|
It was one of those silly cricketing riddles which turn up from time to
time: Who is the greatest batsman in the world in the late 1970s. The
answer: Nobody knows, but his name is Richards. One of the answers was
Viv, the Master Blaster, but the other Richards had little chance to
make a mark on international cricket. Barry Richards, the stylish South
African who also played for many years for Hampshire (see photo above),
had his Test career nipped in the bud as apartheid sucked South African
sport into isolation.
Richards got just four Test matches, against Bill
Lawry's 1970 Australians, before he was resrtricted to county cricket.
Often he could not disguise his boredom and frustration as he had to
test his class against minnows. Even in four Tests he made a mark. There
was that great day in Durban where he reached 140 in only his second
Test and he and Graeme Pollock pulverised the attack. He made 65 and 35
in Johannesburg and 81 and 126 in Port Elizabeth. The next two South
African series, in England in 1970 and Australia in 1971-72 did not go
ahead. He opened for the Rest of the World in England in 1970 with a top
score of 64 at Trent Bridge.
As South Africa fought to keep
international cricket going he made 180 at Durban in 1974-75 against a
D.H. Robins XI which included Snow, Lever and Gleeson, and 80 a year
later against an International Wanderers side which included Dennis
Lillee and Derek Underwood. In World Series Cricket he made 207 in
Gloucester Park, Perth for the World v Australia, adding 369 for the
first wicket with Gordon Greenidge. He also made 101 not out in Sydney. (Bob Harragan)
|