When A Lion Loomed Large: Ode To Sir Viv Richards Who Turns 71
Richards - One of the best of batters to come from Caribbean Islands (Twitter)
Long before Caribbean Cricket plunged to its lowest depths with the team sinking to an eighth or the ninth on the ICC rankings, there was Sir Vivian Richards.
Way before one made lightwork of their cricketing culture, a time where West Indies hadn’t yet come to be known as the “Windies”, there was Sir Viv Richards.
Way before one attributed perhaps a taint of sorts calling the Burgundy cap Maroon, there was Sir Viv Richards.
And Viv wore it proudly; donning along with it a swashbuckle that was hitherto unknown and even rarely seen.
In Sir Viv Richards’ hands, the Cricket bat seemed less of a bat but more of a mace.
But, perhaps the bowlers, and most of them world class, would much rather label it an instrument of destruction.
And Sir Viv wielded it with a sense of elan that none since this legendary Antiguan have come to emulate.
What’s known and rather commonly so about Sir Viv Richards’ batting was that it was full of action-packed stuff that befits some Rambo-style flick.
Here was a maverick. He was powerful. And he was unforgiving.
The rampaging pulls. The jarring cuts. The bludgeoning blows towards the mid wicket. The big heaves that mostly landed beyond the long on region. His batting was composed of a flurry of fours and sixes.
But what’s been rather unsung about this timeless jewel of West Indian cricket is that he took just three Tests to strike his first ever century.
Though, in his case, it wasn’t just a Test ton; it was a harrowing episode of pulverising an unsuspecting Indian attack that ultimately saw Viv compile an unbeaten 192 runs.
In the third Test of the West Indies’ 1974 tour of India, Delhi was witness to a stormy knock by 22-year-old youngster who fired 20 boundaries and clobbered 6 sixes, thus amassing 116 runs to the fence during his whirlwind 192.
The likes of Syed Abid Ali, Bishan Singh Bedi and Eknath Solkar along with Erapally Prasanna were only waking up to a storm that would eventually capture everyone - from Lillee to Thomson, Imran Khan to Kapil Dev- in its wake.
And perhaps what made Sir Viv tick and catapulted him to worldwide fame was that he made the batting butchery an art form.
All the modern day tormentors of white ball cricket- think AB de Villiers, Sanath Jayasuriya, Jos Buttler, Virender Sehwag, Matt Hayden and Chris Gayle- came later.
Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards came first and foremost!
Viv Richards played 121 Tests for West Indies (Twitter)
But this is a sport that likes a bit of myth. And perhaps some melodrama. Cricket’s is an orbit that surrounds controversy. Though in Viv’s time, rather let’s call it era, there was nothing of that sort barring attitude.
And it wasn’t attitude that leaked temper.
Viv’s attitude was all about owning the game and playing it like a champion, which in the contemporary firmament of West Indies cricket, seems like something that happened maybe centuries ago, when it’s practically a little over three decades back in time.
That Sir Viv never wore a helmet is a fact that has made its place in the sport’s history books for time immemorial. But it had little to do with slimy arrogance and everything to do pure self confidence.
The equation of a contest with Sir Viv in it seemed pretty straightforward: the West Indies would win for as long as Viv occupied the crease.
And he usually became a bowler destructor whenever that sort of thing happened.
His famous 291, which came in England in 1976, wherein he came within a shouting distance of the famously elusive triple century saw Viv play exactly how he had batted years ago in Delhi.
He had all the shots in the book. And he played them combining a sense of grace and ruthlessness that’s never quite been matched ever since.
Though truth be told, Sir Viv’s greatest contribution is that during his time, the West Indies team only grew more powerful than what it already. A sight that was akin to a iron pumping pugilist who soars in size as the years go by.
The only thing that would pinch and perhaps helplessly so is Viv seeing the condition of the present day West Indies side that though has talent, but also sufficient complacency and the unwanted ingredient called inconsistency.
How’s it even possible that the side made most in the world bow down to its knees hasn’t yet been able to stand up proudly again?
 "Dev Tyagi")
