Cricket great Kallicharran is 75 today

Three shortstatured champion batsmen who peaked in the 1970s were born within the span of six months in the same year of 1949 Itrsquos trivia like this that tickles cricket enthusiasts adding a delightful ring to their cricketfollowing Gundappa Vishwanath turned 75 on February 12 while his brotherinlaw Sunil Gavaskar will celebrate his 75th birthday on July 10 Meanwhile West Indiesrsquos Alvin Kallicharran Kalli to friends will be 75 todayWe Indians will remember Kallicharran for his two Test tours to India in 197475 and 197879 the latter as captain of a second string West Indies team whose regular stars were part of Kerry Packerrsquos World Series Cricket WSC in AustraliaHis maiden tour of India in 197475 started with a hundred in the opening Test at Bangalore the cityrsquos inaugural Test He rated it as the best among his 12 Test hundreds played on a track affected by a strong overnight shower The late sports writer Sunder Rajan wrote glowingly about Kallicharranrsquos first inningsrsquo 124 in a book on the series ldquoKallicharranrsquos faultless century under nonetooeasy circumstances was one of the highlights of the Test won by the West Indies by 267 runs Here was a batsman with the technique and temperament of the highest class Though many have hailed him as another Rohan Kanhai any resemblance between the two is only superficial Not for Kalli the adventurous spirit of Kanhai He employs his strokes with deliberation and care His batting is a beautiful blend of defence and attack Such a batsman is always to be fearedrdquoFeared he was even by the Australians who encountered him the following English summer during the World Cup At the Oval Kallicharran smashed 78 off 83 balls At one stage he took 35 runs off 10 Dennis Lillee deliveries which resulted in a sevenwicket win for the eventual champions led by Clive Lloyd Kallicharranrsquos mauling of Lillee in the 1975 World Cup notwithstanding itrsquos amazing that he couldnrsquot hit the high notes on English soil in his three Test tours of England In 11 Tests there he scored only 494 runsIn a YouTube video Raleighbased North Carolina USA Kallicharran revealed how he scored a mountain of runs leading up to the 1973 Test seriesopener at the Oval centuries against DH Robbins XI Nottinghamshire and Glamorgan Senior pro Lance Gibbs noticed Kallicharran joking with his fellow Guyanese Roy Fredericks on a bus ride and believed the young turk could be getting carried away with his preseries form Gibbs chatted with Kallicharran and told him ldquoYou canrsquot bat to save your liferdquo The young lefthander probably got his best cricketing lesson in the form of hard talk which stressed on big scores And yes confronting the England Test side was far more challenging than the county trundlersThe following year during the home series against England Kallicharran inadvertently got involved in a major controversy when play ended on the second day of the opening Test Bernard Julien played the last ball of the day bowled by Derek Underwood and walked towards the pavilion At the nonstrikerrsquos end Kallicharran left his crease to return as well But Tony Greig fielding at silly point in commentatorwriter Tony Cozierrsquos words in his West Indies Cricket Annual for 1974 ldquofollowed the course of the ball noticed Kallicharran out of his ground and threw down the stumps at the bowlerrsquos end Umpire Sang Hue had no alternative but to give the batsman out on appealrdquo Kallicharran would have been gutted He had batted for over five hours for his 142 After consideration the England team management withdrew the appeal later in the evening and Kallicharran was allowed to resume his innings on the third dayThe India tour of 197879 was long and arduous Kallicharran had the late Joe Solomon as his manager Like Solomon Kallicharran took his first steps in the game in Port Mourant Berbice in Guyana Kallicharran carved a captainrsquos innings of 187 in the first Test at the Wankhede Stadium where he had missed his second century of the series by two runs on the previous tour in 197475 His opposite number Sunil Gavaskar scored 205 in the 197879 Test The Test was drawn and so were the next ones in Bangalore and Kolkata before Indiarsquos threewicket win in Chennai The Delhi and Kanpur Tests were drawn too with Kallicharran topping the series runs chart for West Indies with 538 As for Gavaskar he amassed 700plus run in a series for the second time in his careerAs expected Kallicharran was replaced as captain by Lloyd when peace was restored between WSC and the establishment He was dropped from the side after the 198081 tour of Pakistan And he didnrsquot please the administrators when he signed up to play for Transvaal in 198182 before being part of the 198283 and 198384 rebel West Indies teams in South Africa He continued to be force for Warwickshire and in 1982 played two innings which lit up the county season His clash with Hampshirersquos Malcolm Marshall was according to Wisden ldquoa contest to savourrdquo with Kallicharran scoring 131 against Marshallrsquos ldquoextreme pace and unrivalled expertiserdquo at Southampton where the hosts won by 37 runs In a NatWest Trophy clash during the same season he destroyed Somerset with an innings of 141 not out at Taunton which put Warwickshire into the oneday competitionrsquos semifinals One of the bowlers the fivefoot five inches batsman tore apart was a sixfoot eight inches pace bowler who answered to the name of Joel GarnerKallicharran has come a long way since growing up at Port Mourant in a house in which he was one of 11 siblings He treated cricket like oxygen did the hard yards amidst financial hardships played firstclass cricket before turning 19 and scored centuries in his first two Tests against NZ in 197172 Among the many accomplished players who walked out for the West Indies in the 1970s Kallicharran could fall into the formidable category too And as his friends would attest hersquos been a great guy toomiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stanceHe tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper