match Special. My daily reports were tapped out by typewriter on to special mustard-coloured cable forms (specimens still available at any reputable museum), and filed at the nearest post office – in London I tended to use the Embankment – for transmission to Barbados. It was a tiresome business.
On the back of the 1960-61 tour of Australia, that 1963 trip proved another triumph. Frank Worrell, in his final series, was again the revered, level-headed leader of the brilliant young brigade he had nurtured: Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Wes Hall, Lance Gibbs, now joined by Charlie Griffith. Denis Compton rated it “undoubtedly the best cricketing side in the world”. As soon as Basil Butcher stroked the winning runs in the final Test to secure the inaugural Wisden Trophy, created to mark the 100th edition of the Almanack, the Oval outfield was engulfed in a joyous tsunami, it seemed, of every one of the thousands of West Indians who had made their homes in south London a decade earlier. By the end of the summer, MCC had altered West Indies’ tour cycle to England from six or seven years to three or four. Worrell’s knighthood in the New Year’s honours was the perfect way to top things off. It all made for good copy. Circulation at the Daily News took an upturn. Cozier senior was delighted. My future was set.
Through the bad times that have overtaken West Indies cricket, and even through the good, when they twice stood unquestionably at the pinnacle of the world game (first in the mid-1960s, then for 15 years until the mid-1990s), there have been confusion and controversy. This was inevitable, perhaps, given the existence of a dozen nations, all with their own governments, anthems and flags, and united only by a game bequeathed to them by British colonialism.
So there has never been a dull moment. And without the initial paternal push, I might otherwise have been confined to some humdrum occupation. The alternative has taken me to vastly different locations: they don’t get more disparate than Peshawar and Dunedin, or Chittagong and Canberra. I’ve delighted in the constantly passing parade of great players and great matches. As a television commentator, I’ve been first-hand witness to the revolutionary changes instituted by Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, as well as the Twenty20 tournaments that have transformed cricket’s character. And, before the elimination of Test-match rest days, there was always the fun of Sunday games on English village greens with press teams or Brian Scovell’s intrepid Woodpeckers.
By the time I returned to England in 1966, radio commentary had been added to my roster. When Roy Lawrence, by now head of Radio Jamaica’s sports coverage, was summoned back for the Commonwealth Games in Kingston in August, TMS agreed to his recommendation that I should fill in for the Headingley Test. The prospect of joining famous men whose voices we had listened to since schooldays was intimidating; a combination of the presence of an even younger first-timer by the name of Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the relaxed ambience, and a West Indies innings victory proved an ideal introduction. Like the entire summer, the match was dominated by the incomparable Sobers (174 runs, eight for 80). He was later eulogised in a calypso by the Mighty Sparrow as “the greatest cricketer on earth or Mars”. I certainly have seen none better.
I’ve been on TMS for every West Indian tour of England since, and it has led to many similar assignments elsewhere. There have been the predictable clashes with passionate fans back home, but only once has the TMS connection caused any strife. BBC Radio Four used to insist on having a commentator at the ground from 8am to set the scene for the day’s play. I had drawn the short straw for the final day of the 1984 Lord’s Test, but I’d forgotten my special MCC pass, and the ageing steward – protecting the North Gate as if with his life – refused me entrance. Panicking that I’d miss my slot, I pressed the accelerator and moved slowly forward, only for the steward, by now red-faced with indignation, to throw himself across the bonnet. The intervention of his West Indian colleague, whom I’d known from Barbados, saved the day. “Just pay the £10 parking fee, Tony,” was his common-sense solution. The report lasted 90 seconds.
Such was West Indies’ command in Wisden Trophy contests in those days that you turned up wondering not if they would win, but by how much. The transformation has been abrupt and complete. From 1973 to 1989-90, they won 25 Tests to England’s two, among them a pair of 5–0 blackwashes. Since 2000, the count favours England 17–2, including a 4–0 whitewash. This is one reason – along with health and safety – why West Indians no longer swarm across the outfields at The Oval and Lord’s. It is no longer their team, as it was their grandparents’. While the current generation have gravitated to football and athletics, the disenchantment is left to their relations back home. And for all the happiness over last year’s victory at the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, an overall revival is likely to be a long time coming.
Even with the debilitating combination at domestic level of a weak board, a militant players’ union, poor pitches, erratic umpiring and constant changes of captain (nine since 2000) and coach (six in the same span), it is difficult to comprehend the speed at which West Indies have plunged from a position of pride to virtual irrelevance.
The 2000 series in England typified another factor: attitude. It was, without doubt, the most miserable tour I have been on. West Indies’ innings victory in the First Test at Edgbaston prompted such complacency that it was followed by three defeats – and this was a team including Brian Lara, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. The indignity of 54 all out at Lord’s, 50 years after their historic maiden victory in England at the same ground, followed by defeat in two days at Leeds, left Lester Armoogam – an elderly Trinidadian who followed them round the world – in tears. The response of some players after the Headingley humiliation was to head off to Manchester on the scheduled fourth day to watch Trinidad’s Dwight Yorke in action for United.
The debate had once been simply over which team were stronger: those of the 1960s, fashioned by Worrell, the father figure venerated by his players, or those moulded by Clive Lloyd, his 1980s equivalent. Now we wonder whether they will ever pull themselves out of their slump. Between 1976 and 1988, West Indies did not lose a Test in the Wisden Trophy, home or away. The origins of this period of dominance were in the 5–1 drubbing in Australia in 1975-76, inflicted by a fast-bowling quartet spearheaded by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. From there on, Lloyd packed his teams with West Indian Lillees and Thomsons. A host of worthy contenders couldn’t get a game, except with English counties – or on two rebel tours of South Africa.
There was always one straight-forward motivation for those playing under Worrell and Lloyd – winning. There was another significant element when the opponents were England, especially in front of their newly domiciled kith and kin from the 1950s. There had long been images of joyous, guitar-strumming calypsonians parading across Lord’s following the historic 1950 victory; now, boisterous cavorting West Indians rejoicing at yet another victory became a regular feature on English grounds. “History does come into play,” said Viv Richards, who wore his heart on his sleeve and the Rastafarian colours on his wristband. “These were the colonial masters who had passed the game on to us. There was obviously a lot of passion whenever we played.” That passion was further fired by the boast of England captain Tony Greig prior to the 1976 series that he would make them “grovel”. It was an ill-chosen word from a white South African at the height of the global resistance to apartheid. As a consequence, Greig’s stumps were regularly rearranged by Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Wayne Daniel, and West
Indies won 3–0.
Along the way, I’ve found myself having to clarify my racial background, confusing to those unaware of the Caribbean’s cosmopolitan mix. A dumbfounded waitress once put it: “Hey, youse is a black voice coming from a white mouth!” I am white, born and bred in Barbados, and my accent is the same as those she would have heard from West Indian settlers on any British street. Of course, I couldn’t be seen on radio, prompting one racist letter-writer, enraged by a ferocious spell of West Indian pace, to address me as “you black bastard”. He insisted: “You should go back to where you came from.” It particularly amused Henry Blofeld.
Even London bobbies were fooled. The Saturday of the 1976 Lord’s Test was the only day washed out during that drought summer. It gave me the chance to catch up in the bar under the grandstand with expat friends from home. Soon I was surrounded by West Indians stridently arguing about the game, as they tend to. Spotting me in the corner as the only white face in a sea of black, two policemen broke through: “You all right, sir?” They were smartly sent on their way by the Caribbean congregation.
Certainly, I have never found my colour an issue among the players. Reds Perreira, who worked on radio for several tours, and I were often the only West Indians relaying the news back home. The days of Holding, Ian Bishop, Jeffrey Dujon and other former Test players doing commentary were still some way off. So too was the distrust of the media by those who interpret any description of a reckless stroke or a wayward spell as a threat to their now lucrative livelihoods.
It was clearly an advantage to have been roughly the same vintage as the modest stars of the 1960s, played club cricket against some, and known most as friends. And for three decades they were winning – it didn’t matter what was said about them. Indeed, Reds and I often found ourselves treated virtually as members of the support staff, invited to their Christmas celebrations in Australia and India, and included in a separate team photo for our albums. As the generation gap widened, such camaraderie has understandably turned to respect for age and longevity. At least, I hope that’s what it is.
Tony Cozier has covered the West Indian team in all the major cricket countries (and some minor ones) since 1962, including every Wisden Trophy series bar one.
FIVE WISDEN TROPHY MOMENTS
TONY COZIER
Wes Hall – Lord’s, 1963
On a dank June morning, Wes Hall had slept in and missed breakfast, so his captain Frank Worrell gave him two hard-boiled eggs and a packet of salt on the bus ride to Lord’s for the last day of the Second Test. Somehow, this helped sustain him through a 24-over spell from the Pavilion End, lasting from the delayed start at 2.20 to the dramatic final over: Colin Cowdrey, arm in plaster from a break inflicted by a Hall thunderbolt the previous day, came in at No. 11, before David Allen kept out Hall’s last two deliveries.
Garry Sobers – Lord’s, 1966
It was Sobers’s summer – batting, bowling, catching, captaining. He would rate the unbeaten 163 in the second innings at Lord’s as his best, above even his 254 for the World XI at Melbourne five years later. When he was joined at 95 for five midway through the fourth day by his cousin David Holford, West Indies were just nine ahead. “The only way you were going to get out of this was to play shots,” he reasoned, typically. “You couldn’t defend for a day and a half.” He told Holford the pitch was like Kensington Oval back home, and there should be nothing to worry him. Nothing did. When Sobers declared next day, Holford was 105, their stand a record 274, and the match safe.
Michael Holding – The Oval, 1976
It was a parched summer – with the Oval outfield as barren as the Sahara, and the pitch as flat as a runway. There were double-hundreds for Viv Richards and Dennis Amiss, and 1,507 runs at nearly 54 a wicket. Yet Michael Holding, driven by flawless rhythm and Tony Greig’s pre-series promise to make West Indies “grovel”, glided in from the Nursery End to destroy England twice with pace and pinpoint accuracy. Of his 14 wickets, 12 were either bowled (Greig twice) or lbw. Awesome.
Gordon Greenidge – Lord’s, 1984
At lunch on the final day, MCC president Alex Dibbs hosted West Indian High Commissioners and journalists at lunch. By then, West Indies – needing 344 after David Gower’s declaration – were 82 for the run-out of Desmond Haynes. The consensus was a draw, but sheer bluster prompted me to counter with: “We’ll piss it” – or words to that effect. And, incredibly, West Indies did, with 11 overs and nine wickets to spare, as Gordon Greenidge pummelled a commanding 214 alongside the unflappable Larry Gomes.
Malcolm Marshall – Headingley, 1984
Within an hour of the start, Malcolm Marshall had copped a double fracture of his left wrist fielding at gully; the team doctor advised he would be out for ten days. But an unexpected twist changed the plan. Gomes was on 94 when Joel Garner was ninth out. Assuming the innings was over, the players headed for the pavilion – only to find Marshall coming the other way. Left arm in plaster, his box forgotten in the rush, and batting exclusively with his right hand, he saw Gomes to his landmark. Ten minutes later, Marshall was back, fracture still strapped, to embark on figures of seven for 53. It was daring typical of a team that took the series 5–0.
CHRISTOPHER MARTIN-JENKINS, 1945–2013
Flowing conversation
MIKE SELVEY
We called him The Major. There was nothing secret to it, nothing to do with a military bearing, or clipped diction and moustache to match. One day he blustered his way into the press box. “Hampshire won,” he announced to nobody in particular. “Did it, Major?” we chorused, echoing Basil Fawlty. And so The Major he became – or sometimes, to a very select few, Stork, which is considerably more obscure and will remain so.
The Major became a legend, the stories told and retold, embellished, enhanced, and even invented. He could be calamitous. Things happened to him that simply did not to other people. Pick someone to play him in a biopic and it would have to be Rowan Atkinson. It was a trait I first encountered on the 1976-77 tour of India, when he was a young BBC correspondent. Seeking to travel by cab to the local studio of All India Radio, he found himself sitting an hour later outside a remote refinery belonging to Oil India.
This sort of thing continued right through our acquaintance, whether he was inadvertently shedding golf clubs like confetti through the centre of Bridgetown as we raced madcap for a tee-time in our mini-moke, late as ever; or snipping through the wire of his Walkman headphones while attending to his newspaper cuttings and wondering why the music had stopped; or going to the wrong hotel – or, on one occasion, the wrong international ground in London for a match he was late for in any case.
He was notoriously (and often infuriatingly) tardy, to the extent that his memorial service at St Paul’s should have been scheduled as “11.15am for 11” as a mark of respect – with directions to the wrong church. The famous incident in which he mistook a TV remote control for his mobile phone and actually tried to dial on it really did happen, although as the sole witness I can say it was rarely in the manner or location in which the story is often told. His capacity to render laptops unusable – merely by looking at them, it seemed – was uncanny, as if he had mystic powers, the sort of thing that should have been harnessed by the secret service. He would laugh at all this, of course, rather revelling in his reputation, not least because he understood the affection behind the ribbing. He even played up to it.
And then comes the other side of him. In an appreciation elsewhere, I suggested cricket had lost perhaps the best friend it has ever had, a thought I stand by. He was a prolific writer on the game, not just as a most respected and authoritative correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and then The Times, but in his numerous books and as editor of The Cricketer. He championed the sport, and all who played it, with remarkable zeal.
Surely, though, it is as a supreme broadcaster that he will be best remembered. Once he had stumbled, tripped and fumbled his way into his commentary position, and dumped down the big A4 leatherbound desk di
ary in which he scrawled his notes, his cricket commentaries were a benchmark for lucidity, knowledge, observation and humour.
Working with him as a summariser, which I was fortunate enough to do for the best part of a quarter of a century, was a joy. There are commentators who insist on taking each over uninterrupted, then hand over for a breather. Some dip into the summariser’s time as well. But with The Major it became a conversation, rather than a series of disjointed interjections. Very quickly I got to understand how he worked, when it was appropriate to speak, and when to let him go so that it flowed seamlessly. That was his skill, not mine, for he controlled it all, using his deep knowledge of cricket and cricketers not to pontificate, but to draw things from me, in the way an advocate might a witness.
Only once did I see him flummoxed. Like many cricketers, I used rhyming slang by habit, so if I were to say that someone was having treatment on their Vanburn, you might surmise Holder, or shoulder. During one commentary stint, he thought he would have a stab. “I’ve been having some trouble with the old Conrad,” he said. At first it stunned me, and then I corpsed – so badly I had to leave the commentary box. He meant Conrad Black. I am sorry to say my only thought was of a former West Indies opener by a different surname.
Mike Selvey is the cricket correspondent of The Guardian.
A bank of happy memories
JAMES MARTIN-JENKINS
“Any relation?” It’s a question I’ve been asked almost daily, it seems, for nearly 40 years. “Yes,” I reply; and gladly, too. For being the “son of” was never a heavy burden. Rather, life with CMJ was invariably fun and interesting; it was also unusual, privileged, and – needless to say – dominated by cricket.