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Saturday, July 19, 2025

Cricinfo West Indies All-Time XI v Croft's West Indies All-Time XI

by

20100731

Let us be hon­est here! The ar­gu­ments will con­tin­ue for­ev­er. Every­one will al­ways have an opin­ion, oth­ers will even have sev­er­al opin­ions, none co­in­cid­ing with the oth­er, as to whom should com­prise the West In­dies All-Time XI. Even though the West In­dies crick­et team has been ac­tive on­ly since 1928, so many good, es­pe­cial­ly ex­cel­lent, crick­eters have been pro­duced, that it is an ab­solute­ly shame that many can­not even be con­sid­ered at all. How­ev­er, the over­all ex­er­cise is great fun! We have all not­ed the crick­et Web site Cricin­fo's West In­dies All-Time XI. I doubt that any­one, in­clud­ing each judge on that pan­el, even agreed with him­self, much less to agree with one an­oth­er, as to the per­son­nel to be in­clud­ed thus. Cricin­fo's WI All-Time XI reads: Gor­don Greenidge (Bar­ba­dos), Con­rad Hunte (Bar­ba­dos), George Headley (Ja­maica), Vi­vian Richards (Lee­ward Is­lands), Bri­an Lara (Trinidad & To­ba­go), Garfield Sobers (Bar­ba­dos), Mal­colm Mar­shall (Bar­ba­dos), Jack­ie Hen­dricks (Ja­maica), Michael Hold­ing (Ja­maica), Curt­ley Am­brose (Lee­ward Is­lands) and Lancelot Gibbs (Guyana). That is a very good, per­haps even great, com­bi­na­tion.

Se­lect­ing sim­ply the best play­ers

That some of those se­lect­ed–Greenidge, Richards, Mar­shall, Hold­ing and Gibbs–are my own con­tem­po­raries is a mas­sive ho­n­our. To have seen oth­ers play in my life­time–Hunte, Sobers, Hen­dricks, Lara and Am­brose–com­pounds the plea­sures and for­tune. Fi­nal­ly, to have been in­clud­ed in the over­all con­sid­er­a­tions to be one of the CI's West In­dies All-Time XI is the prac­ti­cal ic­ing on my tremen­dous West In­di­an crick­et cake. How­ev­er, there are a few, for me, that have been in­cor­rect­ly in­clud­ed. I al­so know that my al­ter­nate se­lec­tions could cre­ate fur­ther headaches, or heat­ed ar­gu­ments, or even, per­haps, per­son­al abuse. But, I am en­ti­tled to my opin­ions too, am I not? Al­so, I do not care a damn about what is called a "bal­anced" crick­et team. All I care about, in my WI A-T XI, is that they win al­ways, at home and abroad–win, ba­by, win!

I have no prob­lem with Gor­don Greenidge as one open­er. 108 Tests; 7558 runs; avg. 44.72; 128 ODI's; 5134 runs; avg. 45.03, are to­tal­ly ac­cept­able. Sim­ply, no open­ing bats­man, not even Ge­off Boy­cott, in my life-time, oth­er­wise even, has been as dom­i­nant! Con­rad Hunte was a cousin of my fa­ther; hence one of my mid­dle names. While ac­cept­ed, se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tions al­so go to Desmond Haynes and Roy Fred­er­icks. Hunte played 44 Tests; 3245 runs; av­er­age 45.06. Fred­er­icks played 59 Tests; 4334 runs; av­er­age 42.49. Haynes played 116 Tests; 7487 runs; av­er­age 42.29. For me, Hunte wins, on­ly just, be­cause of his dom­i­nance of his time, and his stead­fast­ness of pres­ence. No one in West In­dies crick­et his­to­ry may have had more open­ing part­ners than Con­rad Hunte.

The heart of any team's bat­ting line-up

The CI WI A-T XI has a mid­dle or­der to die, or per­haps, to live, for–George "Mas­sa" Headley, Vi­vian "Smok­ing Joe" Richards, Bri­an "The Prince" Lara and Garfield "The Great­est" Sobers. None could be re­placed or repo­si­tioned. How­ev­er, with Clyde Wal­cott and Ever­ton Weekes to con­sid­er, at least one must be se­lect­ed for Crofty's WI A-T team. Imag­ine that Weekes can­not get in­to a WI A-T XI? Sac­ri­lege! Yet, un­for­tu­nate­ly, my great­est bat­ting hero, and name­sake too, al­so could not get in­to my team; quite painful!

For the record, Ever­ton Weekes played 48 Tests; 4455 runs; av­er­age 58.61. On­ly Headley has a bet­ter WI av­er­age...pe­ri­od; 60.83. Clyde Wal­cott played 44 Tests; 3798 runs; av­er­age 56.68. Wal­cott al­so took 53 catch­es and 11 stump­ings as wick­et-keep­er. That sec­ond qual­i­ty–wick­et-keep­er–puts Wal­cott in my WI A-T team. Hen­dricks is out. Wal­cott's pres­ence al­so ex­tends my mid­dle-or­der to as­tro­nom­i­cal run-get­ting stan­dards!

Who was the WI's best keep­er & bowler?

Jack­ie Hen­dricks may have been the best West In­di­an wick­et-keep­er ever; even that is de­bat­able; with Jeff Du­jon, Deryck, and David Mur­ray in that con­sid­er­a­tion too, but Hen­drick's lack of ac­cept­able bat­ting; 20 Tests, av­er­age 18.62; and my even­tu­al WI A-T XI team's com­po­si­tion, does not war­rant his pres­ence. He's gone! Two of the fast bowlers se­lect­ed se­lect them­selves, based on their crick­et­ing stature–Mal­colm Mar­shall and Curt­ley Am­brose. Mar­shall took 376 wick­ets from 81 Tests; av­er­age 20.94 runs per wick­et. He al­so played 136 ODI's, 157 wick­ets, av­er­age 26.96, econ­o­my rate–runs per over–of 3.53. Am­brose had 405 wick­ets from 98 Tests; av­er­age 20.99.

He al­so played 176 ODI's, 225 wick­ets, at 24.12 runs per wick­et, and an econ­o­my rate of 3.48. Both have been, sim­ply, in­cred­i­ble per­form­ers. Be­fore I could ac­cept Michael "Whis­per­ing Death" Hold­ing as the third fast bowler, I must think, then even think some more. He has been smooth and pro­duc­tive, but too many are sim­ply too mes­merised by just ap­pear­ance. I pre­fer to con­sid­er raw crick­et in­put on­ly. His 60 Tests; 249 wick­ets; av­er­age 23.68, and 102 ODI's, 142 wick­ets; av­er­age 21.36, econ­o­my rate of 3.32, do speak great vol­umes, but he will strug­gle to make my team.

Your choice–Gar­ner or Mar­shall?

Any­way, as I have said of­ten, and will say again, per­haps to re­mind, or ir­ri­tate, I be­lieve that the best fast bowler that I have ever played with, or against, is Joel "Big Bird" Gar­ner. Mar­shall makes the over­all team for longevi­ty and in­cred­i­ble pro­duc­tion. Gar­ner makes my team based on dy­namism, dogged­ness and sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion. The oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion would be to ask if I re­al­ly need a full-fledged spin­ner at all. Re­mem­ber, I do not care about team bal­ance, es­pe­cial­ly for the bowl­ing at­tack. I care about a bowl­ing at­tack that could give me, ab­solute­ly, an in­vin­ci­ble win­ning edge. There­fore, for me, Lance Gibbs is gone too. I know that he had 79 Tests; 307 wick­ets; av­er­age 29.09. How­ev­er, if I need a spin­ner, maybe once in 100 Test match­es, based on my WI A-T team, I will use Sobers and Richards. I am go­ing for out­right pace here! Al­so, re­mem­ber that Sobers could have bowled as quick­ly as any­one on his day too. What a play­er - five crick­eters in one–or­tho­dox leg-spin­ner, un-or­tho­dox leg-spin­ner, fast-medi­um bowler, mar­vel­lous catch­er and su­perla­tive bats­man; a hu­man mir­a­cle.

With him in any 11-man team, that team would com­prise of 15 play­ers! So, hav­ing made spaces for four fast bowlers in my WI A-T team, I have three to con­sid­er for the two places still avail­able, to go with Mar­shall and Am­brose. Those to be con­sid­ered are Hold­ing, Gar­ner and the ven­er­a­ble Wes­ley "Pace Like Fire" Hall. Wes Hall was the great­est fore­run­ner of those of us to fol­low as per­haps great West In­dies fast bowlers. His spe­cial ef­fects, en­er­gy, and pres­ence in 48 Tests; 192 wick­ets; av­er­age 26.38, make him a colos­sus of his time, and, in my mind, a colos­sus of all time. Joel Gar­ner was big­ger than his 6' 9" and 115 kilo­grammes. One had to be in the same team with him to recog­nise and ap­pre­ci­ate that. His 58 Tests; 259 wick­ets; un­be­liev­able av­er­age 20.97, and 98 ODI's, 146 wick­ets, even more un­be­liev­able av­er­age 18.84 and that in­cred­i­ble econ­o­my rate, 3.09, put him straight in­to my West In­dies All-Time XI.

Croft's WI ALl time Xi

Gor­don Greenidge, Con­rad Hunte, George Headley, Vi­vian Richards, Bri­an Lara, Garfield Sobers, Clyde Wal­cott, Mal­colm Mar­shall, Curt­ly Am­brose, Wes­ley Hall, Joel Gar­ner.


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