Custom Bats Cricket Forum
General Cricket => Players => Topic started by: Buzz on May 14, 2012, 08:17:27 PM
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With the WIndies comeing over and the surge in 2020 cricket I found this relatively old clip on the BBC website and it is worth watching
I hate to thing the carnage Viv would have caused with modern bats.
Look how still he stands yet how early he picks up the length of the ball
Also towards the end he shows he is the pioneer of some 2020 shots.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/7843302.stm
here are a few more Viv Videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzMBme5J3V4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82q-ThaVvzc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lxg5fhFqL8
there can never been enough man love for Sir Viv.
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He'd be twice the 2020 player Chris Gayle is.
What a player.
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Concur with Alvaro.
Man would smack six off good length with ease!
True beast! Amazing player!! I wish I was in his era just to watch his batting!
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there has to be as many "teapots" in those videos as in any cricket video. selection, ever!
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The best thing about him was he wasn't a selfish player, a team man through and through.
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have this debate almost daily in my office with a passionate Indian fan! SRT is a masterful batsman,Dravid is world class,Martin Crowe was fabulous,Barry Richards,Greg Chappell,Pointing,Lara,Kallis-all great.
No lid,paper bags for gloves,i've never seen anyone bat like IVA Richards...
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had a girls name though.....
:o
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had a girls name though.....
:o
Isaac?
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Isaac?
Richards?!
Would have loved to seen Clive Lloyd play 2020 as well, he would probably be a bit more like Gayle?
I'm not sure what difference the bats would make, I've seen a few of Wayne Larking's bats, from that era, and some of Pete Willies too, there massive and amazing middles - and there were 20+ years old!!!
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I have just met the man at Lord's. Sadly not that many people seem to have spotted him. Really nice guy and a lot smaller than i expected...
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Show off :D
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So Tim tell us what did ask him about bats an what did he say? :)
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Seriously jealous Tim, I always imagined him to be taller and bigger when I was younger, it's only when you read that he is 5ft10 that you realise he isn't some giant colossus.
One of my all time heroes and in my opinion the best batsman to play the game during my lifetime.
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had a girls name though.....
:o
In what universe is Richards a girl's name?
A nickname for Richard is "Dick"... I'm pretty sure you can't get any manlier than that.
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He may mean vivian
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may only be 5 10 but boy he could bat and hard as nails he would smash todays bowling around top bloke a real winner
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Great man, great batsman, great to watch
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I normally avoid Mark Nichollas' commentary on the basis it is a little be anodine - there as some cracking stories here though...
The emperor in winter
Viv Richards may be in the commentary box these days, but the aura still endures
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/566683.html
Viv Richards is 60. It happened on March 7th and you would have to see it to believe it. He looks 50, or better, but you have to see it to believe it. The Master Blaster is in England, adding muscle to Test Match Special's coverage of the series.
You would think he lived life on a cross-trainer but he doesn't, just keeps an eye on himself. Standing on the square before play the other day, we pushed him to say how he thought he would cope if he strapped them on now for a hit against England. He rocked back and laughed. Teeth are perfect. Nose ever more Roman, set beneath those killer eyes. We tried again; he relented. "Thirty maybe, or even 50." Said without a hint of malice to the modern game but with a great dollop of the old defiance. Of course, 50! I cannot be beaten. Why not more? Maybe more. Such unconditional self-belief. The court of King Viv is barely less absorbing now than it was then.
He started Test cricket in 1974 and finished in 1991, playing many of the most remarkable innings of the age. He is a shoo-in for just about everybody's all-time team - five-day and one-day. Had there been an IPL auction sometime then, the bids would have bust the bank: in modern speak, imagine the "maximums" and imagine the brand! At The Oval in the heat-strewn glory of 1976, when he made 291, John Snow bowled a short ball. Jim Laker, in his yeoman Yorkshire drawl, described it thus: "Not really a bouncer from John Snow, more a long hop, and suffice to say, Viv Richards simply crucified it."
The summer of '76, Viv's Kingdom of Days. Eight months around the world that year brought him 1710 runs at an average of 90. John Arlott wrote, "He exerted a headlong mastery even more considerable than Don Bradman at the same age." The bats were balsa wood compared to now, and the boundaries bigger. His leg-side play became legend but it was the power of the riposte, the sense of vengeance for a people suppressed that rang out. Unsurprisingly Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" is a favourite.
Richards' presence at the wicket was almost frightening. No, not almost, it was frightening. Opponents looked upon him with awe and he upon them with scorn. The eye of a hawk, the speed to strike of a snake, the pride of a lion. Wherever he went, he could part the sea. In that time, only Seve Ballesteros had such aura. They were cut from the same cloth, playing their games with a similarly irresistible mix of brooding venom and unbridled joy.
After dazzling Taunton, Richards moved briefly to Wales to light up Glamorgan days. On strike to Malcolm Marshall in a county match in Swansea, something disturbed him. He pulled away with a regal sense of theatre and then walked - if we can call it that with Viv - down the pitch, past Marshall, past the umpire and towards the many steep and famous steps that brought pain or pleasure to the climb of returning batsmen. Suddenly, in no man's land, he stopped. "Hey you, you, yes you," he shouted with withering accusation to an alarmed spectator above the sightscreen, who was idly thumbing the pages of the Daily Telegraph. "You got David Gower at slip, Robin Smith in the gully, Malcolm Marshall is bowling to Vivian Richards, and you reading the effing newspaper!"
He played the greatest county innings we ever saw, again for Glamorgan, oddly enough, at the old Southampton ground in 1990. On a flat deck we set Glamorgan 364 on the last afternoon and had them quickly five down for not many.
Viv blocked in disgust at the ruin around him. Until the last over before tea, when he followed through on one of those forward defensives and hit the thing into Northlands Road. That shut us up at tea time. After that, it was carnage. We came to the last over of the game, Glamorgan seven down, needing 14 to win, Viv 150 not out and on strike once again to the best bowler on the planet, Malcolm Marshall.
We placed every man on the boundary. "Give him the single, Macko, you can bowl at Metson and then knock over Dennis and Watkin to win us the game, easy," said the Hampshire captain. Off stump, good-length ball. Four, before either fielder at extra cover or deep point had broken stride. "Er, a single, Marshy boy, bowl at Metson, knock him over, then Dennis and Watkin etc" Bouncer. Six, lost ball over the flats at midwicket. I kid you not.
Four to win, four balls left. "Macko! Give him a damn single, bowl at Metson, then Dennis and Watkin, then we win, get it?!" Attempted yorker, gun barrel straight. Drilled wide of mid-on, like a shell from a gun. Four. Game over. He whipped off his gloves, shook a few hands and said, "Great declaration, man. Let's go have a beer." Yes sir, of course, sir. Ye gods! There can never have been so destructive a batsman and so dominant a personality.
Briefly, the captaincy of West Indies gave him gip. Clive Lloyd rode roughshod over all-comers for so long that the act was hard to follow. Moreover, big names had hung up boots and young faces kowtowed. In 1988, England won all three preamble one-day games and this on the back of West Indies failing to win any of the previous four Test series under Richards' command. The smile had turned scowl. Not for long, though. Not only did West Indies tear England apart and win 4-0, they crushed the notion of leadership - a supposed British specialty - watching in glee as Mike Gatting, John Emburey, Chris Cowdrey and Graham Gooch all had a crack and failed. Viv silenced everybody with that one.
Back to pitchside at Trent Bridge. Is there a secret, Viv? "Keep it simple, stay still, watch the ball. These fellas these days, they want to over-complicate this thing which is batting. Come forward, come at the face of the man against you and spring back if you must, to show him who's boss. Be the boss, man, because if you don't think you are, no one else will, true huh true." And off he goes upright, strong and defiant, to Aggers and Co in the commentary box. Emperors, kings, they always have the last word.
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note especially the last paragraph about his thoughts on batting... ;)