That little friend

THE greatest cricketing rivalry of modern times has been between Australia and the West Indies. Between 1930 and 1960, the teams played each other in three series of matches, with Australia winning 11 out of the 15 Tests played. After 1960, the encounters became more frequent, and more evenly contested. Over the last 40 years, the two sides have played 75 Tests, Australia winning 26, West Indies winning 29, with 19 matches drawn and one tied.

The cricket of both sides has generally rested on attacking batsmanship and hostile fast bowling. Simpson and Lawry versus Hall and Griffith; Richards and Lloyd versus Lillee and Thomson; Border and Greg Chappell versus Ambrose and Marshall; Hooper and Lara verus McDermott and McGrath: these are some of the battles that I have read about, heard on the radio, or watched on television over the decades.

For all the absorbing contests of later years, the best remembered of all West Indies-Australia series remains the series of 1960-61. This started with a tie, in Brisbane. Australia won the second Test by seven wickets, but lost the next match by 222 runs. The fourth Test at Adelaide was drawn, the Australian last- wicket pair of Slasher Mackay and Lindsey Kline holding out for two-and-a-half hours, in a determined display helped somewhat by partisan umpiring. The last match at Melbourne was won by the home side, but by a narrow margin of two wickets.

The Tests of 1960-61 had many heroes. These included the young dashers, Garfield Sobers and Rohan Kanhai, who rivalled one another stroke for stroke. Their work with the bat was answered by Neil Harvey and Norman O'Neill for the Australians. There were fine fast bowlers on either side, Wesley Hall for the West Indies and Alan Davidson for the Australians. The young Lance Gibbs and the ageing Richie Benaud supplied spin bowling of quality. And, as one would expect from these two sides, the fielding was always of the highest class. So was the wicket-keeping, of Wally Grout and Gerry Alexander respectively.

For one old man back in Trinidad, the series of 1960-61 helped to vindicate a life-long struggle. C.L.R. James wrote of how the "greatest moment was the speech-making after the last Test." He was impressed with the Australian captain, Benaud, who "was fluent, with carefully chosen phrases, full of affection and respect for Frank Worrell and the West Indians (and not forgetting his own team); definitely a man of feeling..." But "Frank Worrell, speaking last, was crowned with the olive. His speech had "all the West Indian ease (and) humour... draped with that diplomatic graciousness which has apparently so impressed the Australian Prime Minister. If I say he won the prize it is because the crowd gave it to him. They laughed and cheered him continuously."

By his charm and grace and skilful leadership, remarked James, Frank Worrell had "expanded my conception of West Indian personality. Nor was I alone." For the cricket played by Worrell and his men had "brought a quarter of a million inhabitants of Melbourne into the streets to tell the West Indian cricketers good-bye, a gesture spontaneous and in cricket without precedent, one people speaking to another."

Years ago, as a student in Delhi, I would borrow the film made of the 1960-61 series from the Australian High Commission and screen it for my friends in the University. That film had snatches of the action, of Hall bowling and Sobers batting, and ended with a long shot of the magnificent public reception given the departing West Indies team by the citizens of Melbourne. I can remember, as I write, the frame of the last ball bowled in the series. The ball pitched on leg stump, but spun and bounced to miss off, leaving both batsman and wicket-keeper stranded. It went for four byes, allowing Australia to win the match by two wickets. Had the ball hit the stumps the West Indies might yet have won.

That last ball was sent down by the slow left-arm spinner Alf Valentine. Valentine was a shy, bespectacled man who had come to early notice when he and his little pal, Sonny Ramadhin, bowled the West Indies to victory against England in the summer of 1950. Ramadhin bowled well on responsive pitches and against timid, crease-stuck batsmen, but Valentine would plug away stoutly in conditions inhospitable for spin bowling. Keith Miller, who played much cricket against him, wrote that "there was no doubt Alf had what it takes both as a bowler and a man". On the Australian tour of 1951-52, he was grossly overbowled, but never complained. However, he showed his fingers to Miller one evening, and they "were red raw". The Australian gave him a home-made jelly to deaden the pain. These cricketing opponents could also be friends. Valentine wrote Miller, was a "quiet, likeable character" and a "star bowler".

Alf Valentine also played in all five Tests of the 1960-61 series. In the match won by the West Indies, at Sydney, he took four wickets in each innings. In a post-match interview, he refused to answer questions about his bowling. Rather, he wanted the press to publicise the fact that his batsmanship was not treated with adequate respect by opponents, team-mates and spectators alike. When he went out to bat at the fall of the ninth wicket, complained Valentine, the fast bowlers in the dressing-room put on their boots, the wicket-keeper put on his pads, "and then, as you go through the crowd and on to the pitch, you see spectators getting up to make sure they have a good position at the bar during the interval". The slow bowler added that the mere sight of number eleven "brings out the worst in men. The opposing skipper will start signalling the groundsman, and the fielders get so friendly they stand practically on a man's toes. They make skittish and to a dedicated batsman like myself, insulting remarks".

Valentine's career Test batting average was 4.72. In 30 Tests he took 139 wickets and scored a total of 141 runs. But, in that particular series, he actually batted well above par. It was not until the Third Test that the Australian bowlers got him out. Altogether he batted nine times in the series, scoring a total of 21 runs. His average was also 21, for he had eight not outs. A cynical commentator would however interpret that figure as being caused by the desperation of the man at the other end, who would be dismissed trying to hit a boundary in the certain knowledge that friend Alf would not last another over.

After that 1960-61 series, a new trophy, named for Frank Worrell, was instituted for Australia-West Indies Tests. However, a once- great rivalry seems now to be at an end. The standard of Caribbean cricket has declined alarmingly, as young men have abandoned the game for other games - baseball and basketball especially - or for music and drugs. Experts and laymen both expect the West Indies to be thrashed on this winter's tour of Australia. Be that so, there remains one element of continuity between this tour and the tour 40 years ago of Frank Worrell and his men. It lies in the person of Courtney Walsh. Like his fellow Jamaican Alf Valentine, Courtney is a superbly skilled bowler, a perfect gentleman, and an altogether hopeless batsman.

RAMACHANDRA GUHA

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