If reports are to be believed three legends of West Indies Curtly Ambrose, Richie Richardson and Andy Roberts are set to be knighted during the first ODI between England and West Indies.
If this is confirmed, West Indies would have eleven cricketers who were knighted. Lord Constantine, Wesley Hall, Conrad Hunte, Viv Richards, Gary sobers and the three W’s Worell, Weeks and Walcott are the others who were awarded this honor by the British Monarchy. This would place West Indies as the country with the most cricketers awarded this honor ahead of England which currently has 10 cricketers (although 4 of its cricketers including Ian Botham have received knighthood for non cricketing reasons).
These three players have been champions of West Indies cricket and a sad reminder to the rest of the world of the dominance of West Indian cricket in the 80’s. Ambrose signified evil in his eyes and when he is was in a nasty mood no opposition was good enough to face him. When Graeme Smith said about Dale Steyn that he knows only to be angry and angriest at the cricketing field, many were reminded of this champion bowler who is best remembered for his spell of 7 wickets for 1 run against the Aussies. He also famously refused to speak in post match presentations claiming “Curtly speak to no man”. In all he claimed 405 test wickets and 225 ODI wickets.
Richie Richardson was the last but one glorious batsman to emerge from the Caribbean. (Of course everybody knows who the last batsman was, Brian Lara). Refusing to wear helmet like his namesake Sir Vivian Richards, he was the embodiment of the carribean swagger and his maroon hat soon became a trademark.
Lastly we have a bowler, a part of the West Indian quartet of fast bowlers who terrorized batsmen in the 80’s. People once said he had three different kinds of bouncers and his slow bouncer was deadly. Like the other great bowlers of his team he preferred to keep his emotions within himself and displayed them with the ball in his hand.
