End of Windies losing streak and Memories that Linger
 The
glow and the aura has still not dimmed from the memorable West Indian
victory over Sri Lanka in the 2012 Twenty20 final on that balmy night at
the R. Premadasa Stadium.
Wherever cricket fans gather, the discussion still hinges on the
great comeback victory of the glamour boys from the Caribbean led by
Darren Sammy to end their losing streak and what might have been for the
Lankan Lions led by Mahela Jayewardene.
My friend in Trinidad and former Kurunegala cricketer Sarath de Silva
now domiciled there and in the motor car business informs me that the
partying time in the Caribbean still continues and there is no guessing
as to when it is all going to end.De Silva further informs me that this
grand victory is going to
promote a new awakening in the game that lay dormant for long with no
trophies being clinched. He now predicts that there will be a
renaissance and the game will likely reach the dizzy heights - like it
was in the 1970s and '80s.
Cricketing renaissance
Before going to describe the victories that flowed like a river in
the 1970s and '80s and their complete dominance of the game, it is best
that how and who first brought about a cricketing renaissance in the
Caribbean is described to the new generation of cricketers and cricket
fans, a bit of nostalgia is excusable. The years were 1960 and '61 and
the Test series between Australia led by Richie Benaud and the West
Indies skippered by Frank Worrell in Australia. The Windies team as
usual was made up of players from the various islands in the Caribbean.
The Windies were even then known to be brilliant individuals, coming
from the many islands were not known to play as one unit or as a team.
The West Indies had some of the brilliant cricketers on that tour
that the world would see and ever see.
They arrived in Australia as a group of brilliant individuals and if
only they could play as a team, they could rock Australia and the
cricket world with their devastating batting, bowling and fielding
deeds.
Brilliant Worrell
But the onus of getting them to play together, forgetting individual
brilliance for game and country was on the broad shoulders of that
batting artist with a brilliant cricketing brain Frank Worrell.
The likeable and clever brained Worrell who was a natural when it
came to leading men, it is said noticing that the team was still
performing as individuals, called them for a team meeting before the
First Test at the Gabba in Brisbane.He hammered it into them that should
they shed their individual
brilliance and if they play as a team, they have it in them to set
alight the series. 'Let's shock the cricket world', he said. Previous
captains tried, but could not get the island cricketers to perform as a
team. Worrell had the respect and the capabilities to command, get the
cricketers under him to see reason and play as a team.
Shook Australia
How that team played from then onwards and how they not only shook
Australia and the cricket world is still being spoken about by
cricketers and cricket fans of that era that unwound again in the 1970s
and 80s when Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards were in the saddle.
I still remember how I rushed home after exams breathless with my
pals Kenneth, Edgar, Cosmas, Edward, Patrick and Percy wanting to listen
to the cricketing magic that was unfolding in Brisbane and brought live
to listeners by the only commentator I remember Alan McGilbray on
Redifussion - there was no TV in the country at that time.First to the
two captains,Richie Benaud of Australia and Frank Worrell of the West
Indies. Arguably they are the best ever captains that the game had seen.
Their exciting and daring leadership brought Test cricket alive. They
were master tacticians.
To them winning or losing did not matter. Windies lost the series but
were not focussed only playing for money. In fact there was no money at
stake, at all.May the better side win, was the motto on which they took
the field and throughout the series: the cricket they played was
exciting and electric and it brought back fans flooding to the venues.
Two batting magicians
West Indies had two of the magicians with the bat in Garfield Sobers
and Rohan Kanhai to whom the ball was there to be pummelled. And they
pummelled it with disdain, grace, superb timing and arrogance I would
add.
Equalling them in Aussie line-up were Neil Harvey and Norman O'Neil.
All four batsmen were artisans with the willow in their hands and
played the daring of strokes that sent spectators into raptures.
Then there was Wesley Hall thundering down like a black stallion
cross in the chain and working in 'The Times of Ceylon', I went on board
the 'Oracades' along with M.B. Marjan that docked at the Port taking the
Aussie cricketers to England for the Ashes series. They played a whistle
stop game here.
Hall bouncer
I was shocked to see Bobby Simpson carrying a bump on his forehead, a
result of taking a bouncer from Hall. One also remembers how McKay took
express deliveries on his chest to prevent Australia from losing. That
was how ferociously that series was contested with no quarter asked or
given. That series also produced the first ever tie in a Test at the
Gabba. It was mayhem and the excitement, heart stopping. There was
confusion worse confunded by the scorers who were trying to figure out
who had won or lost. When the excitement died down and it dawned on the
scorers that the Test had ended in a tie there was unbelief. What a game
and series that was.
The squads that made that dream series: West Indies - Frank Worrell
(Capt), Franz Alexander(VC), Tom Dewdney, Lance Gibbs, Wesley Hall,
Jackie Hendricks, Conrad Hunte, Rohan Kanhai, Peter Lashley, Seymour
Nurse, Sonny Ramadhin, Cammie Smith, Garfield Sobers, Joe Solomon, Alf
Valerntine, Chester Watson.
Australia - Richie Benaud (Capt), Neil Harvey (VC), Bobby Simpson,
Colin McDonald, Norman O'Neill, Ian Meckiff, Wally Grout, Allan
Davidson, Lindsay Kline, Ken Mackay, Les Flavell, Fran Mission, Des
Hoare, Johnny Martin, Peter Burge.
Ticker-tape farewell
At the end of the series the West Indians were taken in open top cars
and given a ticker-tape farewell by large crowds that lined the streets
of Melbourne. The then Managing Editor of 'The Times Group', Felix
Goonewardene who was a keen cricket fan managed to get some of the West
Indians to play a match at the Colombo Oval against a 'Daily Mirror'
team.
The Oval was jampacked to watch Sobers, Kanhai, Hall, Watsom, Nurse
and Hunte play and in which game that elegant batsman Michael Tissera
scored a magnificent century.
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