Quote:Growing up I was always more of a basketball and football player than a cricketer. Cricket was never my first love but my mother is a fanatic and she was the driving force behind my career. She always wanted a cricketer in the family and when my older brother migrated to the States, I was second in line. I only started playing club cricket in 1984 and within four short years I was playing for the West Indies. My mother was so pleased to have a cricketer in the family and I guess that’s why she celebrated in the way she did [his mother Hellie would run out of their house in the village of Swetes and ring a bell every time Curtly took a Test wicket, day or night].

THE BAJAN BOYCOTT
2-47 & 6-34 | West Indies v South Africa, Only Test, Barbados, 1992

The locals boycotted the game because they thought Anderson Cummins should have played instead of Kenny Benjamin so we basically had no support. We found ourselves in serious trouble with South Africa needing about 80 runs on the last morning of the game with eight wickets in hand. They were a bunch of rookies, only Kepler Wessels had played Test cricket before, and we were the world’s number one team – we couldn’t afford to lose. Courtney Walsh and myself had to dig really, really deep and we came out that morning saying we weren’t going to lose. We bowled in tandem throughout that final day and won by 50-odd runs. Our confidence took us over the line.