MAGNIFICENT...
On a cloudy September day at Lord's in 1972, Lancashire needed 235 in 60 overs in the Gillette Cup final. No team, over nine years, has scored so many to win the title. The task gets harder when they lose their openers. Walking in at 26 for 2 is Clive Lloyd, natty in his spotless full-sleeve shirt, half-sleeve jumper and maroon West Indies cap. He slouches from a great height, his bat a toothpick in his hands.
Over the next two and a half hours the packed house at Lord's emits gasp after gasp. Taking their breath away is Lloyd, sweeping, pulling, slashing, driving, pounding, pounding, pounding. There are 14 fours and three sixes, the last one a ferocious front-foot hoick against Bob Willis, catapulting a good-length ball into the crowd at midwicket. Watch it on YouTube. The camera faces the bowler. Lloyd stands still, tapping his meaty Gray-Nicolls on the ground, then takes a forward step and uncoils his bat towards the heavens before curving it down menacingly, meeting the leather with a thunderous crack and tracing a magnificent 330-degree arc from mid-off to mid-on to square leg to fine leg to third man to point: a left-handed slap across Willis' face. Lloyd's 126 takes Lancashire to the title and prompts Richie Benaud, on air, to declare: "It must be one of the greatest innings seen on this ground in any type of cricket. Test matches, three-day cricket or one-day knockout competitions. There could have been few greater innings ever played…"
"If we'd have had the DRS system, our games would have finished in two days! We had some of the worst umpires around, but we played through all of that. The prime minister of Trinidad only had to make decisions for the people of Trinidad, but I was making decisions for the whole of the West Indies"
- The super cat, Clive Lloyd himself
FROM A JOURNAL..
