Sean Nero

Leg­endary West In­dies crick­eter Sir Curt­ly Am­brose is lay­ing blame for the col­lapse of re­gion­al crick­et square­ly at the door of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB). The WICB's ter­ri­to­r­i­al part­ners, how­ev­er, did not get away un­scathed.

Field­ing ques­tions from the au­di­ence at yes­ter­day's start of the 16th An­nu­al Sec­ondary Schools Lead­er­ship Sym­po­sium held at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and con­fer­ence Cen­tre in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, ti­tled "Think Big, Start Small," Am­brose said, if re­gion­al of­fi­cials had an up­lift­ing vi­sion for the fu­ture of the sport they would have put sys­tems in place to en­sure crick­et re­tain pride of place.

"West In­dies crick­et," he replied, paus­ing. "It's dis­ap­point­ing. When you look back, many years ago, we were the num­ber one team in the world. For 20 years, we were the best team in the world and 15 of those 20 years we nev­er lost a se­ries. That's un­heard of in any sport. Hav­ing been part of it, it hurts to the core. I be­lieve that the West In­dies Crick­et Board and ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards have to take most of the blame! Why? Be­cause when we were the best team in the world, noth­ing was ever done to nur­ture the tal­ent."

"We are very tal­ent­ed peo­ple. The tal­ent is still there. Our boards sat back and just be­lieved we would for­ev­er pro­duce great crick­eters. Oth­er na­tions put things in place...acad­e­mies and all that stuff and they have caught up with us and they have gone way past us. We need to change our struc­ture and get some things in place to nur­ture tal­ent and I am quite sure we can do that."

Am­brose re­vealed that in ear­li­er years he did not want to be a crick­eter. But that did not stop him from hon­ing his skills to ul­ti­mate­ly en­er­gise West In­dies fans around the world dur­ing amaz­ing bowl­ing spells which now char­ac­terised his dis­tin­guished ca­reer.

"Every time I say this, peo­ple tend to look at me in a strange way. You have been so suc­cess­ful, (they say) but I must ad­mit I nev­er want­ed to be a crick­eter. My pas­sion was to be a bas­ket­ball play­er. Grow­ing up as a young man I just couldn't see the fun in play­ing crick­et. Be­sides, I'm lazy! When I think of five-day crick­et, you know...six hours a day for five days, as op­posed to 48 min­utes on the bas­ket­ball court? Give me bas­ket­ball any day... 48 min­utes and it's all over.

"The sec­ond love sport is foot­ball. And, I fig­ured if I couldn't get to be a bas­ket­ball play­er, I could be a foot­baller. But my moth­er who is such a crick­et fa­nat­ic al­ways want­ed a crick­eter in the fam­i­ly. My moth­er had sev­en chil­dren–four girls and three boys. My old­est broth­er used to play crick­et back in An­tigua, be­fore he mi­grat­ed to the (Unit­ed) States to be with my fa­ther. So nat­u­ral­ly, I was sec­ond in line and my moth­er kept telling me start to play crick­et. Now, that used to re­al­ly ir­ri­tate me. Try­ing to be an obe­di­ent child, I de­cid­ed for her sake I was go­ing to take up crick­et and I was hop­ing it didn't work out."

As fate would have it, he start­ed play­ing club crick­et in Swetes, An­tigua, back in 1984. One year lat­er, he was se­lect­ed for the An­tigua na­tion­al team. In 1986, Am­brose was called to ser­vice on the Lee­ward Is­lands team.

His qual­i­ty per­for­mances did not es­cape the at­ten­tion of the West In­dies se­lec­tors and 24 months lat­er, he re­served a place on the then world fa­mous West In­dies team. As he re­flect­ed on his ca­reer be­fore a ca­pac­i­ty au­di­ence, Am­brose could not be­lieve he made such as as­ton­ish­ing climb in just four years, in a sport that was not his first choice, but which earned him the right to be called an in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eter.

Am­brose played 98 Test match­es for the West In­dies and took 405 Test wick­ets at an av­er­age of 20.99 and topped the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) play­er rank­ings for much of his ca­reer to be rat­ed the best bowler in the world.

Re­put­ed to be a man of few words dur­ing his ca­reer, Am­brose found his voice to en­liv­en then youth con­sti­tut­ed au­di­ence.

Pok­ing fun at Sport Desk founder and T&T Guardian Sport ed­i­tor Valenti­no Singh, the West In­dies crick­et leg­end who dur­ing his ca­reer was de­scribed as be­ing no­to­ri­ous­ly re­luc­tant to speak to jour­nal­ists, claimed they nev­er wrote what he said. Am­brose was cho­sen as one of the Wis­den Crick­eters of the Year in 1992. On re­tire­ment he was en­tered in­to the ICC Hall of Fame and was lat­er hailed by an ex­pert pan­el se­lect­ed as one of West In­dies all-time XI.

"I am a very, very proud man and every­thing I do, I want to be the best. When I joined the West In­dies team, we were the best team in the world and I nev­er want­ed to be the weak link. So I was forced to learn quick­ly and my pride wouldn't al­low me to be sec­ond best," he said.

"Every­thing starts with a dream and as young men and women have dreams. We have as­pi­ra­tions. It's not an easy road. They say noth­ing in life comes easy.

"There is a lot of truth to that state­ment. There will be ob­sta­cles you have to get over. Some­times your own friends and fam­i­ly may dis­cour­age you think­ing that you are nev­er go­ing to make it. It's a fact! Let's be re­al. It's the way of the world. Your friends and fam­i­ly some­times may dis­cour­age you from achiev­ing you goals. It's up to you to stay fo­cused and no mat­ter what, al­ways com­mit your­self to achiev­ing those goals," he said.

"Turn those neg­a­tives com­ments in­to pos­i­tives. There is noth­ing sweet­er than prov­ing peo­ple wrong. Be­lieve me. I know. I will chal­lenge you to set goals. You must know what you want to achieve in life and, you work hard to achieve goals."