From: sridhara@plains.NoDak.edu (Venkatesh Sridharan)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: ANECDOTE.
Date: 7 Apr 92 00:03:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.16496
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo



In an earlier post(Message-ID:<1992Apr3.172224.826@hal.com>, crash@hal.com 
writes:

>	Yes, it was a magnificent innings. I saw every ball. It was the first
>time I ever saw a batsman strike the ball and nonchalantly watch it head for 
>the boundary without even bothering to start off for a run. I don't recall how
>many boundaries there were, but they were a significant proportion of his runs
>and most of them rattled the pickets *hard*!


Everybody who has seen that innings rates it *very* high, Sir Don is reported
to have said that it was among the finest innings he had ever seen. Coming
to nonchalance, I think even Garfield Sobers will be hard pressed to match 
'King' Richards. This reminds me of an incident....


The occasion was the first Test (at Delhi) in the Ind-WI series immediately
after the Reliance Cup. It was a pretty interesting test till the last day,
in the first innings, India, batting first, were dismissed for 75 by a West
Indian pace battery bowling (after a long World Cup) with 4 slips, 2 gullies
and a forward short leg. In reply, the West Indians scored 120 odd, after
being a shocking 28-7 at one stage, Richards got a solitary boundary before
getting out caught behind. The Indians, in the second innings, scored 320 
odd, with Vengsarkar scoring a fine hundred.

The West Indians, in the second innings needed to score 279 to win the test,
and to restore their badly battered pride ( they had failed to enter the
semis in a World Cup for the first time ever). At the end of the third day
the WI were 40 odd for 2, the commentators and critics were predicting an
easy win for India since the pitch was supposed to aid spinners. 

                     On the fourth day, the West Indies lost Richardson
who was caught brilliantly by Lamba in the covers, and the night watchman
Winston Davis, caught at forward short leg. The next man in was Vivian
Richards, and *everybody* in the ground knew that the match was in the 
balance. As Richards took guard, the atmosphere in the stadium was electric,
Kapil was to bowl the first ball to Viv, and Kapil, more than anybody else,
would know that Viv was not the best of starters.

Kapil's first ball was good length, on the middle and off, moving *slightly*
away. Viv took a casual step across and turned it to the square leg boundary.
The absolute confidence in the shot was typical of Richards, he took charge
of the match after that and scored a brilliant century, the hundred coming 
off 105 balls. 

Well, this anecdote is not very directly related to Sobers's innings, but
then you dont get the chance to "speak" non-stop very often :-)


>	Let's not forget however that he was out first ball to Lillee in the
>first innings. Furthermore, Lillee was utterly dominant throughout that series,
>with none of the front line batsmen particularly comfortable against him. At
>that time he was about 21 or 22 and had next to no control, but GEEEZ he was 
>bloody quick!

Yes, Sunil Gavaskar, who was a member of the World XI at the time says that
Sobers's pride was stung by the fact that Lillee had had him caught fending
off his chin a couple of times in that series and this added to the criticism
that Sobers "spent more time playing golf than with his team" in that series
prompted that magnificient innings. In fact, Sobers himself has some 
very interesting things to say about that tour in his book "Twenty years
at the top", as does Sunil Gavaskar in "Idols", but I'll reserve those for
another article.



>Chris.


VENKY. ( Venkatesh Sridharan)
Win or Lose, forever Windies.
email: sridhara@plains.Nodak.edu