Richards was born to Malcolm and Gretel Richards in St. John's, Antigua, then part of the British Leeward Islands. He attended St. John's Boys School and then Antigua Grammar School on a scholarship. Richards discovered cricket at a young age. His brothers, Mervyn and Donald, both played the game, representing Antigua as amateurs, and they encouraged him to play.

In 2000, Richards was named one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, coming fifth behind Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs and Shane Warne in the poll of 100 international cricket experts appointed by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Several prominent personalities including former cricketer Imran Khan and writer John Birmingham are of the opinion that Richards was the best ever batsman against genuine fast bowling. For Barry Richards, Ravi Shastri and Neil Fairbrother, he has been cited as the best batsman they personally witnessed. Wasim Akram rates Richards the greatest batsman he ever bowled to, ahead of Sunil Gavaskar and Martin Crowe. Crowe himself rates Richards as the best batsman he played against, along with Greg Chappell. Arguably the two greatest spinners ever, Muthiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne both idolize Richards. Murali idolized Richards in his years growing up, while Warne rates him the greatest batsman "for me", and overall just after Bradman. The ICC came out with their rankings for the best batsmen and bowlers in the history of the game for both the longer and shorter versions. The ratings for Test Cricket had Vivian Richards ranked 6th after Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Len Hutton, Sir Jack Hobbs, Ricky Ponting and Peter May. The ODI ratings placed Richards in 1st followed by Zaheer Abbas and Greg Chappell. These rankings were based on the level achieved by the batsmen at their respective peaks. He was voted the greatest cricketer since 1970 in a poll, ahead of Ian Botham and Shane Warne. That poll saw both Botham and Warne vote for Richards, and in the opinions of both, Richards is the greatest batsman they ever saw. In 2006, in a study done by a team of ESPN's Cricinfo magazine, Richards was again chosen the greatest ODI Batsman ever. Former cricketer Derek Pringle also rates Richards to be the best batsman ever in the history of Limited Overs Cricket.

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