1 review for Young, Greg – From Lilliput to Lord’s, special price

1. 

   Ken – August 2, 2017

   Few teams, even the mightiest from Surrey and New South Wales in the ‘50s, would have struggled to rival the might of their counterparts from cricket-obsessed Barbados, where up to eight appeared in the same Test XI against Australia.
   The addiction for cricket on the tiny Caribbean island remains, says author Greg Young. Even today with rival sports infiltrating the talent pool, corner lot ‘tests’ on turf wickets go on each and every night most months of the year, the national team’s success, especially at white ball level, an inspiration for all.
   The old Test stars are still feted, many like Gordon Greenidge, still involved in club cricket, cut sandwiches and make sure the rooms are clean.
   Young’s book, a 160-page paperback, concentrates on post-war Barbados, in particular the ‘50s and ‘60s and the rise of some of the most magnetic names in the game from Garry Sobers, Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith to ‘the three W’s’ Frank Worrell, Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes.
   While Griffith’s reputation as one of the game’s most intimidating expressmen was to be sullied for his questionable action, his professionalism was never in doubt. He’d regularly rise at 3 a.m. to go on long runs, to keep his fitness reserves at a peak.
   Many little known stories are related, like Conrad Hunte’s bravery in the middle of a riot in Calcutta in 1967, making his way to the top of the pavilion to save the West Indian flag from being damaged after the grandstand had been deliberately set on fire.
   Hunte’s place as a cricketer and a humanitarian is underrated, EW ‘Jim’ Swanton once saying that only Worrell, among the greats of West Indian cricket did more than Hunte ‘to convey to the wider world the impression of the modern West Indian as a first-class citizen and sportsman.’
   And those eight, all from Barbados, to appear for the West Indies in third home Test of 1955? Weekes, Worrell, Walcott, Sobers, Denis Atkinson, Frank King, Norman Marshall and Clairmonte Depeiaza, who had one of the great nicknames, ‘Leaning Tower’.