Tales of Greig and Lloyd

Cricket at its best transcends nationalism and narrow partisanship. And some cricketers seem to evoke the best from fans in foreign countries. In my recollection, two such cricketers stood out in the way they impacted Indian crowds: Tony Greig and Clive Lloyd.

Greig came to India with the MCC (the England Test team as it was known then) in the winter of 1972-73. Standing 6ft 7in, the blond cricketer could not be missed. Back then, every Test match in India drew capacity crowds, with up to a 100,000 packing Eden Gardens and about half that number in most other stadiums.

Greig had pioneered the silly point position, from where he towered over every batsman. He clearly enjoyed playing up to the crowds and they responded in kind. He had made more than 100 runs in the low-scoring first Test in Delhi (which England won) without being dismissed in either innings, and in the second Test, in Calcutta, he took 5 for 24 in the second innings apart from scoring 67 after coming in with England at 17 for 4 chasing 192 (they would fall narrowly short).

When the traditional Pongal Test began in Madras, the series was locked at 1-1. While Greig did not have a particularly great Test, two incidents stand out in my memory. When Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, making his comeback to Test cricket, played a copy-book front-foot defensive shot, the ball rolled to silly point, where Greig dropped to his knees in front of the batsman. Pataudi, on cue, promptly "knighted" Greig by patting him on either shoulder with his bat. Pataudi had last played for India against Bill Lawry's Australians in 1969-70 and had been rendered a commoner in the meanwhile by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's abolition of the royalty and their privy purses. An Indian player of royal descent knighting an English cricketer of South African origin (soon to have his own run-in with the English establishment) - there were too many ironies to unravel in that one. The crowd roared in delight.

Towards the end of the fourth day's play, we got to witness the other side of Greig - the fiercely competitive, no-holds-barred cricketer the world knew. India were chasing only 86 in the fourth innings to go 2-1 up in the series, and the English, already fed up with the umpiring by then, were determined to make them fight all the way.

They quickly got rid of Farokh Engineer, before captain Ajit Wadekar edged the third ball he faced from Chris Old into Greig's hands at slip. The umpire was not sure the catch was clean and walked across to the square-leg umpire to check. Greig ran straight at the umpire with the ball held in one upraised hand, screaming the catch was clean, while Alan Knott, the normally unflappable wicketkeeper, threw one of his gloves high into the air in protest. Wadekar was duly given out caught, but the ferocity of Greig's appeal is still fresh in my mind.

Three years later Greig would lead England in India for the 1976-77 series. He kept to a strict plan - dry up the runs when India batted and occupy the crease for enormous lengths of time when his own team batted. He accomplished the unthinkable: in the five-Test series, his team had already taken an unassailable 3-0 lead by the end of the third Test. Rarely had an Indian team been so thoroughly outplayed at home.

Greig's popularity with the crowds was, once again, immense and his affection for them genuine. It did not surprise me at all that after his retirement, Greig became a familiar voice on the soundtrack to so many ODI tournaments in the subcontinent and Sharjah. It's hard to think of Sachin Tendulkar's ferocious assault on the Australian bowlers in Sharjah in 1998 without Greig's commentary.

"Supercat", he was called - and one look at Clive Lloyd on the cricket field would tell you why. Whether it was an effortless flick for six over midwicket or a pick-up-and-throw rifled in from the gully, Lloyd embodied feline athleticism.

Lloyd had been the 1960s edition of Jonty Rhodes. By the time I got to see him in the 1974-75 series, a gimpy back had confined him mainly to the slips, but you could still see what a fielder he must have been in his prime. His batting was typically Caribbean in its flair, with that graceful power unique to southpaws. Once he got his eye in, it was off to the races with Supercat: runs cascaded off his bat like for Brian Lara in later years.

Unlike Greig, Lloyd commanded your attention without doing anything demonstrative or over the top. In the first Test, in Bangalore, Lloyd's 163 not out (off just 149 balls) in the second innings against BS Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and S Venkataraghavan on a turning track helped West Indies win the game at a canter. In the final Test, Lloyd's unbeaten 242 in the first innings (alongside a 250-run partnership with wicketkeeper Deryck Murray for the sixth wicket) shut India out of the decider. Talk about a captain taking a contest by the scruff of the neck and bringing it home.

I will remember Lloyd for a small incident at Chepauk. Like many students, I was seated on one of the lowest rows in the "D" stand, as close as one can get to the action, and the day's play was about to begin. A gentleman sitting near me had his transistor radio tuned in to the cricket commentary at full volume. Lloyd was setting the field and getting ready to take his position at slip when he suddenly turned around and came loping towards us. He came right up close to the fence cordoning the field and with a smile gently gestured to the man with the transistor to please turn the volume down. We were still in shock as he waved cheerily, turned around and went back to slip!

Indians of my generation always backed West Indies against everyone except India and hoped Lloyd would come good. And for me, I always wanted Greig to do well, but did not care all that much if England won or lost. Two giants who wowed an entire nation with their charisma, and in such different ways.