Rich pickings!

Raju Bharatan

AAs it became known, early in 1979, that the world's greatest all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers was set to name his own 'Ten All-Time Greats', there was high speculation in the West Indies about which one of ‘The Caribbean Big Three’, Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards and Gordon Greenidge, Gary could possibly leave out of his list.

Would Greenidge end up as a 'Gary casualty', since Gordon often felt an 'outsider' in the West Indies dressing-room?

Gordon had moved to England when he was just 12 years old; he had been brought up and educated in reading; he had, as Hampshire's most impressive young opener joining striking issue with the mighty Barry Richards in bringing off sixes, even been approached by Ray Illingworth to play for England!

To this extent, Gordon Greenidge had never been 'one of the boys' in the Windies dressing-room, being considered a poor mixer by boisterous Caribbean standards.

Such extraneous factors never could cloud Sir Gary's clear-headed view of the man and his cricket, of course.

Sir Gary, in the end, included all three, Lloyd, Richards and Greenidge, among his 'Ten All-Time Greats'.

Here, it is well to remember that it was under Clive Lloyd's nascent captaincy that both Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge grew to world stature, starting with the 1974-75 tour of India by the West Indies.

That, in fact, was the tour on which, believe it or not, Viv Richards's international career all but ended before it began!

How? Those who lived through that era would have an insight into the fact that Sir Garfield Sobers had -- before Viv Richards burst on the scene -- envisioned Lawrence Rowe as his natural right-handed batting successor.

It is of how lucky Vivian Richards was to displace Lawrence Rowe (from this classic right-hander’s set slot in the Windies team) that I speak here.

Indeed, if Lawrence George Rowe had remained fit on that 1974-75 tour of India and Pakistan, Viv Richards might never have made it to the West Indies Test eleven.

On such a slender thread does a great career hang! Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards was just one of the West Indies 16 on that 1974-75 tour of India and Pakistan. However, a fortnight before the first Test of the series at Bangalore (on 22 November 1974), Lawrence Rowe developed a sudden 'vision' problem. This willowy virtuoso found he just was not able to sight even the moderately quick ball. When doctors in India failed to diagnose what really ailed the man, Lawrence Rowe made a hurried trip to London (during the Indian part of the tour) to consult a renowned ophthalmic surgeon there, so vital was he to the Windies batting then.

But, when Rowe failed to get back in time for the first Test at Bangalore (starting 22 November), his slot 'in the middle' had to be filled -- with Roy Fredericks and stripling Gordon Greenidge set to open.

That is how Vivian Richards (not in the original eleven) got into the West Indies team for the first Test at Bangalore. Only to catch a Tartar in B S Chandrasekhar, about whom Viv Richards, as a total newcomer, hadn't a clue -- whether to go across or down!

Chandra had Richards misreading his googly twice in that Bangalore Test (when Vivian had made but 4 and 3) for this fresher to be caught, easily, both times.

At this point, therefore, Richards's Test career appeared to have reached a dead-end. For, where Gordon Greenidge (even while struggling initially against Chandra) had scored 93 and 107 in that his debut Test (at Bangalore in November 1974), Viv Richards had flopped in both innings.

There was no way, therefore, that Vivian Richards could be considered for inclusion in the second Test at Ferozeshah Kotla, Delhi -- with the bespectacled Lawrence Rowe by then (December 11) back from London, 'looking' better, if not quite okay still.

Here is where 'Vivy' had the luck of the devil-may-care!

After nets at Kotla, it came to be determined that Lawrence Rowe was not still quite fit for the fray. Yet how to re-pick Richards if Chandra was playing that Delhi Test -- hadn't that 'India Rubber Spinner' made 'Vivy' look a near idiot at Bangalore?

Trust our own selectors to oblige the opposition in such a grim situ!

It so happened that India's 'comeback' captain for that 1974-75 series, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, had injured himself (during the second innings of the first Test at Bangalore) in the process of catching Keith Boyce (4) off Venkat. So Tiger Pataudi was out of this second (Kotla) Test, his India having been thrashed by 267 runs at Bangalore.

Pataudi had, before that hand injury in the Bangalore Test, been away from the field for a couple of overs. During those two overs, the Indian team had gone 'rudderless', as no one on the field knew who the vice-captain was! The captain's deputy never was -- still is not -- named in advance where it is a home series. Only after 12th man Rajendra Goel came out (with a bat when India was fielding!) to reveal who the acting skipper was did it get to be known that our new vice-captain was Sunil Gavaskar -- superseding E A S Prasanna, S Venkataraghavan and G R Viswanath, even while Bishan Singh Bedi had been ‘disciplinarily’ stood down from that BangaloreTest by Board president Purshottam Rungta!

Haplessly, just after that Bangalore Test, Sunil Gavaskar, too, was hit on the hand by Pandurang Salgaonkar in a Ranji Trophy match. So Sunny joined Pataudi in being out of the second Test at Kotla.

This was the signal for Delhi Cricket Association chief Ram Prakash Mehra to 'unmask' Farokh Engineer as India's new captain (in Sunil Gavaskar's place) during the evening before the Kotla Test was due to begin! But the selectors had other ideas when they assembled, in full strength, an hour before that second Test at Kotla got under way.

With Bedi back on his Kotla home ground and Prasanna having bowled beautifully (if lucklessly) at Bangalore, our selectors not only retained S Venkataraghavan in the eleven (for this Delhi Test), but also named him captain, dropping Chandra to accommodate the Madras off-spinning ace.

A Chandra whose analyses in Bangalore had read 28-5-112-4 and 23-3-102-2.

Venkat too, for that matter, had bowled superbly (on an initially wet wicket) at Bangalore (30-8-75-4 and 21-4-79-2).

I was there to cover all five Tests of that series.

The spot selectorial argument advanced for jettisoning Chandra was that the freak tweak had to be "hidden" from the blazing blades of the West Indies on the benign Kotla wicket!

As far as Clive Lloyd went, Chandra’s dropping was just what the skipper ordered. Lloyd straightway made up his mind to give Viv Richards a second Test chance. How Viv Richards seized the heaven-sent chance with that 'Kotlambasting' 192 not out (6 sixes, 20 fours, 297 balls, 321 minutes) is part of Windies cricket lore!

But for last man Andy Roberts (2) being ruled absurdly run out by umpire B. Sathyaji Rao (when that No 11 had already raced past the bowling-crease), Viv Richards, unshackled by the absence of Chandra, would almost certainly have gone on to a double ton.

Indeed, once Chandra returned with the third Test at Calcutta, India's 'mystery man' began weaving a web around ‘Vivy’ even in the face of that 192 Kotla not out.

Richards's subsequent scores of 15 & 47 at Calcutta; 50 & 2 at Madras; 1 & 39 not out at Bombay (in the remaining three Tests of the series) suggest that Vivian was by no means, yet, the monarch of all he surveyed, even if he fell to Chandra but once in those 6 innings.

'Vivy', it was noticeable, never really shook off the Chandra halter. He notes as much in Viv Richards: The Authorised Biography.

"For a long time, I just couldn't deal with Chandra," observes Vivian Richards, "he flighted the ball so well."

"You’d make 30 or 40 runs against Chandra, but you could never be sure of getting him totally under control," adds 'Vivy'.

"Just when you thought you had got his measure, he'd produce the ball to deceive you -- an incredible bowler!" concludes Richards.

Would Viv Richards's advent, as a world-class batsman, have been delayed if Chandra (and not Venkat) had been played in that second Test at Kotla?

Well, the grim irony here is that Venkat, captaining India, had Viv Richards palpably out (caught by Farokh Engineer behind) when that Black Blaster was but 12 in his Kotla classic-to-come -- 192 not out!

We have none other than the umpire who then ruled 'Vivy' not out, Madhav Gothoskar (in his book, 'The Burning Finger'), writing this about that prize Venkat-wicket-that-never-was: "A drifter, which moved outside the off-stump, had possibly nicked the bat, as Richards played a defensive shot – I declared him not out"!

So Viv Richards's Test career could, conceivably, have ended before it started.

It was Clive Lloyd's magnanimity -- in letting this fledgling be -- that opened up that Kotla Test opportunity (of 192 not out) for Viv Richards.

Even on the Pakistan leg of that subcontinental tour (in February-March 1975), Viv Richards made but 7 & 0 in the Lahore Test; and 10 in the Karachi Test.

Thus, from 7 Tests (5 in India and 2 in Pakistan), Viv Richards's scores read: 4 & 3; 192 not out; 15 & 47; 50 & 2; 1 & 39 not out; 7 & 0; and 10.

An aggregate of 370 runs from 12 Test innings (twice not out) for an average of only 37.00.

The potential to be an international-class batsman was obviously there.

Viv Richards was an emerging great. But where would even such a thoroughbred really have been, if skipper Clive Lloyd had not given Viv Richards his head by choosing not to take a chance with the already tried-and-tested Lawrence Rowe?

A point to ponder a quarter century later!

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