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(Part 32.) Let it snow, let it snow.
Today is a significant day in the history of English cricket. Not for anything to do with action on the field of play, but a bizarre weather phenomenon which prevented play: a freak snowstorm.
Photo: Mirrorpix/ Getty Images.
Yes, coming to the end of spring, with summer not too far away in the Northern Hemisphere, snowfall in Buxton—England’s highest market town at 1,000 feet altitude—forced the abandonment of the scheduled second day of the County Championship match between hosts Derbyshire and Lancashire.
What does that have to do with this Cricket World Cup countdown?
Nothing directly, except that it occurred 50 years ago, which means that the 1975 World Cup was just five days away. And the final, for which we are counting down towards in marking the 50th anniversary of that historic West Indies triumph, had 19 days to go.
Photo: Buxton Cricket Club.
As mentioned a couple days ago, Clive Lloyd was playing in that match and belted an unbeaten 167 out of 477 for five declared by Lancashire on the opening day of the match on the Saturday.
Derbyshire were set to resume on the Monday morning (Sunday was allocated to the 40 overs-per-side John Player League), already in trouble at 25 for two—but not a ball was bowled because of the unexpected blizzard.
Despite the loss of the day, Lancashire completed a crushing victory on the Tuesday, routing Derbyshire for 42. And then, following on, bundling them out for 87 to take maximum points by an innings and 348 runs.
It was Derbyshire’s heaviest defeat of the 20th century.
Lloyd’s next assignment of course, was the World Cup and, for a man who learnt of his appointment to succeed Rohan Kanhai by accident a year earlier (1974), he was already settling nicely into the job.
(via Caribbean Beat.)
“I had made a hundred against Yorkshire in a Roses game at Leeds and I was having a drink with the guys… just celebrating, when a fellow called Howard Booth said ‘Congratulations Clive!’,” Lloyd recalled in an interview for Fox Television, which appeared in a documentary entitled 1975 Cricket World Cup Story.
“I said it was a good pitch and so on because I thought he was talking about the game,” Lloyd explained. “Then he said: ‘I’m not talking about the century. You’ve just been made captain of the West Indies.’ So, the journalist knew before I did.”
For the record, he didn’t actually score a hundred in that match but had innings of 69 and 84 not out. In the return fixture at Old Trafford, he scored 10 and 95.
(via The Cricketer.)
More to the point, Lloyd knew he had to work quickly to earn the support of the players.
“I was a young fellow (29 at the time)—I hadn’t captained anybody,” he said. “So here now I was captaining Lance Gibbs and Rohan Kanhai, fellows who I looked up to as a youngster. And then we had this band of young players who were now coming in [to the international scene].
“Viv Richards was not a big name yet. Gordon Greenidge was not a big name. So, the point is that we had guys who had somebody there whom they trusted and we were getting into this winning habit.”
West Indies won by two wickets, with a man of the match performance by Andy Roberts who took 5/72 and 3/57 and contributed 22*.
Photo: PA Photos.
Lloyd’s first assignment at the helm was the 1974/75 tour of India (five Tests) and Pakistan (two Tests). They exceeded expectations with a 3-2 triumph in India before drawing both Tests in Pakistan.
He credits exposure to county cricket for the manner in which his relatively young side coped on the Indian sub-continent.
“Our players were not as professional as we should have been [previously], but playing County Cricket, that helped us quite a lot because you were batting probably six times per week,” he explained. “In the old days, six times [batting] would be a whole season [back in the West Indies]. So, the professional attitude was a bit different.
“We were brought up in a different era. We had to get our players to inculcate the right sort of habits.”
By the time the inaugural Men’s World Cup came around, West Indies were emerging from a period of struggle where they had gone more than four years without a series victory and a run of 15 Tests without a single win.
To make the final of that first event was therefore no mean feat.
“We had come from two years ago [where] we bottom of the ladder more or less, and here we are in the final of the first World Cup ever… and we were about to beat the best team in the world,” Lloyd observed, with a tone of incredulousness—noting as well that the Australians had the West Indies on the back foot in the early exchanges at Lord’s.
(via Wisden.)
“We were struggling. We had lost three early wickets and I got dropped [on 26] at midwicket by Ross Edwards. But after that the ball was just hitting the bat rather sweetly.
“I said, well, this must be my day and it continued, and I had Rohan Kanhai at the other end—a senior person, someone who I had a lot of respect for—and we just took it from there.”
Lloyd’s 102 and Kanhai’s 55 paced the West Indies to 291 for eight off 60 overs, and after the Aussies were dismissed for 274 in the penultimate over of the match. The gangling Guyanese could finally crack a smile.
Photo: ICC.
“People say my face was the same way all the time if we’re doing well or not,” he said. “They really don’t know [by my expression] if we were in trouble. I tend not to let things trouble me really, or let the opposition see that I am in trouble, so I probably would have been a very good poker player.”
This was not only a significant cricketing victory for the West Indies but one that helped ease the administration’s financial woes, courtesy of the £40,000 sterling winner’s prize money.
“When I took over (as captain) the West Indies [Cricket Board of Control] were really struggling financially,” Lloyd noted. “At the World Cup, the further your team went in the competition the more money you got.
Photo: CWI.
“And by getting to the final and winning it, it gave the West Indies [administration] a lift and gave them a lot more money and got them out of that gloomy period.”
From being snowed out in Buxton to sunshine glory at Lord’s, it was an eventful three weeks, to say the least, for Clive Lloyd.
(Part 34.) Because we forgot. As this 50th anniversary series approaches the actual days of competition at the 1975 World Read more
(Part 33.) Pride of Dominica. Tony Cozier and Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira were the two prominent members of the broadcast team Read more
West Indies have added veteran allrounders Andre Russell and Jason Holder to their T20 International squad, as they prepare for Read more
(Part 31.) Manager’s view. To bounce or not to bounce? That seemed to be one of the questions occupying the Read more
(Part 30.) A Bird’s eye view. Let’s just try to imagine the setting 50 years ago today, a week before Read more
(Part 29.) Contenders and pretenders. With 22 days to go to the 50th anniversary of the West Indies victory over Read more
Fazeer Mohammed is a journalist/broadcaster with almost 40 years’ experience across a range of media.
His interest in cricket, and particularly its history, started at home via his father’s small collection of autobiographies and magazines, offering perspectives and context which have informed his commentary and analysis on contemporary issues in the game.
