Lloyd was lucky to inherit Andy Roberts in his team and have the talents of Holding, Croft, Garner, etc ready. With talents like that who need the likes of Inshan Ali, Imtiaz and Jumandeen?!
However, he still kept Gibbs on in 76 until he broke the World record. Plus he still used Richard's offspin quite a bit during the reign as captain.
I was disappointed to read Gavaskar's recollection of the 1976 Test at Sabina Park:
Quote:The Jamaican mob bayed for Indian blood, eliciting a racial taunt from Gavaskar in his book, Sunny Days.
After lunch, Lloyd unleashed a new era in West Indian cricket: of the fast, nasty, life-threatening kind, the kind they endured at the hands of Lillee and Thomson, stretching the laws of cricket to their limit.
Holding bowled three bouncers in an over to Gaekwad, followed by four and one beamer to Gavaskar in his next. The crowd loved it. They wanted blood. More beamers followed. Holding pretended the ball kept slipping out of his hand.
Gavaskar devotes a whole chapter to the Test in his book. Titled 'Barbarism in Kingston', it carries this regrettable description of the public: “The partisan attitude was even more evident when they did not applaud any shots we played. At one stage I even demanded claps for a boundary shot off Daniel. All I got was laughter from the section, which certainly hadn’t graduated from the trees where they belonged. The whole thing was not cricket. The intention wasn’t to get a batsman out but to knock him out.â€
