New columnist GARFIELD ROBINSON tracks the rise of one of the greatest ever fast bowlers the game has seen. One who didn’t even particularly like cricket.

Curtly Ambrose first came on the scene in 1986, representing the Leeward Islands in the local Red Stripe cup competition. The Antiguan played only one game that year against Guyana at Bourda and he took 4 wickets. He missed all of the 1987 season because The Leewards’ fast bowling department was staffed by the likes of Winston Benjamin, Eldine Baptiste, Anthony Merrick and George Ferris, players who were either already playing for the West Indies, or were considered among those next in line. He only started the 1988 season because Baptiste and Benjamin were in India on West Indies duties and made good use of the opportunity.

Fitter and faster now, he began to terrorize the regional batsmen and soon word spread throughout the Caribbean that he was to be feared, and possibly avoided. One Jamaican opener was somehow convinced by his partner that his left-handedness made him less vulnerable to Ambrose’s missiles, and so he should take him while he would content himself with Benjamin. The result was that Nigel Kennedy, making his first class debut, suffered a broken arm and never played for Jamaica again that season, and I am yet to find out if he has spoken to his opening partner since.

On a docile Antigua Recreation Ground pitch Ambrose totally routed Guyana, taking 12 wickets in the match with 9 of them bowled. In all, the 6’7” Antiguan took a season high of 35 wickets at an average of 15.48, with Malcolm Marshall next in line with 27 wickets.

By competitions’ end everyone knew that his next step would be to the then all-conquering West Indies team. There was just no way his claims could have been ignored, and we were confident he would add his name to the long line of fast bowling legends from the Caribbean. So no one was surprised when he was named in the team to face the visiting Pakistanis.

It was an unbelievable rise. Ambrose had played his first meaningful cricket match for Swetes, his village, in 1984 at the age of 21. Within four years he was a West Indies player, bowling alongside Malcolm Marshall and Courtney Walsh.

It’s not like he lived for cricket. Unlike many Caribbean boys, Ambrose did not dream of playing for the West Indies. Most athletes who make it to the highest level dedicate hours of youthful energy to improving their craft. We know that Donald Bradman spent hours throwing a golf ball against a tank and hitting it with a stump. Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest basketball player ever, practiced every morning before school with his high school coach. Success normally requires a love for the sport that borders on obsession, and a work ethic that only a few can summon.

It was not so with Ambrose.  He never really played much cricket as a young man, he said; actually, he never really cared much for the game. He played football and basketball. Cricket was too hard, consumed too much energy, so he only played tennis ball cricket on the beach with his friends to have a good time, and occasionally, because his friends thought he could bowl, he would be persuaded to have a game in the village.

This is somewhat unusual. Read the biographies of most cricketers and they tell of endless games in the backyard, or the nearby ground, or at some makeshift venue.

Cricketers who make it to the elite level often report that they were so taken with the game in their youth that they became cricket stalkers, searching for a game wherever one could be found. Ambrose only played when his friends asked.

Had an acquaintance from his village left for space when Ambrose was a teenager, and returned, say in 1994 while he was putting England to the sword at the Queens Park Oval, they would have been flabbergasted to find that the beanpole kid who was so indifferent to the sport could have risen to its very top. He would have found it remarkable that such a reluctant cricketer would have gone on to take 610 international wickets.

Ambrose played his last game for the West Indies at the Foster’s Oval in Kennington on the 2000 England tour. Since then it appears he has been mainly occupied with music. He plays bass in a band called “The Big Bad Dread And The Baldhead,” which also features Richie Richardson as its rhythm guitarist. Cricket? He hardly even watches.

“I was a fast bowler, I’m now a musician” – Curtly Ambrose

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lead image: (c) guardian.co.uk

Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch are inviting cricket writers from around the globe to wax lyrical on who they consider their “favourite cricketer”. Today is the turn of Max Benson, the youngest star of the Test Match Sofa alternative cricket commentary team, who chooses England’s 2005 Ashes-winning captain and most beautiful batsman – it’s Michael Vaughan. Max tweets @sofa_maxb.

Northern batsmen aren’t stylish. Northern batsmen are Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Atherton and Paul Collingwood. They are grafters and men of toil, hell-bent on building an innings by any grim means necessary.

All stereotypes are rooted in truth, but my favourite cricketer goes against that particular grain. He possessed a heavenly mix of balance, exquisite timing and sheer class at the crease – creating at will a thing of true beauty each time he unfurled a cover drive or square pull. Indeed, this smitten writer may well go to the grave believing there to be nothing finer in this life than a Michael Vaughan cover drive.

Born the wrong side of the Pennines it was fortunate that Yorkshire accepted him in 1993, just after relaxing their part-admirable, part-ludicrous rule that allowed only players born within the county to be considered for selection. It was Doug Padgett, a veteran of over 500 First Class games for the county who persisted in bringing Vaughan to the club. The thought of him enjoying the career he did with a red instead of a white rose on his chest sends a chill down many a Tyke’s spine. Never mind those that did get away before common sense prevailed.

I first saw Vaughan play for Yorkshire in a one day game at North Marine Road, Scarborough, in 1999. He top-scored with an understated 41, taking the Tykes to a seven-wicket win against Leicestershire, but it was the following summer where he began to shine on a bigger stage.

The first Test match I saw live was at Headingley in 2000. The famous two-day Test against the West Indies, in fact, as luck would have it.

‘’Don’t expect them all to be like that,’’ my dad felt obliged to caution the ten-year-old me, beaming after Caddick and Gough had dismantled the tourists for 61 in their second innings and a deliriously boozed-up army of nuns, Elvises and the like had stormed the field from the old Western Terrace.

Amidst the chaos and tumbling wickets that day, one man personified calm. Vaughan’s expertly crafted 76 took England to what proved to be a match-winning score of 272. Graeme Hick had stayed with him for a neat half century of his own, but it was Vaughan who steadied the ship so ably from 93/4 in front of his expectant home crowd against the aging yet undiminished brilliance of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.

His coolness under pressure was paramount in the decision to award him the England captaincy in 2003, the year in which he all-too-briefly topped the world batting rankings after racking up 633 runs and three centuries in yet another Ashes defeat Down Under.

Allied to his superb man management skills and, somewhat paradoxically, his one-of-the-lads mentality; the decision to hand him the reigns was undoubtedly the right one.

The England side had improved steadily under Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain, four years on from when the latter was booed onto the Oval balcony after defeat to New Zealand left England bottom of the Test rankings in 1999. Central contracts helped transform a ragged and insecure bunch of county players into a cohesive unit, and Vaughan was the perfect man to take them to the next level.

He dealt instinctively well on a personal level with the self-destructive Andrew Flintoff and the fragile Steve Harmison, while his on-field demeanour and tactical nous made him by far the best all-round leader in world cricket at the time.

The defining moment for Vaughan’s captaincy came as he led his country in probably the greatest Test series of all time against the Aussies in 2005. Prising the urn from the enemy for the first time since 1987, a rollercoaster series captured the imagination of a football-orientated English press and public like never before.

But Vaughan was fallible, too. His batting suffered, perhaps inevitably, with the strains of captaincy and his final dozen innings or so for Yorkshire in 2009 were painful to watch as the magic – or at least the eyes and joints – appeared to have gone for good. We’re all human. We all get old.

He had always suffered more than most with injuries.  The summer of 2006 was a complete write-off, as was the following winter’s whitewash in Australia, all due to a chronic knee problem. A serious hamstring injury followed, and Vaughan was cruelly destined never to regain the magic that had graced county and country for nigh on a decade.

That only adds to the reasons for him being a ‘favourite’. He played on for as long as possible because of a love and deep respect for the game, yet knew to bow out without losing too much dignity on the field. And besides, who would be so heartless as to deny such a player a bit of extra grace to play out a few more innings on the county circuit as the curtain came down on a sterling career? Well, Yorkshire, probably.

In a media-saturated world now awash with anodyne quotes straight off a script from most of our sportsmen and women, Vaughan’s departure from the England captaincy couldn’t have been further from the catatonic norm.

His tearful farewell in full glare of the world’s media was fantastic proof of his boyish love of the game. To see an Ashes-winning gladiator reduced to tears spoke volumes for his sincerity as a player and pride in his country. It was a single moment encapsulating what sport really is: blood, sweat, tears and hyperbole.

Vaughan embodied much of what I believe is great about the game we love. He could ooze style and class when at his work and read the game beautifully with a sound tactical mind. Most striking is that he remained ‘one of the boys’ – a hideous phrase – and someone whose raw passion and enthusiasm we simple fans could relate to.

I, and I suspect many others, wanted to share a pint with him – the ultimate compliment for a Yorkshireman. No one in their right mind wanted to drink with Boycott.

(c) Paul McGregor Cricinfo

Previous Favourite Cricketers

Brian Lara by David Siddall

Allan Border by Ben Roberts

Douglas Jardine by David Green

Curtly Ambrose by Matthew Wood

Sachin Tendulkar by Subash Jayaraman

Ian Botham by Jonathan Kilroy

Shane Warne by Murray Middleton

Rahul Dravid by Sujith Krishnan

Wasim Akram by Blaise Murphet

Glenn McGrath by Gary Naylor

Ed Giddins by Nick Harrison

Adam Gilchrist by Will Atkins

Angus Fraser by James Marsh

Paul Allott by Jonathan Howcroft

Tim Bresnan by Yorkshire Len

Sourav Ganguly by Christopher David

David Boon by Jimi Stephens

Herschelle Gibbs by Justin Lawrence

Bob Woolmer by Nigel Henderson

Darren Lehmann by Daniel Gray

Kumar Sangakkara by Nishant Joshi

Justin Langer by Sarah C Robinson

Andy Bichel by Nicko Hancock

Chris Tavare by Gideon Haigh

Gavin Larsen by Ken Miller

Ray Bright by Dan Lonergan

Chris Pringle by Michael Wagener

Anil Kumble by Rishabh Bablani

Shoaib Akhtar by Assad Hasanain

Stuart MacGill by Kristian Gough

What is it with PMs loving the game that god would play? BEN ROBERTS investigates and reviews More than a Game by former British Prime Minister John Major.

I really do need to admit that although being a born and bred Australian I am spending more and more time putting my head above the neighbouring fence and enjoying the delights of sport as enjoyed by the English. This is quite the admission, and flies in the face of everything I learned from the likes of Dean Jones, Allan Border, and Steve Waugh. English cricket to them was defined by failure and therefore very much the lesser when compared to Australia’s ruthless winning culture (even when losing), but I am no longer of the same opinion and not just because Australia has lost the past two Ashes series.

The real sticking point that for my mind that Australian cricket falls short of is its cultural impact. While we cannot deny that cricket remains a strong part of Australian culture, for the English over the past 250 years it is clear that cricket has has gone beyond merely being a part of and driven culture.

Australian cricket has not shifted society as English cricket did. While Australians often pointed to the archaic distinction between amateurs and professionals (upper and lower classes) as being disgraceful, the reality is that such distinctions were well established in English society at large. While cricket did indeed choose to accept and incorporate them into it’s play, it became a microcosm for the observation of social distinctions highlighting their hypocritical nature and ultimately doing away with them.

Without becoming a screaming Anglophile let us not forget that there are plenty of parts of Australian cricketing history that one may choose to let lie when all is said and done. Cricket historians may eventually afford the words ‘mental disintegration’ the same level of disgust and horror as has already been attributed ‘bodyline’.

Cricket became for England a pastime upon which a nations leisure revolved, as John Major title’s his book it is ‘More Than a Game’ with many famous cricketing names being non-players. How many sports or leisure activities honour journalists and administrators to the same degree as cricket does? Not to mention those who were patrons of the game. How many sports have entire wings of literature (fiction and non-fiction) devoted to them, not to mention certain religious understandings being exemplified as was ‘Muscular Christianity’ – although a nod must go to Rugby for its theological input as well.

Major brings all of this together in a tremendous work of historical review. His purpose is to describe what he believes are the lost centuries of cricket. Crickets actual beginnings likely will never be known but positive evidence for it existing in 17^th century England exists. Major takes the reader on a journey to understand these earliest moments of the game he loves, and how the gradual shift in English society was mirrored by the growth that became an empires favourite pastime.

This is not a book for the casual cricket lover so be wary. It is as full of detail as any book I have ever read. Major profiles at length the characters and teams that made up the game in each moment through history. It would be hard pressed to accept this as a good read based on that description but honestly I could not put this book down and wished it would never end.

Cricket tradition is not what it is often made out to be in 21^st century Australia. Modified versions of the game did not originate with 50 over cricket or receive an injection of charisma upon the ‘revolution’ that is T20. Afford yourself a peruse at the very least of Wikipedia and you will find men of the like of Billy Beldham entering into one on one contests of gladiatorial nature in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, or  the entrepreneurial William Clarke leading his ‘All-England XI’ around for invitational games often against the odds. You see cricket has always evolved, tradition did not originate with Chappell brothers or even Sir Donald Bradman, cricket history runs much, much deeper.

The flow of the work is exceptional by Major. For chapter upon chapter he builds a chronologically based picture of the games history. But just at the right moment when the reader needs a rest he pauses to reflect on specific persons or positions in the game of cricket. Although counter to the rhetoric of most latter day Australian players, cricket is not limited to those privileged enough to be blessed with the skill to play. Major honours with specific chapters the patrons and administrators, scorers and journalists who do not play but their involvement requires no less admiration. They like Major, loved it unconditionally even though they may not have been able to bowl with the fire of Fred Spofforth.

Of course Major is a former British Prime Minister, and a small litter of political gibing can be found in this books pages. But we will forgive him this as politics has been his life. (Major may still wake every night trying to explain to the long gone British public that ‘New Labour’ is not what you think it was, before cuddling up to his soft Mrs Thatcher doll and going back to sleep).

English cricket is a cultural phenomenon, not just a sport. Cricketers all over the world today are treading well worn paths and carrying a beacon for a culture that has a long history. They are by far not the first, nor will be the last to enjoy this great game.

lead image: (c) news.com.au
Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch are inviting cricket writers from around the globe to wax lyrical on who they consider their “favourite cricketer”. Today is the turn of Kristian Gough, of The Wrong ‘Un, who chooses a fellow leggie who had a damn fine wrong ‘un – it’s Stuart MacGill. Kristian tweets @iamthewrongun.

As both a legspin fetishist and amateur practitioner, I would more likely pick Snoop Doggy Dogg as my favourite cricketer than a batsman or seamer and to me MacGill represents the leggie’s leggie and my personal favorite.

Warne was too freakishly accurate to be considered a ‘real’ leg spinner, real ones dish up at least one four ball every few overs and he didn’t even have a googly to speak of, relying instead on straight balls to surprise Ian Bell. And Anil Kumble …don’t get me started on him, he barely even spun it.

No MacGill is the leggie for me because he had all the traits of the club leg spinner – huge booze collection, poor fielder, genuine number 11 and ability to bowl one long hop every 8 balls. He was a club pie chucker given super powers after drinking a radioactive vintage bottle of Barossa Valley Shiraz. I swear there is a video of him on YouTube spinning a ball from square leg to point while glowing luminous green.

He bowled an old fashioned style of leg spin I love, tossing the ball up, moving the batsman across the crease toward the on side opening him up then bang, a googly or if he thought it was expected, a big side spun leg break which often got slapped to cover point. This attacking style has never been popular among captains or selectors though.

I like him as much for his unconformity and outsider status as his brilliant wrong ’un and massive turning leg break. He never really fitted in the mold of an Aussie cricketer. A brooding, intense figure, he once fell out with the entire county of Devon while playing English minor counties cricket because they dared play for ‘fun’. Has been banned several times for discipline, read 24 novels on a tour of Pakistan barely speaking to team mates and famously has 3000 bottle wine in his cellar.

It is of course impossible to even consider MacGill without the shadow of Warne, toasted cheese sandwich in hand looming over him, but try if you can. Close your eyes and imagine a world where Shane Keith Warne (MacGill’s middle names are Charles Glyndwr) hadn’t been born. A cricketing “It’s a Wonderful Life” where Mike Gatting was remembered as a decent player of spin and Daryl Cullinan as the tenth best South African batsman to play tests. In this fantasy world Stuart MacGill takes 650 wickets and is remembered as one of Australia’s greatest leggie’s alongside Benauld, Grimmett and O’Reilly. No really, he would have been. MacGill has a test strike rate of 54 which is astonishing for a slow bowler, the best in modern cricket in-fact. The myths that he was inaccurate and expensive are of course overstated – a test economy of 3.2 is hardly cannon fodder.

Even in his latest incarnation, as a forty something twenty 20 gun for hire he has reminded us of that skill. Even turning up rusty, in a batsman friendly format bowling against teams containing slogger extraordinaires, he has held his own bamboozling the young ‘uns with his wrong ‘uns and going at 6 and half per over.

So all raise a glass of something complex to Stuart MacGill, an old fashioned leg spinner, who refused to fit in and while limited opportunities meant he never became what he could have been, he still notched up performances and a record that most of the new breed of Aussie spinners can’t hope to match.

Here’s one of his finest

Previous Favourite Cricketers

Brian Lara by David Siddall

Allan Border by Ben Roberts

Douglas Jardine by David Green

Curtly Ambrose by Matthew Wood

Sachin Tendulkar by Subash Jayaraman

Ian Botham by Jonathan Kilroy

Shane Warne by Murray Middleton

Rahul Dravid by Sujith Krishnan

Wasim Akram by Blaise Murphet

Glenn McGrath by Gary Naylor

Ed Giddins by Nick Harrison

Adam Gilchrist by Will Atkins

Angus Fraser by James Marsh

Paul Allott by Jonathan Howcroft

Tim Bresnan by Yorkshire Len

Sourav Ganguly by Christopher David

David Boon by Jimi Stephens

Herschelle Gibbs by Justin Lawrence

Bob Woolmer by Nigel Henderson

Darren Lehmann by Daniel Gray

Kumar Sangakkara by Nishant Joshi

Justin Langer by Sarah C Robinson

Andy Bichel by Nicko Hancock

Chris Tavare by Gideon Haigh

Gavin Larsen by Ken Miller

Ray Bright by Dan Lonergan

Chris Pringle by Michael Wagener

Anil Kumble by Rishabh Bablani

Shoaib Akhtar by Assad Hasanain