Book review: Sixty years on the back foot, by Clyde Walcott

The Caribbean has produced several of the greatest batsmen of all time. However, many of these players seem to rail against faceless figures of authority. Currently, talisman Chris Gayle swats boundaries at whim – more often for lucrative T20 sides than for the West Indies. The chain which leads back through the likes of Brian Lara and Sir Vivian Richards – who was rather partisanly profiled in the acclaimed documentary Fire in Babylon – to George Headley.

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The second (or third, or fourth depending on how you look at it) of these superstars was Sir Clyde Walcott, a forerunner of devastating West Indian batsmanry and later president of the International Cricket Council. His autobiography, Sixty years on the back foot, was published at the conclusion of his ICC tenure in 1997.

His memoir is lightweight – entire tours are glossed over, especially those in which the West Indies struggled – and Walcott writes with the style of a man who finishes lengthy believable anecdotes with “Can you believe it?”. However, the parallels between West Indian cricket in 1952 and in 2012 are too plain to ignore.

Along with Sir Everton Weeks and Sir Frank Worrell, Walcott was one of the famed “Three Ws”, three Bajan players raised within a mile of each other and who helped West Indian cricket attain relevance in the 1950s. The significance of the three friends and their relationship is underscored throughout Walcott's writings as he attempts to characterise Caribbean cricket through their free-hitting exploits.

He does this for a simple reason: Walcott unquestionably thought that West Indian cricket, when played hard but for fun, is superior to any other. (Ed: he may be right) Time and again, his tacit disdain the orthodoxy inherent in 1950s English cricket is obvious; simultaneously he rejoices in the laid-back joie de vivre that formerly typified West Indian cricket.

Although Fire in Babylon incorrectly suggested that calypso cricket was provided only a team of loveable freewheelers (ie. losers), you can't escape the feeling while Walcott revelled in victories, he wouldn't countenance sacrificing style to achieve more success. His transition from money-chasing maverick pro to WICB ambassador adds another intriguing dynamic. However, like most politicians, his autobiography is an exercise in using many words to avoid saying much at all.

Although Walcott's memoir hearkens to different times, where pacemen were named Esmond Kentish and Foffie Edwards, there are still familiar cricket themes. Race relations, though downplayed, provided undercurrents of discontent. The same could be said for matters of money, as cricketers were still strictly classified as “professional” or “amateur”. That Worrell, Weekes and Walcott were forced to choose between making a living playing English league cricket rather than representing the West Indies provides a fifty-year prophecy of the WICB's current struggles with player free-agency.

The same issues have plagued West Indian cricket now for sixty years. The islands' success from 1975 to 1995 and more widespread cricketing professionalism only masked the difficulties of West Indian players and administrators. That the situation is unchanged over so long, coupled with difficult economic factors leaves the reader feeling that this situation is now intractable in West Indian cricket and the game is so much the poorer.

However disappointing the state of West Indian cricket, it's perhaps more disappointing that such an eminent figure in the game stuck true to his political, rather than returning to his maverick roots and challenging the myriad failings in Caribbean cricket politics.

My Favourite Cricketer: Brian Lara

The first Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch: "My Favourite Cricketer" is penned by the editor of WCW, David Siddall. It features the Samba King of West Indian batsmanship, Brian Lara.

From the age of 13-18 this aspiring top order batsmen would spend their summer holidays practically living at the Stoughton and Thurnby Cricket Club nets. Honing the particularities of your batting technique was the order of the day. But it wasn’t any English batsmen we were attempting to emulate (possibly with the exception of Graham Thorpe’s late cut). Rather we’d play around with the low grip of Tendulkar, the seemingly straight bat pull shot of Ponting, and the high back-lift and ferocious bat-speed of Lara.

Analysing the three players, arguably the finest three batsmen of their generation, leads to never-ending debates pertaining to the all time batting pantheon. Frankly, this gets tedious in less time than Marcus Trescothick had to react to this tracer bullet beamer. In short, I’d go for 1) Tendulkar 2) Lara, and 3) Ponting. Tendulkar’s longevity and imminent hundred hundreds record – one way of looking at that is he must have several hundreds he doesn’t even remember – account for his top spot.

But this piece is about favouritism and not statistics. And the love of cricket, being such a heavily mediated sport, owes its success just as much to aesthetic appeal as it does to run getting. Of the three players, it is Brian Lara’s elegance and flamboyance that makes him my favourite cricketer.

Early on in his career, Lara was able to stand on the shoulder of giants – Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall (immense at 5”11), Ian Bishop, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh (both metaphorically and literally at 6”7 and 6”6 respectively) – in the tail end of West Indies dominance. In the latter half of his career, post 2000, West Indies cricket would fade, yet Lara would continue to make waves. And whether the West Indies was dominant or dormant, the hallmarks of Brian Lara’s batting would remain a constant.

These included aggression in attack and defence in equal measures, lightning footwork, fleet of foot to get down the pitch against the spinners, the highest back-lift in world cricket and the clunk of his back-lift unleashing timing that rivalled one of his idos – Viv Richards himself. He had a tendency to play every ball on its merits irrespective of the time of the day. Never has this been exemplified more than when he hit Robin Peterson for 28 runs in an over in Johannesburg in 2003-04 despite their being only 2 overs to go in the day.

Trademarks of the 466444 display are the shimmy down the wicket, 100% commitment to the stroke, and the lazy swing of the hands through the ball.

Besides the stunning aesthetics to the batting of Brian Charles Lara, he will go down in history as being the batsmen who turned big scores into mammoth scores time and time again. His maiden test match century, a whopping 277 in Sydney in only his 5^th test, was a sign of things to come. Had it not been for an over zealous run out, in all likelihood it would have been a triple century.

Lara would go on to be the only batsmen in history to record a century, double century, triple century, quadruple century and quintuple (?) century in first class cricket. In 1994, Lara was at the height of his powers as he surpassed Sober’s test record score of 365* with a score of 375 against England in Antigua and recorded the highest ever first class score of 501* in the space of only a few months. During the same period he recorded 7 first class centuries in 8 innings. Just how much of an immovable force he was can be seen in the awe of the faces of his Durham opponents and his Warwickshire teammates alike in the following video…

But despite being named the 1994 and 1995 Wisden leading cricketer of the year, Lara would arguably save his greatest ever innings for the Australians with a modest (by his standards) match-winning 153* in a 1-wicket win in Barbados in 1999 in a game that Steve Waugh described the greatest test he’d ever been involved in. The Wisden 100 has named it the second greatest ever knock in test cricket only behind Don Bradman’s 270 for Australia v England at Melbourne in 1936-37.

Having hit a double hundred in the previous game to resurrect the series for the West Indies, this innings would swing the series in the West Indies favour as they would lead 2-1. The poignancy of the knock made even more unbelievable when you consider the West Indies had possibly come off the back of the lowest point in their history – a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of South Africa. At 248 for 8, still requiring another 60 runs for victory, Lara had to take the bull by the horns with only Ambrose and Walsh in the hutch. Lara the ‘Lone Ranger’ of the Windies batting lineup seemingly becoming the constant theme as his career progressed. Although you might think otherwise if you believe the version of events that Courtney Walsh spun (surviving 5 balls at the death).

To try and attempt to analyse the legacy of Brian Charles Lara is a tall order. It predominantly lies as a batsman rather than a captain (Lara did guide the West Indies to the 2004 Champions Trophy and led from the front admirably however). Statistically, the record for the highest ever test score is the obvious choice. It was a choice that Matthew Hayden almost dented having hit Zimbabwe for 380 in Perth in 2003.

Fittingly in April 2004, Lara, not to be outdone, became the first ever man to score 400 in a test match at the same ground where he surpassed Sober’s original record. With today’s over rates and endless stoppages, it is a score that is unlikely to be eclipsed. But Lara’s legacy should transcend far beyond that of mere batting records.

Besides meeting Barack Obama and having a fantastic cricket video game named after him, Lara was the most entertaining and most flamboyant batsman of his generation. His only criticism could be that he perhaps lacked the mental toughness that Tendulkar demonstrated unerringly for over 20 years.

Nevertheless, when in the mood (a caveat that seems to explain the low points in Lara’s career), Lara’s stonewall defence like Rahul Dravid, aggression and strokeplay likeVirender Sehwag, combined with his footwork to spinners that remains unrivalled in world cricket today made him simply unplayable.

If the cricketing pantheon does the great man any justice, the image and memories of his batting will be forever immortalised, alongside the biggest scores in cricketing history.