Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados, West Indies. March 17, 1962. The match — Barbados versus India. The atmosphere is electric as Charlie Griffith, a demon of a paceman, gets ready to launch his next thunderbolt.
There’s an element of suspended animation, all around — more so, in the Indian dressing room. For no small reason. Because, the rattling, frighteningly diabolical run-up of Wesley Hall’s bowling partner is capable of sending chills down anybody’s spine. Nari Contractor, India’s captain and a fine opening batsman, waits to engage Griffith in a duel that would be every batsman’s litmus test.
Griffith fires one on all five cylinders. Rat-a-tat. Contractor ducks and, perforce, takes his eyes off the ball. As the red cherry catches him above the right ear, the noise is of ‘eggshells cracking.’ The sight is horrendous. It’s an emergency. Contractor lies motionless, bleeding profusely. He’s helped off the field and moved to hospital, where he undergoes surgery. He’s now out of danger, but there are complications — a blood clot for one. As the ‘Rescue Contractor Mission’ is in full swing, a brain surgeon arrives from Port of Spain to perform a second operation.
Contractor’s team-mates, Polly Umrigar, Chandu Borde, and Bapu Nadkarni, donate blood. They are joined in by Sir Frank Worrell — West Indies captain — who’s more than concerned about the fate of a fellow cricketer and a worthy rival.
Contractor is revived, his blood loss having been replenished by the source of life from his fellow players. His head now has a steel plate inserted inside — and, though he manages to play cricket again, wearing a cork helmet, he’s never the same player. Well, during the course of Contractor’s poignant battle between life and death, one man has remained crestfallen and desolate. Griffith himself.
Whether it was his fault for having aimed a lethal bouncer, with a ‘suspect’ action, or Nari’s misjudgment, the grotesque event shows how fragile human life can be in a sporting encounter [The fatal examples of former India batsman, Raman Lamba, and the talented Aussie batsman, Phil Hughes, make for sad — far too tragic — stories, indeed]. But, what stands out prominently, during the entire episode, is that human beings often display tremendous resilience, courage, heroism, compassion, and care, for others in the wake of adversity, irrespective of one’s race, or colour. Worrell was the apotheosis of that outlook — of candour, dignity, and sporting spirit.
Worrell was cricket’s first apostle. He was the first black to lead a West Indian Test side. He was also one who had all the attributes that go to making a brilliant captain, truly brilliant. He was a cricket Solomon, too famous for his principles of accommodation and candour, not to speak of fair play. He was educated, suave, and articulate. The first to have welded the flamboyant West Indian stars into one, fighting unit, which became, at once, an effective and exciting amalgamation than any side before in history. Worrell’s understanding of his players’ minds was such that the happy-go-lucky calypso players held back nothing in reserve for their leader and the team. As Hall, a giant among fast men, put it, “For Frank mun, I’ll give anything. Even my life.”
Worrell came from the lovely sun-baked beaches of Barbados, home to some of the greatest cricketers ever to have held the bat, or ball, in hand. He had no cliques. He did not allow them to exist. He was good at talking to bowlers in such a way that they did not feel that they were being criticised. He made suggestions to them about where they should be bowling. And, this, he did with a joke, or smile.
He was in command, but he was not an authoritarian skipper. He treated all men as equals like Jesse Owens, another black and legendary Olympian. Race, origin, colour, and ideologies, did not mean anything to him so long as human beings behaved as one. He even rejoiced when the opposition would win a Test match. Too godly a pursuit for a human being? No, because, Worrell believed that sport should be pursued without emotional factors getting the better of logical denominators. A case in point. Worrell lost the 1960-61 series to Australia, but he won the hearts of all Australians, who stood up as one entity to bid a tearful farewell to a losing side and its great captain. It was a unique occasion — one without a parallel.
An outstanding batsman, Worrell’s batting style was a pure, aesthetic delight. He was also a useful bowler and fielder of the highest class. He was the pivot, no less, of the famous Three W’s Club — Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott being the other two champions — every bowler’s nightmare. The troika was, doubtless, cricket’s answer to Alexandre Dumas’ classic — The Three Musketeers. Worrell, as the eternal romantic; Weekes and Walcott, as devil-may-care, venturesome batsmen.
Worrell’s footwork was natural and well-organised. His stroke-play was professional, bordering on deft movements of the arm, wrists, and fingers. His only ‘weakness,’ if there was any, was the hook shot, which he wisely deleted from his classy repertoire. Worrell executed every stroke in the book on the most advanced scientific lines; his sense of timing and placement being as skilful as the architect’s drawings in a plan.
Worrell was a complete batsman — the most adaptable among the Three W’s. With him, timing and execution made up thoroughly for a relative lack of fierce power. So much so, several of his best innings were made in quicker time than anything achieved by the other two. If Worrell ’s batting was a little less prolific, it was only because he played infrequently against weaker nations. It doesn’t matter, really. Because, Worrell is Worrell — even without his records — an adornment to the game. He’s a cricketer whose humanism transcended the transcendent.
What did Worrell expect from his players? He wanted them to play like true sportsmen and win. Not that he wanted them to win every match. “No cocky nonsense, if we win,” he reminded them often. He also wanted them to behave well in public. His curt warning, “I don’t mind what you do in your room, but don’t do it in public.” “If you are not happy about a decision,” he would tell his players, “you’d leave the crease without showing your anger, or displeasure.”
Notes Farokh Engineer, one of India’s legendary wicket-keepers, and swashbuckling batsman, who was a part of Contractor’s Team India in the West Indies in 1961-62, “[Sir Frank] Worrell was one of the nicest and greatest cricketers I’ve been fortunate to have known. Apart from being a great cricketer and great captain, which we all knew he was, Worrell was also a truly wonderful human being. All the 3 W’s were great cricketers, but for me Worrell stood out as the greatest in every way. RIP, my mentor, and very dear friend.”
Here’s a great incident, taken right out of that pressure-cooker atmosphere that prevailed during the first, famous Tied-Test, at Brisbane, 1960-61, which gives us powerful insights into Worrell’s fertile mind.
The last 8-ball over has just began, and Australia needs just 8 runs to win. Ball one, a leg-bye. Thunder, next. Richie Benaud, the Aussie captain, hooks at a short delivery from Hall. He is caught behind for 52. Australia, 228 for 8. Ian Meckiff joins Wally Grout. Hall pounds up and down. Adrenaline. He’s restless. Worrell, a master of symbolism, like Mahatma Gandhi, goes up to his frontline bowler, and tells him seriously, “Whatever you do, don’t bowl a no-ball, or they won’t let you back in Barbados.” Fourth delivery, bye again. Off the fifth, Hall floors a ‘sitter,’ from a Grout mishit. The batsmen steal a single. Meckiff tucks one, and sets off for a brace. He suddenly decides there’s a third run too. Conrad Hunte is in hot pursuit. He picks up the ball and zooms in his return with startling accuracy. Grout is runout.
Two balls remain. Lindsay Kline turns the seventh to leg. He scampers for a single. But, Meckiff, fractionally slow and hesitant, is beaten by a brilliant, direct throw from Joe Solomon. It’s cricket’s ultimate climax. To paraphrase former ‘Audi’ winning India all-rounder, coach, and classy commentator, Ravi Shastri’s famed words in the modern ‘televised’ context, “A humdinger of a Test match… taking the bat-ball contest to the wire.”
Worrell is exultant. And, so is the world. But, come March 13, 1967, it’s sunset at dawn for the world of cricket, and beyond. Worrell, only 42, is no more. His untimely and sad end is brought on by leukaemia, which was detected a tad late. Well, so long as he lived, Worrell’s breath was keyed to cricket. His legacy was his nobility, on and off the field: something that has left its imprint on the sands of time. It will live as long as the game of cricket exists. Because, Worrell ’s humanism knows no age, or boundaries. His impressive fact-file will also stay intact: 51 Tests; 81 innings; 9 times not out; 3,860 runs; 9 hundreds; 22 fifties; 261 highest score [69 wickets; 43 catches]; 49.48 average.
A good captain, as Sir Don Bradman articulated, must be a fighter; confident, but not arrogant; firm, but not obstinate. It sums up Sir Frank Worrell, cricket’s most gentle and veritable knight, who, if he had had his way, every match, or event, would have been like the first-ever Tied-Test at Brisbane.
— First published in The Observer
