Well deserved honour for Lloyd

Clive Lloyd after receiving his knighthood in an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on January 12. Pic/Getty Images

Clive Hubert Lloyd is now Sir Clive, an honour which ought to have been bestowed on him by English royalty many years ago.

For Lloyd is a Lancashire legend alright through his 1968 to 1986 county stint and has contributed in no small measure to the popularising of cricket in the 1970s and 1980s.

If the red rose county and Guyana (the place of his birth) are dear to him, so is the city of Mumbai. It is here where he made his encouraging Test debut in 1966; scoring 82 and 78 not out in the opening Test of the three-match series.

He was all set to be confined to the reserve bench for that Test, but Seymour Nurse failed a fitness test for his injured finger and Lloyd was told that he would be playing half an hour before the start of the Test.

He walked in to bat with the scoreboard reading 82-3 and he struggled a bit against BS Chandrasekhar, who came in first change after ML Jaisimha and Ajit Wadekar opened the bowling for India. Once he got his eye in, he swept and drove with comfort, putting on 110 with Conrad Hunte.

In the second innings, on December 18, 1966, he was told by his captain to get a move on en route the victory target of 192 because Sobers wanted to be at the Mahalaxmi race course by 3 pm. Both captain and rookie stayed unbeaten to see the visitors home with six wickets to spare.

In Living for Cricket, Lloyd apologised to the readers of his book for not being able to tell whether Sobers, tipped by his English jockey friend Josh Gifford, won anything at the race course that afternoon. But this newspaper's redoubtable horse race correspondent Prakash Gosavi tells me that a three-year-old filly called River Haven (E Eldin astride) clinched the Indian 1000 Guineas Grade I race.

The West Indies ended up winning the series 2-0 and the next time Lloyd arrived on Mumbai soil was for the 1974-75 series. By then, Wankhede Stadium was ready to host its maiden Test and Lloyd made it a memorable one through his 242 not out in the first innings. A young man jumped over the fence to congratulate Lloyd when he reached his double century and what followed was a riot because the policeman beat up the intruder. "In front of everyone they [police] used their long bamboo sticks, the lathis, with a vengeance on the poor boy and incensed the crowd to such an extent that, by tea, there was a full-scale riot which left the place looking like a battlefield," wrote Lloyd.

The Indians could have got him out four times, according to reports, and ex-captain Ajit Wadekar, who had made his Test debut along with Lloyd in 1966, described the fielding in Sportsweek as "ragged."

Interestingly, even as Wadekar praised Lloyd for being "mature and professional," he felt the innings of the match was played by Sunil Gavaskar, who smashed 86 in India's first dig.

Like in 1966, West Indies won the Test and Lloyd had the satisfaction of winning his first series as captain.

He was still the West Indies captain when they played the fourth Test of the 1983-84 series in Mumbai. The drawn Test meant the Caribbeans couldn't lose the series with two Tests to go. Lloyd was run out for 67 in the first innings, a "usual robust innings" in the words of Sportsweek expert Dilip Sardesai, while the magazine's associate editor Sharad Kotnis termed it a "safe and sure" effort in an unsuccessful bid to surpass India's total of 463.

Lloyd has visited Mumbai many times in his post-playing days. On one of his trips - in June 1995 - to promote the World Masters Series, he agreed to speak to me about his teenaged son Jason's miraculous recovery from Guillain-Barré syndrome the previous year. "It's a huge relief to all of us. Jason's recovery has given us a new purpose in life and I would like to thank all those wonderful people who prayed for his recovery. It shows that you cannot beat the power of prayer," said Lloyd.

Lloyd's knighthood has come after having witnessed the highs and lows of West Indies cricket. He was all set to leave the West Indies and happy to be a county professional at Lancashire when he was dropped for the Barbados Test against Australia in 1972-73, but was counselled appropriately by his mentor Wes Hall. He faced immense pressure after losing 1-5 on the Australia tour of 1975-76, but regrouped himself and his team to make it one of, if not the finest sides in history. West Indies didn't lose a Test series after their 0-1 loss in New Zealand in February 1980 to February 1995 and Lloyd played a big part in that seriously enviable world domination.

Yes, him unleashing a four-pronged fast bowling attack did not attract universal approval. Indeed, many pundits felt that the West Indies used intimidatory tactics to beat the opposition. But Lloyd was a fine leader. Had it not been for him, who asked Malcolm Marshall if he can bowl with his left arm in plaster at Leeds in 1984, we wouldn't have seen one of the most courageous acts in the game's history. He was also successful in getting a bunch of cricketers belonging to different countries to play as a unit for the West Indies.

He never allowed captaincy to affect his batting. In 110 Tests, he plundered 7,515 runs at 44.67 and scored 19 hundreds. He scored more Test runs (2,344) and centuries (7) against India than any other country. Yet, he is one of the best-loved opposition cricketers on these shores.

Arise, Sir Clive!

mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.