Charlie Griffith: My First Test (16 October 1998)

16 October 1998

Charlie Griffith: My First Test

by Philip Spooner

Charlie Griffith is known to be a tough, shrewd customer. He had to be.

From the moment the big fast bowler stepped onto the Test stage the odds were stacked against him.

"I had it hard from the start," said Griffith, one of eight children.

"Throughout my life I overcame many obstacles and this helped to make me stronger."

Griffith's first game was at the fifth and final Test of the 1959-60 series against England, at Queen's Park Oval, Port-of-Spain. It was only his second first-class game and he was literally tossed in at the deep end.

"Ben Hoyos, the honorary secretary of the Barbados Cricket Association, came to my house on a Tuesday evening late in March and gave me the news," said the former Pie Corner, St. Lucy, resident who was 20 at the time.

"He asked me if I was ready and I said 'Yes!', but it only dawned on me later what I was getting myself into."

Griffith had not played competitively for three months and was not match-fit. According to him, he was a bit overweight and was not as focused as he had hoped.

Two days later he boarded an aircraft for the first time, bound for Trinidad to start what would be a controversial Test career.

"Everything that happened kind of shocked me. It was a great feeling to be playing for the West Indies but things were not quite what I expected."

He had a hard start. Bowling with good pace, he got one wicket for 62 in the first innings and none for 40 in the second - combined match figures of one for 102.

He shared the new ball with Wes Hall - the beginning of one of the most feared pace combinations in history.

"Luckily for me, Garry (Sobers) was at slip, if not I might not have taken a wicket.

"It was a dismissal I would never forget. Garry flew high at second slip to take a spectacular catch off left-hander Geoff Pullar," the six-foot-three-inch Griffith, now 59, said looking skyward.

"I had a few dropped catches and the fielding in the slips was not up to standard. I thought this cost me a place on the team to Australia later that year."

Griffith, who ended with 94 wickets in 28 Tests, said he received good encouragement from Sobers and fast bowling partner Wes Hall but thought the captain, Gerry Alexander, could have been a bit more accommodating.

Well-known for his express pace and unbridled aggression, Griffith's Test call-up was as a result of his performance in the colony game three months earlier. He took six for 130 off 44 overs as Barbados defeated the tourists.

"After this game everyone - the Press and the supporters - thought I would have started the series.

"I loved to bowl fast, and I bowled fast in my first outing for Barbados, but they (the West Indies selectors) had me on hold 'til after the series was lost."

Then in 1962 Griffith hit rock bottom. He had not been recalled by the Test selectors and was hoping to use the India vs Barbados game to rebound.

He was no-balled for throwing by local umpire Cortez Jordan, an incident that almost curtailed the pacer's career, when he struck Indian batsman Nari Contractor with a life-threatening delivery. Griffith said he felt like quitting the game after the dreadful event.

"When the Indians were in Trinidad a West Indies player told them, 'We have a guy in Barbados twice as big and twice as fast as Wes Hall!'," Griffith said.

"They came here frightened and none of them wanted to get into line. (Vijay) Manjrekar was brushed on the nose and then Contractor ducked into a ball that was bail-high; the 'keeper, David Allan, was appealing for LBW."

Griffith, who is now chairman of Barbados selectors, was crestfallen and visited Contractor in hospital every day.

He did not play his second Test match until the England series in 1963.

The Contractor incident was followed by many accusations by the Australians and English that Griffith was a "chucker", but he believes there was a plot to get rid of him.

In his book Chucked Around, written in 1970 in collaboration with David Simmons, Griffith said: "... yet this same world of cricket has been good to me.

"It afforded me an opportunity to achieve reasonable economic stability and, at the same time, improved the lot of my parents and family."

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)