blacks and whites in harmony in 1976, 5 th test oval

side by side on my piano

,

Aah the summer of ‘76... indelible

the West Indians, these guys, if they get on top are magnificent cricketers. But if they're down, they grovel, and I intend, with the help of Closey and a few others, to make them grovel

Up there with the mayor of Hiroshima

I remember it well

There wasn't much harmony in the crowd at the start of that tour.

I was at Lord's, at the end of May, for the game between MCC and the West Indians. A full-strength West Indies had struggled to 251-9 on day 1 before declaring, and giving Andy Roberts and an amateur called Michael Holding half an hour at Dennis Amiss and Mike Brearley in the evening sunshine. No helmets.

I was standing in front of the Taverners Bar, watching Holding glide in like a god from the Pavilion End. I've seen them all in the flesh since then - Thomson, Procter, Steyn, Shoaib - but nothing will ever compare to the violence of Michael Holding that evening. And the crowd reflected it. We were a dozen deep in front of the bar, half the crowd raucously yelling Holding on, the other half imploring Amiss and Brearley not to take a backward step.

I remember offering Amiss the advice that he should smash the bloody ball straight back down the bastard's throat, which was a bit of an ask in the circumstances. One or two of the West Indian supporters stared at me in astonishment for a few uncomfortable moments, before just laughing at me, which was all you could do really.

This is a good description of what happened next:

Three minutes before play ended, from the Pavilion End, Holding bowled a short ball. From the press box, Robin Marlar observed that the Jamaican was bowling as fast as any human had ever done.

Amiss ducked into the ball. The seam cut his scalp apart behind his left ear. The blow "split his head as if it were an orange with a thick peel," Marlar wrote in the Sunday Times. "But the juice was red and splattered shirt and gloves and spelt ominous danger for the Test series ahead."

"He hit me about an inch from where Phillip Hughes was hit, the last bit of bone on the skull before you come to the arteries," remembers Amiss. "I was very lucky. Was I frightened to bat against him that night? Well, if you're playing well, thoughts of fear aren't in your head. But when you aren't, there is instead, a sense of - let's call it apprehension. I don't call it fear."

Amiss was okay. He walked off the pitch and the nightwatchman Phil Carrick marked his guard in his team-mate's blood. A doctor inserted four stitches before Amiss left the ground, but the thoughts in his head were far more painful.

https://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/953181/when-death-whispered

Fantastic!

watch the video and when viv scores his 100, the crowd invade the pitch towards viv, must be about 50 or more blacks and just one little blonde boy

A vicious pace attack.

Maybe Courtney walsh comes close to them, he was quick too.


The batting could be equally brutal too

The pitches of course that summer were baked hard by
lack of rain and months of sunshine, meaning they didnt
behave like normal England pitches. Perfect for those brought
up in west Indian conditions.

if you did a world x1 over the last 50  years of test cricket, you honestly couldnt argue if they were all west indies.

fredricks, greenidge,viv,lara,lloyd,sobers,murray,marshall,garner,ambrose,holding

6 of those in the 76 series

Aye, you forget about sobers at times, he was a team by himself

Great stuff screaming!

The ‘76 tour will always stay with me. I was 8. I studied the tourists in my Cricketer magazine and knew them as well If not better as the English. I imitated all the bowlers in the garden. Reckon I could still do it now. I wanted them to lose but my admiration for these giants of the game grew. They were and still are my heroes.

Sport has that affect. I never saw skin colour then nor now in those Greats. Sir Viv the Goat. His walk to the crease would make a boxer blush with self pity.

West Indies have since produced some of my favourite players: Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Lara, Dujon, Logie and Gomes. Good grief the talent and sheer class as men.

i couldnt name you last seasons fa cup final teams, but i always remember 2 names in full from the past

isaac vivien alexander richards born  7/3/52

edson arantes de nascimento      spelling might be wrong

the latter by the way is pele

Ayrton Senna full name?

A senna da silva

Aussies fast bowler

Lillian Thompson

Phillip Clive roderick the cat tuffnel

Great thread this.

Even a racist would have to marvel at the Black Supermen

I dreamed since then of England beating the West Indies and I was at Sabina Park in the members pavilion when that happened in 2004

My mate played golf with greenich a couple or so years ago.

Plays golf at Washington, greenich up for charity match at durham..
Hotel got him onto golf course, my mate didn't know him or of him.

Greenich asked if he could join him for 9 holes,

Of course he says, I'm Brian, what's your name

Gordon,..

What do you do gordon

I used to play cricket

Oh, my mate Don would have loved to have been here


Too true he would have..

well im welsh, and ive always wanted the windies to win, but i always wanted boycott to do well against them, i recall one year around the 80s coming home from school/work  , listening to the test from west indies and england were all out for something like 30 odd.
oh how ill miss test match special,probably never listen to it ever again now

You must have had a big garden, injera, if you could imitate Wayne Daniel and Vanburn Holder.

Wayne Daniel was an unfortunate member of that squad. He was big and very fast, but wild and raw and altogether too young. The run-up was long and uncoordinated, and it all just fell to pieces at the crease. No ball followed no ball, and you could see it getting to him, particularly in comparison with the pros alongside him, most of whom had had the benefit of playing lots of county cricket.

I remember one unfortunate spell where he was trudging back to his mark with the world on his shoulders, eyes down and the camera homing in on him with a big close-up. He looked almost in tears, as he suddenly pressed a finger to one nostril and blew through the other, expelling the longest and most luxuriant stream of snot you've seen in your life.

"Bleddy disgustin'!" shouted my Ukrainian father at the TV. "You comin' to our country, you learnin' behavin' yourself prop'ly!"

I remember seeing Daniel struggle, then see him bowl beautifully on reduced run up in Sunday league,

I still remember one of the science teachers at school loved cricket.
At dinner time he had the old big school tele on in his lab and he let pupils watch.

Watching England struggling to 71 all out in the Third Test hooked on the sport ......and supporting the West Indies  .

Yes. Daniel and Larry Gomes became heroes of mine, as part of that all-conquering Middlesex side at the end of the Seventies. The difference between them was that Gomes had played for Middx for a couple of years before that 1976 tour, while Daniel only got the county experience afterwards.

Chris5 he was a beast in County Cricket

Wayne and I share a birthday.

screaming- Andy Roberts was my party piece. The rocking side to side run up, Bustling gather and delivery. As you say, I was in the  shrubbery by then