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(Part 21.) An impatient King.
Without resorting to your trusty search engine or any personal archives, can you name the players who have Cricket World Cup winners’ medals from both the 1975 and 1979 tournaments?
Most are straightforward.
(via Sportskeeda.)
Gordon Greenidge: who opened with Roy Fredericks in the first final and Desmond Haynes four years later.
Viv Richards: who came in at six against Australia but set the tone himself with 138 not out from the vaunted number three position versus England.
Alvin Kallicharran: the star of the batting line-up in 1975 who had to move a step down in 1979 because it was now Viv’s spot.
Photo: ICC.
Clive Lloyd: captain for both tournaments and the hero of the inaugural triumph with a rampaging 102 in the final.
Deryck Murray, quietly efficient behind the stumps to a varied attack first time around and then the fearsome foursome in the successful defence of the title.
Andy Roberts, whose rescue act with Murray against Pakistan was the fever-pitch moment of the 1975 World Cup even as his pace and skill offered batsmen few liberties on both occasions.
Photo: Guyana Chronicle.
But there’s one more, the player who was almost anonymous for the inaugural tournament but played such a spectacular, tempo-changing innings in the 1979 final as to upstage even the magnificent Richards.
Yes, it’s Collis King, the Barbadian all-rounder bursting with self-belief; but who, like Maurice Foster, has a World Cup winners’ medal from 1975 without making the final eleven for any of the five matches in that tournament.
So, with 30 days to go to the 50th anniversary of the West Indies’ triumph over Australia in the 1975 final at Lord’s, we conclude our profile of the 14-man squad by focusing on the only man in the touring party without any senior West Indies experience at the time.
Despite limited opportunities (teams played just four matches in a first-class season), King delivered at just the right time in the 1975 Shell Shield campaign. He belted an unbeaten 103 on the final day of the season against Jamaica to lift his tally to 431 at the impressive average of 71.83.
Even if his subsequent selection for the World Cup raised a few eyebrows, especially outside of Barbados, those at home who were aware of his talents earmarked him as something special from a very early age.
Almost bullied into excelling by his unforgiving taskmaster of a father, his performances in domestic competition in Barbados have become the stuff of legend.
Photo: Getty Images.
In Australian writer Ashley Gray’s The Unforgiven, in which he tells the varied stories of the West Indies rebels who toured South Africa in 1983 and 1984, Eric Bynoe, a teammate at YMPC (Young Men’s Progressive Club) in the early 1970s, doesn’t mince words in appreciating King’s one-of-a-kind talent.
“He did things no one else could do,” said Bynoe, who watched in disbelieving admiration from the other end as King thrashed a double-century to lift YMPC from the depths of 26 for six to a victory target of 354 against the might of then whites-only Wanderers.
King followed that up with 154 on a treacherous pitch at Maple and then blazed his way to 268 in a day against St Catherine’s.
A pity then that he didn’t get a chance to show even a glimpse of that phenomenal ability in 1975, although he more than made up for it four years later.
Next: Why playing in England was like playing at home for almost the entire West Indies squad.
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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.
