Regarded by many as one of the leading commentators on TV and Radio, Winston Anthony "Tony" Cozier has been a cricket writer and commentator for West Indian cricket since 1958. Cozier is widely renowned for his extensive knowledge of cricket facts and statistics dating back to the 1950s and he has turned this passion for writing and numbers into a prolific career.
His father being a journalist, it was only matter of time before Tony himself followed in his footsteps. He started off by studying journalism at Carleton University and kept himself busy by playing hockey for Barbados as well as cricket for clubs from the same island.
Cozier made his debut as a Test match commentator on radio during the West Indies v Australia series in 1965. He has also commentated for Channel Nine in Australia, Test Match Special and also provides his expertise for the Sky Sports West Indies Cricket commentary team.
It's rare that one watches or listens to cricket from the West Indies without hearing Cozier's voice and cricket coverage from various eras and formats has been enhanced with his distinctive voice. The author of 'The West Indies, '50 Years of Test Cricket', Tony's memory and expertise of cricket history and statistics have led to him being lauded worldwide. Some notable honours bestowed upon him are having the press box at the Kensington Oval being named after him as well as being granted an honorary lifetime membership with the MCC.
In an exclusive interview with PakPassion.net, Cozier spoke about his recollection of the best moments and the current state of West Indies cricket, the great fast bowlers hailing from the Caribbean over the years, his views on the talent of Brian Lara, the role of the WICB and his thoughts on the recently concluded series against Pakistan.
PakPassion.net: Firstly a big thank you from everybody at PakPassion.net to you in doing this interview.
Tony Cozier: Yes, it’s good to talk about West Indies cricket, although at this time West Indies cricket is at a low ebb - but still it’s good to talk about it.
PakPassion.net: Over the years you must have commentated on many exciting and memorable series. Any in particular that stand out?
Tony Cozier: I wouldn’t say that any really stand out although there have been ups and downs in the fortunes of the West Indies over the years. When I first came into commentating, back in the ‘60s, West Indies were on an up - under the captaincy of Frank Worrell - and I covered the 1963 tour of England when West Indies won 3-1.
Then of course, after that, we had Sobers as captain and we went for some time when we were unofficial World Champions. In 1969 when Hall, Griffith, Hunt, Nurse, and one or two others all went at the same time, we went downhill and West Indies didn’t win a single Test match between 1969 and 1973.
Then there was a regeneration under Rohan Kanhai when he was captain. We then had the great period of Clive Lloyd, who took over from Rohan Kanhai and moulded the team. New players came in on the tour of India in ‘74-75; Greenidge, Roberts, Richards, most of them made their debuts in India and they were the backbone of the team which served West Indies cricket so well for such a long period.
PakPassion.net: Any one particular match that stands out as being memorable for yourself?
Tony Cozier: There are so many that I couldn’t pick one. I can think of so many that were exciting and thrilling and show the West Indies in the best light possible. Then, I can think of others that were pretty depressing as far as West Indies cricket is concerned. And so, I couldn’t really pick one particular match or even a particular series as being more memorable than the other. There have been so many!
PakPassion.net: What’s the fastest spell or the most intimidating spell of pace bowling that you’ve ever commentated on?
Tony Cozier: I think it was Jeff Thomson, in Barbados in the Test match in 1978 when Australia came to West Indies with their back up players. He was the only one of the established Australians who came because he hadn’t yet signed a contract with World Series Cricket. They were badly beaten in the first Test match in Port of Spain.
In the second Test match in Barbados, again the West Indies were well on top and won the match by 9 wickets. I think Australia got bowled out somewhere in the region of 180 on the first day. Of course, they didn’t have their best players but the West Indies did. It was only in the next Test match in Georgetown that the West Indies' selectors picked a side without some of their main players and therefore, the teams were then just about equal - Australia took that game by 3 wickets.
In Barbados, Australia were bowled out for about 180 and that left the West Indies about an hour and a half's batting before the close of play. It was Thomson from one end and from the other end it was Wayne Clark, a medium pace swing bowler.
Thomson really generated enormous pace with some hostility. He got the wickets of Greenidge, Richards and Kallicharran and there were thrilling confrontations between himself and Richards, as you would imagine. Eventually he got Richards.
One must remember that Barbados is the home of great West Indies fast bowlers going back to the 1930s and all the way through to the Hall and Griffith era and so on. Even that team had the likes of Joel Garner, who was quite a sight. The public here were just appreciating great fast bowling and that was quite an awesome spell for an hour and a half by Thomson. It was unforgettable, absolutely unforgettable.
There was also the first time I toured England as a correspondent in 1963. It was the Test match at Lords where Wes Hall bowled for something like two and half hours on the last day, non-stop from the Pavilion End. Towards the end of the day, Colin Cowdrey came out with his hand in a caste - Hall having fractured it the previous day with a short delivery. Cowdrey came in the last over and didn’t have to face a single ball. He was the last man in, and David Allen - who was at the other end - played out the over and the match ended in a dramatic draw.
Then you had spells from the likes of Michael Holding and Andy Roberts and Malcolm Marshall of course was generally acknowledged as being perhaps, the best fast bowler that West Indies has produced, in that he swung the ball at pace, he could do anything with the ball - he was a tremendous competitor as well a bowler who bowled some wonderful spells.
However, I would have to say Thomson's spell in Barbados in 1978 was certainly the most awesome and fastest I have seen.
PakPassion.net: You’ve mentioned some great West Indian fast bowlers, but do you think that Malcolm Marshall was probably the most skillful of the West Indian fast bowler?
Tony Cozier: Probably the most skillful in that, he worked out batsmen very, very quickly. He could pick up weaknesses and strengths of those he was bowling against. He had the ability to swing the ball both ways in the air and that was a tremendous advantage for someone who was bowling as fast as he was.
Of course, he didn’t have the size of so many others like the Wes Halls and the Charlie Griffiths or the height of Michael Holding, the body strength of Andy Roberts and Colin Croft or even the big and tall Joel Garner - Marshall didn’t fit that stereotype. He was just about six feet tall, he was lithe, he was happening, and he was tremendous. If you talk to those who played against him, I think most of them will accept that while in that era there were so many great West Indian fast bowlers, Marshall was perhaps number one.
PakPassion.net: If you had to describe Viv Richards to somebody who had not heard about him or seen him play cricket, how would you go about doing that?
Tony Cozier:I would say Viv Richards was intimidating. You hear a lot of talk about West Indies fast bowlers being intimidating, but Viv Richards certainly was a batsmen that when he came to the wicket and walked out onto the ground - you could see that this guy really meant business.
There was really an aura about him - I suppose they call it these days in the modern jargon as 'The X Factor'. When he walked onto the field - even simply walking out to the middle - you felt that this guy was going to impose himself on the opposition. He was intimidating in that regard. He never wore a helmet, he was hit more than once; he was hit on the head by Rodney Hogg, the Australian fast bowler in Australia in the 1980s at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and he had to receive a bit of attention on the field. The next ball Hogg bowled a bouncer to him, he hooked him four or five rows back at the MCG for a six!
He was that type of character, he believed in himself, he believed in West Indies, he believed that West Indies cricket was a show piece for the people of the Caribbean and, you know, there was no one better than Richards to carry that out [the belief]. He really was such a fierce competitor and a tremendous sight - just a great player - but beyond that, he was someone who had that aura about him which certainly accentuated his greatness as a player.
PakPassion.net: There seems to be an endless debate regarding the great West Indian team under Clive Lloyd and the great Australian team. In your opinion which was the better Test team?
Tony Cozier: Well, I think it’s invidious to start comparing teams. I don’t think we can compare teams or compare eras - the thing is that players move from one generation to the next, and there’s always a link. If you look through the West Indies history, for instance, Headley towards the end of his days played alongside the three Ws, for instance Worrell, Weekes, and Walcott; and they continued. Then Sobers and Kanhai played alongside Weekes, Walcott, and Worrell, and when they were moving on, in came people like Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran and Clive Lloyd. When Lloyd and Kallicharran were moving on, in came Brian Lara, Greenidge and a few others. So, there’s always a link in the game between individuals and perhaps between teams as well, but I wouldn’t like to compare West Indies team with any other team of any era because there were different conditions and they were playing against different opponents - its very difficult to make that type of comparison.
Except to so say, I don’t think I will ever see a cricket team quite as efficient as the West Indies team was at the height of its powers in the mid-1980s. It had virtually everything. They say that there was no spin bowler but there were four fast bowlers and they did the job so why would you need spin? And Richards and Gomes supplied whatever little spin was necessary.
With the batting you had one of the top opening pairs at the time and one of the greatest of all time in Greenidge and Haynes, and then you had Richards at three to begin with. Then there was Clive Lloyd as the captain - one who was adored by his players and revered by his players, and like Worrell before him had the advantage of the generation gap. The idea being that when Worrell became captain with young players under him, he was already a great player by then and the young players looked up to him.
Similarly, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding etc. came in when Clive Lloyd was already an established player. So, he did have that generation gap as a leader, which, I think, was important.
So, you had that middle order batting and then Lloyd, followed by the keeper, Dujon who could make 100s and was a wonderful player to watch. Then the fast bowlers and perhaps as much as anything else, you had fielders who would catch anything in the slips, and were also sensational in the outfield.
In the 1975 World Cup Final, Clive Lloyd rightly got the man of the match award for his 100, but it could have easily gone to Viv Richards, who from the outfield, with his throw - the accuracy and the strength of his throw - dismissed the two Chappells and Allan Turner – three of Australia’s premier batsmen and that was all due to Richards. He could field anywhere!
Roger Harper every now and again would come into the side as a spinner. He was probably the best if not certainly among the best fielders of his time. He would catch anything at slip, prowl the outfield with those long legs of his, had a tremendous throw and fitness as well.
West Indies went through a series in Australia in 1984-85 of 5 Test matches and they only called on 12 players and that 12th player was Harper, who in fact was only there because they were going to Sydney and they thought it would turn in Sydney. But they could well have gone through the entire five Test matches calling on only 11 players - that was the type of fitness West Indies had in those days and it wasn’t to say they were playing any less cricket, perhaps they were playing a little bit more than they do now. Certainly they were playing as much as they do now, they had the One Day Internationals they played then, intertwined between the Test matches and they also played state matches over four days. They were playing a lot of cricket but they kept fit.
The Australian physiotherapist and trainer Denis Waight was assigned to them during the World Series Cricket era. He remained with them all the way through and all the players would say it was the fitness regime that he instituted that contributed to that. So when you look now for instance you can see so many teams can’t keep a full team on the park all the way through. You can look at the Australians of today for instance, they have some outstanding young fast bowlers coming up but they just can’t play from one Test to the next because of their fitness. That was a big factor as far as the West Indies were concerned during their period of dominance.
PakPassion.net: Tony- Imran Khan, Javed Miandad - two contrasting characters but two huge names in the world of Pakistani cricket. Your thoughts on those two as individuals and also as cricketers?
Tony Cozier: Well I suppose you could compare Imran Khan with Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd for his leadership and then again for his contribution as an all-round cricketer. He was an outstanding all-round cricketer, strong, genuinely quick, able to move the ball, and a good striker of the ball as well. An outstanding all-round cricketer but more especially a leader and that’s what we are seeing now in politics in Pakistan. Imran looked as if when he was on the field there was no question of who was captain, he was a leader and of course led the Pakistanis to the World Cup in 1992 in Australia and he had the players with him.
You always felt Pakistan would sometimes be rather divided within the dressing room and off the field. In contrast, Imran Khan had the players with him on and off the field. He talked about them being cornered tigers in Australia in that World Cup in 1992 and made them believe in themselves. I think that’s what Frank Worrell did with the West Indies and Clive Lloyd as well made the players believe in themselves and believe in what they were doing, and that their strength was equal or better than the teams they were playing.
Javed Miandad was a tremendous player, a fighter, not stylish by any means but you just couldn’t get him out. He had this impish aggression, he would be chattering away all of the time looking to aggravate the opposition but a tremendous player who would take on anyone. It didn’t matter for him if you were bowling a million miles an hour, he thought he could handle you even if you were turning the ball square. He believed in himself and I think that’s the big thing too for any player in any team - the self-belief.
PakPassion.net: Let's turn our attention to Brian Lara, a mercurial talent who perhaps didn’t always use that talent and also had question marks over his leadership. How would you describe Brian Lara’s career?
Tony Cozier: Well certainly from the start from a time when he was a teenager everyone recognized the immense talent he had as a batsman. There was never any doubt about that whatsoever, he was brilliant. I’ve spoken to Ramiz Raja recently during the Pakistan series in the Caribbean and he said that there was no doubt in his mind that Lara was the best player of spin bowling by far that he’s ever seen. With Lara, you just felt that if he put his mind to it he could do anything.
When he went to Sri Lanka on a tour there - I think it was 2001/2002 although I'm not certain of the exact date - when he went there his average was below 50. He said he was going to Sri Lanka for 3 Test matches with the purpose of pushing his average above 50. It meant that, I think he had to score something like 500 runs in 3 Test matches - a very taxing target he set himself. Of course he easily surpassed it, by taking on Muttiah Muralitharan - making a century and a double century in one Test match and a century in another. West Indies lost all 3 Test matches but the confrontation between himself and Muralitharan was one never to be forgotten and of course Lara came out well on top in that one.
He went to South Africa in 1998/1999 with the players going on strike before they left for that tour - so it was a very controversial time. The West Indies lost 5-0 in the Test matches and I think it was 5-1 in the six One Day Internationals. When he came back the Board gave him a two match probation and said they were not satisfied with his leadership and Lara’s response then was to score a double hundred against Australia in the 2nd Test match in Jamaica which West Indies won. He then scored that memorable 153 not out in Barbados in the next Test match to lead West Indies to a 2-1 lead in a series. It was all down to him because he just set his mind to it.
A brilliant player - someone who would do things you never considered possible or even thought of. In the last over of Day 3 of the 1st Test match in Johannesburg (2003/2004) against South Africa, Robin Peterson the left arm spinner was bowling to him. Given that this was the last over of the day, you would expect Lara to play out and come back the next day. Instead, he hit him for 28 from the over and I think hit him for four sixes or something like that - just bang bang, bang, bang in the last over of the day! That was unheard of but Lara had that kind of confidence that he knew he could do it and did it.
So as far as Lara was concerned, he just was outstanding and a great player. But perhaps in his period, he was the only great player in the West Indies team whereas teams before that had more than one like the three Ws, Viv Richards, Greenidge and Haynes, Clive Lloyd and so on and so forth. But he was, I suppose very much like Headley before him in the 1930s who was the one who carried the batting on his shoulders and then he was made captain.
Lara didn't have the discipline as far as captaincy is concerned ; he was constantly at odds with the board. I think he apologized seven times to the board for one indiscretion after another but they kept putting him back as captain. He was made captain three times mostly because the West Indies were going through a very difficult period. Perhaps they needed someone who was more disciplined and someone who understood that not everyone on the team had the capabilities to bat as well as him. Unfortunately, Lara didn't seem to recognize that. The players needed someone not only to lead them in terms of scoring runs but someone to lead them in another way as well. In a more significant way, they needed someone to get them together and ensure that each player would play to his best potential.
PakPassion.net: A lot of your commentary has been during a generation where the West Indies were amongst the top tier of Test teams. Of late, the West Indies Test team has not been quite as effective. What do you think needs to be done with regards to West Indies cricket in order for them to become a force in Test cricket again?
Tony Cozier: I don't know if there is anything that can be done now. I fear for the future. We've now gone something like twenty years where it's all been downhill without producing players for a variety of reasons. One of which is the weakness of the West Indies board itself and also the 'militancy' for some time of the player's association which called the top players to strike on two occasions.
The first was when we went on a tour to Sri Lanka, and next was here in the Caribbean just after the West Indies had won the Champion's Trophy in England at the Oval in 2004. Within no time, the players had gone on strike with Bangladesh coming for a tour. It was very disruptive and there was a lot of suspicion between the board and the players and it did absolutely nothing but harm to West Indies cricket.
In addition to which, the standard of pitches and umpires are all factors that have contributed toward this decline. We're talking here about countries which are minuscule islands with very small economies. For a Test match, or any match for that matter, you need to fill the stadium in let us say Antigua, which will hold about 20,000 and that's in an island where the population is 80,000! You just don't have the revenue coming in through the gates.
Because of the fact that the West Indies are not doing well and have not done well for some time, you're not attracting the sponsors. The board is not getting the kind of money that it needs to ensure that cricket development is pointed in the right direction. It needs, as with anything - money.
When you compare England, Australia, India especially which are large economies with plenty of facilities and compare them with what West Indies has, to be honest, you've really got to be staggered to know how West Indies managed to become so strong in the first place! Now you can understand over the last 20 years why they have been in decline because they haven't managed to get players into the county championship which was a big boost for the West Indies back in the '70s. So many of the players had the opportunity of going to England and playing in different conditions against different opponents. Many of the counties had players from other countries and other teams - Australians, Pakistanis, Indians and so on. So that was really good grounding for younger players coming through. Now you just don't get that. So it's all sorts of things. The administration is very weak and divided and I think, you'll have to say that it starts from there. Of course, anything starts from the top, whether its good or bad. I am afraid as far as we're concerned, it's bad. The administration has its own problems to solve.
PakPassion.net: : Would you say the great era of West Indian cricket was largely down to natural talent and those players being produced by the individual islands and that now its more a case of those great players not coming through?
Tony Cozier: No, I think we still have the talent. The talent is there but it was always nurtured by a high quality first-class competition and club competition. So you would play in club teams. In the stronger club teams, you would have a couple of Test players and certainly a few first-class players with a good reputation.
The clubs in most of the territories were pretty strong and would be almost on a level with first-class teams anywhere. I remember playing at the Wanderers Club in Barbados when the English counties would come out on pre-season tours and we would constantly win. The Wanderers Club constantly beat the English county teams that would come up. Not only Wanderers, Empire was also a very strong team in Barbados - the club team of Worrell, Weekes, Griffiths and others. They would beat the English counties coming out to the West Indies. Nowadays you just wouldn't get that because most of the players now don't participate in the club system for one reason or another. So the club standard isn't that high and of course that transmits itself to the first-class level.
You'll find that the majority of those who play Test cricket or are leading players are not available for the first-class season. They play one or two matches but they are playing in the Big Bash or the IPL or playing somewhere else across the world and not playing within the West Indies. Therefore that diminishes the standard of first-class games. That's where you get your Test players and your international players from. That's a big issue as well and I'm afraid its one that's not easily solvable.
PakPassion.net: : We've seen the launch of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). There are a lot of sponsors, a lot of interest, and players from around the world competing in this tournament. Do you think there is an overemphasis within the West Indies of gearing players or the players themselves are geared towards the shorter formats? Is the Caribbean Premier League enhancing that concept - whereby the players are looking at the shorter formats with more seriousness than the five-day format?
Tony Cozier: First of all, the Caribbean Premier League is well financed and it needs to be. The promotions are outstanding. It is international class. The West Indies Cricket Board has got into absolutely no promotion whatsoever for its various competitions. I am not talking about spending millions on promotions, but even a basic promotion is not done by the West Indies Cricket Board in relation to any of their competitions. They suffer because of that. I do hope now that they are taking a bit of an example from the Caribbean Premier League, seeing what promotion can do. They are well financed by Digicel which is the big mobile telephone network. They're pumping money into it and they've got sponsors. You only have to look around and see how many sponsors they've got. I think they've got nine or ten, whereas the West Indies Cricket Board hasn't got a single sponsor for any of its competitions such as the T20 - which is now being shifted to the Caribbean Premier League - or the 50-overs competition, or the first-class tournament. All are played without any sponsors whatsoever, because sponsors are not being encouraged to come forward and sponsor the tournament. They say the tournament is not properly promoted and not advertised properly. They say 'Why are we going to get into that?'. Now they see the Caribbean Premier League come in and they are buying into it.
As far as the effect of the 20 overs game is concerned, quite clearly, players are going to look to see what tournament they can play which will maximise their earnings. That is taken as read. I've read a lot about this in England, for instance and Australia where people are saying that the Twenty20 game has affected the quality of the batting that is coming through. I take a slightly different view, certainly as far as the West Indies are concerned.
When I look around and see our Under-19 teams, I don't know who is coaching them but they are the first in the nation of young batsmen in the Caribbean who are playing in the three-day (two innings) tournament. They still play 2 innings matches and in inter-school tournaments - it's not a Twenty20 operation at all. However, they are playing very defensively. The first thing you see in young batsmen coming up is they are playing forward and blocking, as used to be the case in England. For instance, I remember the coaching in England back in the '40s and '50s with young batsmen being coached en masse to play forward defensive - head over the ball, elbow right forward. That's what you're getting more and more here in the West Indies. I think Twenty20 cricket will make them more aggressive and that's what we need - to get some more West Indian aggression back into the batsmen. You're not seeing that at the present moment. I can't understand why and whether it’s the coaching which is not up to scratch. Twenty20 cricket within limitation can of course bring those traits forward in terms of the aggression which is needed to be brought back into the West Indies cricket as far as batting is concerned.
PakPassion.net: : Recently Pakistan toured the West Indies and played the One Day and T20 series. What did you make of the two sides - the One Day and the T20 team?
Tony Cozier: It was very difficult to judge that series. A lot of the cricket was very bad cricket. The batting on both sides left a lot to be desired as did the tactics by the captains, Misbah-ul-Haq and Mohammad Hafeez who shared the 50-overs and T20 captaincy and Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy who shared the captaincy for the West Indies in the 50-overs and the T20 format. It's very difficult to judge as there was a very disappointing standard of cricket played in the series. It just emphasises why those two teams are towards the bottom of the ICC rankings.
Umar Akmal got his chance. Most Pakistanis have recognised that he has a rich talent. He was very exuberant behind the stumps to the point that he might well have been cautioned or fined for his exuberance or over-exuberant appealing, but he's got something to him. He's here with the Caribbean Premier League as well. As far as the left-arm quicks for Pakistan are concerned, all are good. Mohammed Irfan, 7'1 is a serious customer to deal with, but he's now into his 30s already. You just wonder with the bulk that he's carrying with that height, how much longer he can bowl. Certainly when he's at his best, he's very threatening. As far as the West Indies were concerned, the selectors were very conservative and didn't introduce any new batsmen at all. They didn't introduce any new players in that tournament. The top players - Chris Gayle could hardly get a run, Kieron Pollard was dropped eventually, Marlon Samuels got a hundred but his strike rate was very very low. It was just above 55, which was unusual for someone who dominated last year in international cricket. West Indies cricket stood still in that period. If anything, it went back a little bit in that tournament against Pakistan and in the preceding Tri-Nation tournament with India and Sri Lanka.
His father being a journalist, it was only matter of time before Tony himself followed in his footsteps. He started off by studying journalism at Carleton University and kept himself busy by playing hockey for Barbados as well as cricket for clubs from the same island.
Cozier made his debut as a Test match commentator on radio during the West Indies v Australia series in 1965. He has also commentated for Channel Nine in Australia, Test Match Special and also provides his expertise for the Sky Sports West Indies Cricket commentary team.
It's rare that one watches or listens to cricket from the West Indies without hearing Cozier's voice and cricket coverage from various eras and formats has been enhanced with his distinctive voice. The author of 'The West Indies, '50 Years of Test Cricket', Tony's memory and expertise of cricket history and statistics have led to him being lauded worldwide. Some notable honours bestowed upon him are having the press box at the Kensington Oval being named after him as well as being granted an honorary lifetime membership with the MCC.
In an exclusive interview with PakPassion.net, Cozier spoke about his recollection of the best moments and the current state of West Indies cricket, the great fast bowlers hailing from the Caribbean over the years, his views on the talent of Brian Lara, the role of the WICB and his thoughts on the recently concluded series against Pakistan.
PakPassion.net: Firstly a big thank you from everybody at PakPassion.net to you in doing this interview.
Tony Cozier: Yes, it’s good to talk about West Indies cricket, although at this time West Indies cricket is at a low ebb - but still it’s good to talk about it.
PakPassion.net: Over the years you must have commentated on many exciting and memorable series. Any in particular that stand out?
Tony Cozier: I wouldn’t say that any really stand out although there have been ups and downs in the fortunes of the West Indies over the years. When I first came into commentating, back in the ‘60s, West Indies were on an up - under the captaincy of Frank Worrell - and I covered the 1963 tour of England when West Indies won 3-1.
Then of course, after that, we had Sobers as captain and we went for some time when we were unofficial World Champions. In 1969 when Hall, Griffith, Hunt, Nurse, and one or two others all went at the same time, we went downhill and West Indies didn’t win a single Test match between 1969 and 1973.
Then there was a regeneration under Rohan Kanhai when he was captain. We then had the great period of Clive Lloyd, who took over from Rohan Kanhai and moulded the team. New players came in on the tour of India in ‘74-75; Greenidge, Roberts, Richards, most of them made their debuts in India and they were the backbone of the team which served West Indies cricket so well for such a long period.
PakPassion.net: Any one particular match that stands out as being memorable for yourself?
Tony Cozier: There are so many that I couldn’t pick one. I can think of so many that were exciting and thrilling and show the West Indies in the best light possible. Then, I can think of others that were pretty depressing as far as West Indies cricket is concerned. And so, I couldn’t really pick one particular match or even a particular series as being more memorable than the other. There have been so many!
PakPassion.net: What’s the fastest spell or the most intimidating spell of pace bowling that you’ve ever commentated on?
Tony Cozier: I think it was Jeff Thomson, in Barbados in the Test match in 1978 when Australia came to West Indies with their back up players. He was the only one of the established Australians who came because he hadn’t yet signed a contract with World Series Cricket. They were badly beaten in the first Test match in Port of Spain.
In the second Test match in Barbados, again the West Indies were well on top and won the match by 9 wickets. I think Australia got bowled out somewhere in the region of 180 on the first day. Of course, they didn’t have their best players but the West Indies did. It was only in the next Test match in Georgetown that the West Indies' selectors picked a side without some of their main players and therefore, the teams were then just about equal - Australia took that game by 3 wickets.
In Barbados, Australia were bowled out for about 180 and that left the West Indies about an hour and a half's batting before the close of play. It was Thomson from one end and from the other end it was Wayne Clark, a medium pace swing bowler.
Thomson really generated enormous pace with some hostility. He got the wickets of Greenidge, Richards and Kallicharran and there were thrilling confrontations between himself and Richards, as you would imagine. Eventually he got Richards.
One must remember that Barbados is the home of great West Indies fast bowlers going back to the 1930s and all the way through to the Hall and Griffith era and so on. Even that team had the likes of Joel Garner, who was quite a sight. The public here were just appreciating great fast bowling and that was quite an awesome spell for an hour and a half by Thomson. It was unforgettable, absolutely unforgettable.
There was also the first time I toured England as a correspondent in 1963. It was the Test match at Lords where Wes Hall bowled for something like two and half hours on the last day, non-stop from the Pavilion End. Towards the end of the day, Colin Cowdrey came out with his hand in a caste - Hall having fractured it the previous day with a short delivery. Cowdrey came in the last over and didn’t have to face a single ball. He was the last man in, and David Allen - who was at the other end - played out the over and the match ended in a dramatic draw.
Then you had spells from the likes of Michael Holding and Andy Roberts and Malcolm Marshall of course was generally acknowledged as being perhaps, the best fast bowler that West Indies has produced, in that he swung the ball at pace, he could do anything with the ball - he was a tremendous competitor as well a bowler who bowled some wonderful spells.
However, I would have to say Thomson's spell in Barbados in 1978 was certainly the most awesome and fastest I have seen.
PakPassion.net: You’ve mentioned some great West Indian fast bowlers, but do you think that Malcolm Marshall was probably the most skillful of the West Indian fast bowler?
Tony Cozier: Probably the most skillful in that, he worked out batsmen very, very quickly. He could pick up weaknesses and strengths of those he was bowling against. He had the ability to swing the ball both ways in the air and that was a tremendous advantage for someone who was bowling as fast as he was.
Of course, he didn’t have the size of so many others like the Wes Halls and the Charlie Griffiths or the height of Michael Holding, the body strength of Andy Roberts and Colin Croft or even the big and tall Joel Garner - Marshall didn’t fit that stereotype. He was just about six feet tall, he was lithe, he was happening, and he was tremendous. If you talk to those who played against him, I think most of them will accept that while in that era there were so many great West Indian fast bowlers, Marshall was perhaps number one.
PakPassion.net: If you had to describe Viv Richards to somebody who had not heard about him or seen him play cricket, how would you go about doing that?
Tony Cozier:I would say Viv Richards was intimidating. You hear a lot of talk about West Indies fast bowlers being intimidating, but Viv Richards certainly was a batsmen that when he came to the wicket and walked out onto the ground - you could see that this guy really meant business.
There was really an aura about him - I suppose they call it these days in the modern jargon as 'The X Factor'. When he walked onto the field - even simply walking out to the middle - you felt that this guy was going to impose himself on the opposition. He was intimidating in that regard. He never wore a helmet, he was hit more than once; he was hit on the head by Rodney Hogg, the Australian fast bowler in Australia in the 1980s at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and he had to receive a bit of attention on the field. The next ball Hogg bowled a bouncer to him, he hooked him four or five rows back at the MCG for a six!
He was that type of character, he believed in himself, he believed in West Indies, he believed that West Indies cricket was a show piece for the people of the Caribbean and, you know, there was no one better than Richards to carry that out [the belief]. He really was such a fierce competitor and a tremendous sight - just a great player - but beyond that, he was someone who had that aura about him which certainly accentuated his greatness as a player.
PakPassion.net: There seems to be an endless debate regarding the great West Indian team under Clive Lloyd and the great Australian team. In your opinion which was the better Test team?
Tony Cozier: Well, I think it’s invidious to start comparing teams. I don’t think we can compare teams or compare eras - the thing is that players move from one generation to the next, and there’s always a link. If you look through the West Indies history, for instance, Headley towards the end of his days played alongside the three Ws, for instance Worrell, Weekes, and Walcott; and they continued. Then Sobers and Kanhai played alongside Weekes, Walcott, and Worrell, and when they were moving on, in came people like Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran and Clive Lloyd. When Lloyd and Kallicharran were moving on, in came Brian Lara, Greenidge and a few others. So, there’s always a link in the game between individuals and perhaps between teams as well, but I wouldn’t like to compare West Indies team with any other team of any era because there were different conditions and they were playing against different opponents - its very difficult to make that type of comparison.
Except to so say, I don’t think I will ever see a cricket team quite as efficient as the West Indies team was at the height of its powers in the mid-1980s. It had virtually everything. They say that there was no spin bowler but there were four fast bowlers and they did the job so why would you need spin? And Richards and Gomes supplied whatever little spin was necessary.
With the batting you had one of the top opening pairs at the time and one of the greatest of all time in Greenidge and Haynes, and then you had Richards at three to begin with. Then there was Clive Lloyd as the captain - one who was adored by his players and revered by his players, and like Worrell before him had the advantage of the generation gap. The idea being that when Worrell became captain with young players under him, he was already a great player by then and the young players looked up to him.
Similarly, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding etc. came in when Clive Lloyd was already an established player. So, he did have that generation gap as a leader, which, I think, was important.
So, you had that middle order batting and then Lloyd, followed by the keeper, Dujon who could make 100s and was a wonderful player to watch. Then the fast bowlers and perhaps as much as anything else, you had fielders who would catch anything in the slips, and were also sensational in the outfield.
In the 1975 World Cup Final, Clive Lloyd rightly got the man of the match award for his 100, but it could have easily gone to Viv Richards, who from the outfield, with his throw - the accuracy and the strength of his throw - dismissed the two Chappells and Allan Turner – three of Australia’s premier batsmen and that was all due to Richards. He could field anywhere!
Roger Harper every now and again would come into the side as a spinner. He was probably the best if not certainly among the best fielders of his time. He would catch anything at slip, prowl the outfield with those long legs of his, had a tremendous throw and fitness as well.
West Indies went through a series in Australia in 1984-85 of 5 Test matches and they only called on 12 players and that 12th player was Harper, who in fact was only there because they were going to Sydney and they thought it would turn in Sydney. But they could well have gone through the entire five Test matches calling on only 11 players - that was the type of fitness West Indies had in those days and it wasn’t to say they were playing any less cricket, perhaps they were playing a little bit more than they do now. Certainly they were playing as much as they do now, they had the One Day Internationals they played then, intertwined between the Test matches and they also played state matches over four days. They were playing a lot of cricket but they kept fit.
The Australian physiotherapist and trainer Denis Waight was assigned to them during the World Series Cricket era. He remained with them all the way through and all the players would say it was the fitness regime that he instituted that contributed to that. So when you look now for instance you can see so many teams can’t keep a full team on the park all the way through. You can look at the Australians of today for instance, they have some outstanding young fast bowlers coming up but they just can’t play from one Test to the next because of their fitness. That was a big factor as far as the West Indies were concerned during their period of dominance.
PakPassion.net: Tony- Imran Khan, Javed Miandad - two contrasting characters but two huge names in the world of Pakistani cricket. Your thoughts on those two as individuals and also as cricketers?
Tony Cozier: Well I suppose you could compare Imran Khan with Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd for his leadership and then again for his contribution as an all-round cricketer. He was an outstanding all-round cricketer, strong, genuinely quick, able to move the ball, and a good striker of the ball as well. An outstanding all-round cricketer but more especially a leader and that’s what we are seeing now in politics in Pakistan. Imran looked as if when he was on the field there was no question of who was captain, he was a leader and of course led the Pakistanis to the World Cup in 1992 in Australia and he had the players with him.
You always felt Pakistan would sometimes be rather divided within the dressing room and off the field. In contrast, Imran Khan had the players with him on and off the field. He talked about them being cornered tigers in Australia in that World Cup in 1992 and made them believe in themselves. I think that’s what Frank Worrell did with the West Indies and Clive Lloyd as well made the players believe in themselves and believe in what they were doing, and that their strength was equal or better than the teams they were playing.
Javed Miandad was a tremendous player, a fighter, not stylish by any means but you just couldn’t get him out. He had this impish aggression, he would be chattering away all of the time looking to aggravate the opposition but a tremendous player who would take on anyone. It didn’t matter for him if you were bowling a million miles an hour, he thought he could handle you even if you were turning the ball square. He believed in himself and I think that’s the big thing too for any player in any team - the self-belief.
PakPassion.net: Let's turn our attention to Brian Lara, a mercurial talent who perhaps didn’t always use that talent and also had question marks over his leadership. How would you describe Brian Lara’s career?
Tony Cozier: Well certainly from the start from a time when he was a teenager everyone recognized the immense talent he had as a batsman. There was never any doubt about that whatsoever, he was brilliant. I’ve spoken to Ramiz Raja recently during the Pakistan series in the Caribbean and he said that there was no doubt in his mind that Lara was the best player of spin bowling by far that he’s ever seen. With Lara, you just felt that if he put his mind to it he could do anything.
When he went to Sri Lanka on a tour there - I think it was 2001/2002 although I'm not certain of the exact date - when he went there his average was below 50. He said he was going to Sri Lanka for 3 Test matches with the purpose of pushing his average above 50. It meant that, I think he had to score something like 500 runs in 3 Test matches - a very taxing target he set himself. Of course he easily surpassed it, by taking on Muttiah Muralitharan - making a century and a double century in one Test match and a century in another. West Indies lost all 3 Test matches but the confrontation between himself and Muralitharan was one never to be forgotten and of course Lara came out well on top in that one.
He went to South Africa in 1998/1999 with the players going on strike before they left for that tour - so it was a very controversial time. The West Indies lost 5-0 in the Test matches and I think it was 5-1 in the six One Day Internationals. When he came back the Board gave him a two match probation and said they were not satisfied with his leadership and Lara’s response then was to score a double hundred against Australia in the 2nd Test match in Jamaica which West Indies won. He then scored that memorable 153 not out in Barbados in the next Test match to lead West Indies to a 2-1 lead in a series. It was all down to him because he just set his mind to it.
A brilliant player - someone who would do things you never considered possible or even thought of. In the last over of Day 3 of the 1st Test match in Johannesburg (2003/2004) against South Africa, Robin Peterson the left arm spinner was bowling to him. Given that this was the last over of the day, you would expect Lara to play out and come back the next day. Instead, he hit him for 28 from the over and I think hit him for four sixes or something like that - just bang bang, bang, bang in the last over of the day! That was unheard of but Lara had that kind of confidence that he knew he could do it and did it.
So as far as Lara was concerned, he just was outstanding and a great player. But perhaps in his period, he was the only great player in the West Indies team whereas teams before that had more than one like the three Ws, Viv Richards, Greenidge and Haynes, Clive Lloyd and so on and so forth. But he was, I suppose very much like Headley before him in the 1930s who was the one who carried the batting on his shoulders and then he was made captain.
Lara didn't have the discipline as far as captaincy is concerned ; he was constantly at odds with the board. I think he apologized seven times to the board for one indiscretion after another but they kept putting him back as captain. He was made captain three times mostly because the West Indies were going through a very difficult period. Perhaps they needed someone who was more disciplined and someone who understood that not everyone on the team had the capabilities to bat as well as him. Unfortunately, Lara didn't seem to recognize that. The players needed someone not only to lead them in terms of scoring runs but someone to lead them in another way as well. In a more significant way, they needed someone to get them together and ensure that each player would play to his best potential.
PakPassion.net: A lot of your commentary has been during a generation where the West Indies were amongst the top tier of Test teams. Of late, the West Indies Test team has not been quite as effective. What do you think needs to be done with regards to West Indies cricket in order for them to become a force in Test cricket again?
Tony Cozier: I don't know if there is anything that can be done now. I fear for the future. We've now gone something like twenty years where it's all been downhill without producing players for a variety of reasons. One of which is the weakness of the West Indies board itself and also the 'militancy' for some time of the player's association which called the top players to strike on two occasions.
The first was when we went on a tour to Sri Lanka, and next was here in the Caribbean just after the West Indies had won the Champion's Trophy in England at the Oval in 2004. Within no time, the players had gone on strike with Bangladesh coming for a tour. It was very disruptive and there was a lot of suspicion between the board and the players and it did absolutely nothing but harm to West Indies cricket.
In addition to which, the standard of pitches and umpires are all factors that have contributed toward this decline. We're talking here about countries which are minuscule islands with very small economies. For a Test match, or any match for that matter, you need to fill the stadium in let us say Antigua, which will hold about 20,000 and that's in an island where the population is 80,000! You just don't have the revenue coming in through the gates.
Because of the fact that the West Indies are not doing well and have not done well for some time, you're not attracting the sponsors. The board is not getting the kind of money that it needs to ensure that cricket development is pointed in the right direction. It needs, as with anything - money.
When you compare England, Australia, India especially which are large economies with plenty of facilities and compare them with what West Indies has, to be honest, you've really got to be staggered to know how West Indies managed to become so strong in the first place! Now you can understand over the last 20 years why they have been in decline because they haven't managed to get players into the county championship which was a big boost for the West Indies back in the '70s. So many of the players had the opportunity of going to England and playing in different conditions against different opponents. Many of the counties had players from other countries and other teams - Australians, Pakistanis, Indians and so on. So that was really good grounding for younger players coming through. Now you just don't get that. So it's all sorts of things. The administration is very weak and divided and I think, you'll have to say that it starts from there. Of course, anything starts from the top, whether its good or bad. I am afraid as far as we're concerned, it's bad. The administration has its own problems to solve.
PakPassion.net: : Would you say the great era of West Indian cricket was largely down to natural talent and those players being produced by the individual islands and that now its more a case of those great players not coming through?
Tony Cozier: No, I think we still have the talent. The talent is there but it was always nurtured by a high quality first-class competition and club competition. So you would play in club teams. In the stronger club teams, you would have a couple of Test players and certainly a few first-class players with a good reputation.
The clubs in most of the territories were pretty strong and would be almost on a level with first-class teams anywhere. I remember playing at the Wanderers Club in Barbados when the English counties would come out on pre-season tours and we would constantly win. The Wanderers Club constantly beat the English county teams that would come up. Not only Wanderers, Empire was also a very strong team in Barbados - the club team of Worrell, Weekes, Griffiths and others. They would beat the English counties coming out to the West Indies. Nowadays you just wouldn't get that because most of the players now don't participate in the club system for one reason or another. So the club standard isn't that high and of course that transmits itself to the first-class level.
You'll find that the majority of those who play Test cricket or are leading players are not available for the first-class season. They play one or two matches but they are playing in the Big Bash or the IPL or playing somewhere else across the world and not playing within the West Indies. Therefore that diminishes the standard of first-class games. That's where you get your Test players and your international players from. That's a big issue as well and I'm afraid its one that's not easily solvable.
PakPassion.net: : We've seen the launch of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). There are a lot of sponsors, a lot of interest, and players from around the world competing in this tournament. Do you think there is an overemphasis within the West Indies of gearing players or the players themselves are geared towards the shorter formats? Is the Caribbean Premier League enhancing that concept - whereby the players are looking at the shorter formats with more seriousness than the five-day format?
Tony Cozier: First of all, the Caribbean Premier League is well financed and it needs to be. The promotions are outstanding. It is international class. The West Indies Cricket Board has got into absolutely no promotion whatsoever for its various competitions. I am not talking about spending millions on promotions, but even a basic promotion is not done by the West Indies Cricket Board in relation to any of their competitions. They suffer because of that. I do hope now that they are taking a bit of an example from the Caribbean Premier League, seeing what promotion can do. They are well financed by Digicel which is the big mobile telephone network. They're pumping money into it and they've got sponsors. You only have to look around and see how many sponsors they've got. I think they've got nine or ten, whereas the West Indies Cricket Board hasn't got a single sponsor for any of its competitions such as the T20 - which is now being shifted to the Caribbean Premier League - or the 50-overs competition, or the first-class tournament. All are played without any sponsors whatsoever, because sponsors are not being encouraged to come forward and sponsor the tournament. They say the tournament is not properly promoted and not advertised properly. They say 'Why are we going to get into that?'. Now they see the Caribbean Premier League come in and they are buying into it.
As far as the effect of the 20 overs game is concerned, quite clearly, players are going to look to see what tournament they can play which will maximise their earnings. That is taken as read. I've read a lot about this in England, for instance and Australia where people are saying that the Twenty20 game has affected the quality of the batting that is coming through. I take a slightly different view, certainly as far as the West Indies are concerned.
When I look around and see our Under-19 teams, I don't know who is coaching them but they are the first in the nation of young batsmen in the Caribbean who are playing in the three-day (two innings) tournament. They still play 2 innings matches and in inter-school tournaments - it's not a Twenty20 operation at all. However, they are playing very defensively. The first thing you see in young batsmen coming up is they are playing forward and blocking, as used to be the case in England. For instance, I remember the coaching in England back in the '40s and '50s with young batsmen being coached en masse to play forward defensive - head over the ball, elbow right forward. That's what you're getting more and more here in the West Indies. I think Twenty20 cricket will make them more aggressive and that's what we need - to get some more West Indian aggression back into the batsmen. You're not seeing that at the present moment. I can't understand why and whether it’s the coaching which is not up to scratch. Twenty20 cricket within limitation can of course bring those traits forward in terms of the aggression which is needed to be brought back into the West Indies cricket as far as batting is concerned.
PakPassion.net: : Recently Pakistan toured the West Indies and played the One Day and T20 series. What did you make of the two sides - the One Day and the T20 team?
Tony Cozier: It was very difficult to judge that series. A lot of the cricket was very bad cricket. The batting on both sides left a lot to be desired as did the tactics by the captains, Misbah-ul-Haq and Mohammad Hafeez who shared the 50-overs and T20 captaincy and Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy who shared the captaincy for the West Indies in the 50-overs and the T20 format. It's very difficult to judge as there was a very disappointing standard of cricket played in the series. It just emphasises why those two teams are towards the bottom of the ICC rankings.
Umar Akmal got his chance. Most Pakistanis have recognised that he has a rich talent. He was very exuberant behind the stumps to the point that he might well have been cautioned or fined for his exuberance or over-exuberant appealing, but he's got something to him. He's here with the Caribbean Premier League as well. As far as the left-arm quicks for Pakistan are concerned, all are good. Mohammed Irfan, 7'1 is a serious customer to deal with, but he's now into his 30s already. You just wonder with the bulk that he's carrying with that height, how much longer he can bowl. Certainly when he's at his best, he's very threatening. As far as the West Indies were concerned, the selectors were very conservative and didn't introduce any new batsmen at all. They didn't introduce any new players in that tournament. The top players - Chris Gayle could hardly get a run, Kieron Pollard was dropped eventually, Marlon Samuels got a hundred but his strike rate was very very low. It was just above 55, which was unusual for someone who dominated last year in international cricket. West Indies cricket stood still in that period. If anything, it went back a little bit in that tournament against Pakistan and in the preceding Tri-Nation tournament with India and Sri Lanka.
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