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“West Indies all-time men’s test team – two certainties!”
By: Colin Croft – Former Guyana, Lancashire CCC & West Indies Cricketer
Colin E. H. Croft
Kaieteur Sports – In July, I had picked MY best ever West Indies fast bowlers: Sir Wes Hall (Barbados), Sir Curtly Ambrose (Antigua & Barbuda), Joel Garner (Barbados), late Malcolm Marshall (Barbados).
These four fast bowlers would ALWAYS play in MY BEST EVER WI TEST XI. They could even, collectively, contribute at least 100 runs as lower-order batters, a massive scoring boost.
The new two named herein directly affected my life positively as models, mentors, friends.
SIR GARFIELD St. AUBRUN SOBERS
Little can be written about Sir Gary that has not already been done. He is simply the best ever all-around cricketer seen in international cricket. Most included here are personal memories and experiences.
This ‘six-cricketers-in-one’ – left-arm medium-fast, left-arm orthodox spin, left-arm unorthodox “back-of-the-arm” spin, superlative batter, wonderful catcher at bat-pad (“pick-pocket”), or slips cordon, and team captain – celebrated his 89th birthday on 28 July last.
Test debut – orthodox left-arm spinner, batted at No. 9 – 1954 v England, Sabina Park. Last Test 1974 v England, Queen’s Park Oval. 20 years of great, yeoman service to WI cricket.
Sir Gary Sobers – Batting.
Sir Gary Sobers – Bowling.
93 Tests: 8,032 runs, 26 x 100s, 30 x 50s, HS 365 no. v Pakistan 1958, Sabina Park, avg. 57.78. 235 Test wickets, BBI 6–73 v Australia 1968, Brisbane. BBM 8 – 80 v England 1966, Leeds.
Sir Gary’s unparalleled, incredible all-around inputs allow inclusions of four fast bowlers and off-spinner Lancelot Gibbs for MY ALL WI XI. Six excellent bowlers to destroy any opposition!
Overall, Sir Gary played 383 F-C games: 28,314 runs, 86 x 100s, 121 x 50s, HS 365 no., avg. 54.87. 1,043 wickets, avg. 27.74. What a tremendously unique cricketer Sir Gary had been.
1972 – Sir Gary’s 254; Rest of the World v Australia, unofficial 3rd “Test”, Melbourne; had always been thought to had been his best ever “Test” innings, with fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Robert Massie, and leg-spinners late Terry Jenner and Kerry O’Keefe, at their very best.
1965 – Attended my 1st Test. Bourda Oval. WI v Australia. Sir Gary, captain, opened the bowling with Sir Wes, even though powerful fast bowler, Sir Charles Griffith, also played.
Sir Gary quickly bowled late Aussie opener and captain Robert (Bobby) Simpson. Sir Charles, Sir Wes, Sir Gary, Lance Gibbs and late Joe Solomon’s swing ran through Australia.
Gibbs’ match figures: 48.1 – 18 – 80 – 9. Sir Gary had four wickets too. WI won by 212 runs.
1967 – Guyana v Barbados – Bourda Oval. Still Incredible game. 1437 runs in four days. Guyana 641-5 (late Roy Fredericks 127, Rohan Kanhai 144, late Basil Butcher 183 no.), and 244-5 (late Roy Fredericks 115); Barbados 552 (late Peter Lashley 204, Sir Gary Sobers 165).
Seated in “School-Boys” stand – northern end – in Central High School uniform (required to get in for free), I witnessed the capacity crowd’s roar when Guyanese left-handed fast bowling all-rounder, Winston English; Guyana debut; uprooted Sir Gary’s stumps, one of English’s four wickets. English was also somewhat unlucky not to have ever played for WI.
1971 – I first met Sir Gary, then WI captain, personally, when India toured. In 1970, aged 17, I had debuted when Guyana hosted WI’s Under-19 Tournament.
Through then Coaches and Managers, former WI All-rounders, late Joe Solomon and late Basil Butcher, I had been invited to bowl to the WI batsmen at practice sessions, in preparation for Test No. 3 v India. What great excitement! Immense joy!
One day, having already bowled to then Jamaica and WI wicket-keeper/opening batsman, late Desmond Lewis, for his debut Test; T&T’s WI All-Rounder Charlie Davis; Guyana’s WI batsman and then future WI captain, Rohan Kanhai; I then had to bowl to Sir Gary too.
Each batter was allowed 30 batting minutes in extremely intense net sessions. After bowling for over 100 minutes, (more than 1.5 hours), I was quite tired. What Sir Gary said when I stopped bowling woke me up to reality, probably made me into a WI Test fast bowler too.
“Youngster, are you finished? Are you tired already? How old are you?” Answering in the affirmative while confirming that I had only just become 18, his next comments embarrassed me. “You are only 18 years old. No 18-year-old youth has the right to be tired!”
That comment pushed me to become the fittest and best fast bowler that I could have been.
I needed that fitness when later playing for Guyana with two Test off-spinners, late Clyde Butts and Roger Harper, and WI-A leg-spinning all-rounder, Deryck Kallicharran, included. Each delivered an over in a mere 90 seconds. I had to be fit enough to keep up. I did. Just!
Later, when I played my first Test in 1976/77, Sir Gary was one of the first to congratulate me. When our cricket careers had ended, I even managed to do broadcasts with the great man.
One unforgettable comment from him: “Crofty, I simply played my cricket naturally. I could never understand why the rest of my team’s players could not play as freely as I could.”
To this very day, I am very sure that Sir Gary St. Aubrun Sobers has no idea as to how great a cricketer he had been, how much better he had been than anyone else around. He had simply been the best all-round cricketer ever!
LANCELOT RICHARD GIBBS
Lance Gibbs and Sir Gary Sobers – UK 1969.
Guyana, Warwickshire CCC, South Australia and WI off-spinner Lance Gibbs – “Toothpick” to his real friends; very tall, very slim – completes my “All WI Test XI” bowling attack. On 29 September next (2025), this 1975 ICC Cricket World Cup winner will be 91 years “young”.
79 Tests; 309 wickets; avg. 29.09. Test debut: WI v Pakistan, Queen’s Park Oval, 1958. BBI 8-38 v India, Kensington Oval, 1962; BBM v England, Old Trafford, 1963. Last Test: Australia v WI, Melbourne CG, 1976. 18 years of tremendous service to WI cricket.
Gibbs continued that tradition of WI spin epitomized by late Sonny Ramadhin and late Alfred Valentine; “Ram” and “Val”. Gibbs was the first spinner who had taken 300 Test wickets. In 1976, he also held the record for the most ever Test wickets. He is the best ever WI spinner.
Gibbs took 52 catches in Tests, mostly at fourth slip / gully positions. Many catches for his 309 Test wickets had been taken by Sir Gary – 109 catches in Tests – in that “pick-pocket”, very short-leg (backward or forward) position. What a combination these two had been.
1966-67 – 1st year high school. On weekends when not playing for CHS, I normally rode my newly acquired Raleigh bike to Demerara Cricket Club, in Queenstown, Georgetown, to see Georgetown Cricket Club play DCC. Crowds galore. Always sold out. Many thousands!
GCC sometimes included late Guyana captain and WI opener Steven Camacho and Alvin Kallicharran. DCC sometimes included Sir Clive Lloyd, Lance Gibbs and late Guyana captain WI and opener Roy Fredericks. Hard, inspirational cricket at its very toughest.
Lance Gibbs – Off-Spinner.
1972 – Gibbs also captained Guyana’s senior team. Indeed, mistakenly, I had recently written that Rohan Kanhai had been Guyana’s captain when I played my 1st representative match for Guyana, v Jamaica. That was a mistake. Gibbs was then captain. Apologies.
Anyway, imagine my great surprise when, one day in May 1972, Lance Gibbs, accompanied by late Godfrey Wray, then Sports Editor of Guyana Chronicle newspapers, arrived at our (Old Sylvia and me) little one-bedroom home in Unity-Lancaster Village.
I was actually cleaning my cricket shoes when they arrived. To this day, that visit was one of my biggest shocks and surprises.
They informed that they had arranged for me to go to Warwickshire CCC, on a cricket scholarship, with other Guyana cricketers, former fast bowler Robert Adonis, and late former off-spinner all-rounder Adjodha Persaud. That morning, I felt as if I were floating on air!
I had travelled to Jamaica in 1971 to represent Guyana in WI’s Under19 tournament, my first airplane flight, but I had no dreams of ever flying to the United Kingdom for cricket until then.
From July to September 1972, courtesy of Lance Gibbs, I rubbed shoulders with then England’s and WI’s biggest stars, as I practiced with them and learned so much from them.
1972 – England’s then players appearing for Warwickshire CCC: John Jameson, late Robert (Bob) Willis, Dennis Amiss, MJK (Mike) Smith, AC (Alan) Smith and David Brown.
Then WI players also appearing for Warwickshire CCC were Lance Gibbs, Alvin Kallicharran, Deryck Murray and Rohan Kanhai.
I bowled so much at practice for that Warwickshire 1972 County Championship winning team, and learned so much from them all, about cricket and about life. I have very much to thank Lancelot Richard Gibbs for in my cricket career.
He allowed me to experience, appreciate and understand representative and international cricket. He saw potential that I probably did not know that I had. I simply tried to repay him.
Next for MY ALL WI TEST TEAM, I shall consider many for that one position of wicket-keeper, keeping in mind that varied six-pronged bowling attack already selected. Cheers. Enjoy!
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Wow; Great Job Colin. Tony Cozier once said that Sir Gary Sobers was a Cricketer from another Planet
This all time West Indies X1, is the most difficult to pick