One of the things that harmed cricket almost irreparably was the West Indian bouncer bowling. All day long, four of them, nothing in the batsman’s own half, 10-11 overs an hour. It was awful, dreadful cricket. I was watching it in England, Australia, West Indies, I was so up to here with it. In 1991, when they had actually here a year earlier, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wrote an editorial and got to the nub of it. I said their game was based on vengeance and violence. When people queried that, asking what I meant by violence, I said violence was six bouncers an over. And it was. The artistry was lost from the game. The boys were back in their crease and ducking all day. There was no driving. 10 overs an hour. I let rip. From that day to this there is a legacy. I got calls from people who said good on you. It needed to be said. But I have had other people sneaking behind my back branding me a racist. It was not racist at all.
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Coming back to the bouncer article, I went through an uncomfortable period, but I wrote what I felt about it. Because I loved cricket too much to see the way it was being smeared by such cynical and unattractive tactics. I knew Clive Lloyd well, and he was upset, but admitted to me that “Yes, of course we are arrogant. We have a lot to be arrogant about.”
I think all things pass, and this too passed. It’s a relief now. But the administrators took forever to act. They finally rationed the bouncers to two an over, and the fast bowlers squealed like stuffed pigs. But it’s right. There shouldn’t be more than two bouncers an over. As for the over rate, there are fines around them, but not applied too seriously. However, we do get nearer to 15 an hour. 10 was dreadful. It was cheating the public.
Now we do get a bit of slow bowling. There has almost been a revival of slow bowling. I am glad I’ve lived long enough to see the end of that awful period when I was on the verge of walking away from cricket. I hated what was going on. I also felt a sense of responsibility. It was okay for the man in the street to moan about it. But for me, writing an editorial every month, I thought I would speak about it. I ended up, I am afraid to say, losing respect for a number of people. I have been in semi-retirement for a long time, but even now, occasionally, I can feel a ripple.
I also bump into people who used to read WCM. And it’s really gratifying when they say how they enjoyed the magazine. It went on for 17 years before another night of the long knives. But I had done my bit by then.
