SPECTATOR SPORT
We shall see what we shall see
Frank Keating
THE SPRINGTIME crackles with antici- pation of mighty matters. Could the bad defeat by the Australians have dented West Indian cricket's morale enough for England to have a concentrated go at them this summer? Or will the debacle on their home turf serve as a sharp kick in the posterior and the long-time champions get down to work this week glintingly determined to vindicate the aberration by tearing England to pieces through the upcoming summer's six- match series?
The Australian victory in the Caribbean was an exceptional one. The visitors were laid low by injuries; they had been on the road for more than six gruelling months with back-to-back series against Pakistan and England. Now they won (for the first time) in Barbados by ten wickets, by an innings in Jamaica (where they had not been victorious in 40 years), had by far the better of the rainy draw in Antigua, and only lost in Trinidad on a grounds-, man's pot-luck travesty of a surface.
It will be interesting, first of all, to watch how the West Indies side react to a drub- bing not experienced by them since before the days of Ramadhin and Valentine and the three Ws. Certainly the amiable, but always slightly detached, Richardson is lucky to keep the captaincy. Mind you, any team which bats the resplendent young Lara and bowls the cold-eyed gunslingers Ambrose and Welsh cannot be said to be exactly weak.
We shall see what sort of bounce is in their tread when they kick off in the one- dayers against England this week. At glo- rious Arundel, against the Duchess of Norfolk's eleven a fortnight ago, the famous maroon caps were at none too jaunty angle.
I can never bask in the deckchair's gentle curve on the pavilion bank at Arundel with- out chuckling to myself at one of the oldest in the book. The esteemed late Duke, Bernard Marmaduke, who loved his cricket enough even to be an MCC touring team manager to Australia, came in to bat for his eleven, down the order and in a crisis. His butler was the square-leg umpire. First delivery, his Grace pushes forward to a length ball, misses it, lifts his back leg a fraction. Dwazzeer yells the stumper in a whir of bails and gloves. Old Heathers at square-leg just cannot bring himself to give out his boss so summarily — so chooses to announce solemnly, 'His Grace is not in!'
And how long, one wonders, will Brian Lara be 'in' this summer? The magical little emperor batted quite beautifully, but for not very many, during the Australia series. As for the upcoming rubber, Tim de Lisle put it nicely in the Independent the other day: 'This summer, Britain's armchair army can't lose. If Lara does badly it will be .a great thing for everybody.'
It is a year since the most voluptuous passage in the whole history of batting Lara's seven centuries in eight innings, topped and tailed by a world record Test 375 and ditto first-class score of 501. In the middle of that harvest, Lara's county confrere, Roger Twose, told me, 'Brian's philosophy is tq consider every single ball as an opportunity to score a boundary. We mere mortals are brought up to defend and wait for a chance to attack. Brian attacks, unless you force him to defend. Poor bowlers.'
Lara begins against England's bowlers in London this weekend in the one-dayers at the Oval and Lord's. We shall see what we shall see.
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