‘It sounded like a bloody gun going off.’
Ian Chappell considers walking after edging the ball to Deryck Murray – but thinks better of it. This moment in the Sydney Test in 1976 changed the way the West Indes would play their cricket forever.

‘If this was Test cricket, you could forget it.’
Michael Holding completing his over through his tears at Sydney.

Clive Lloyd tossing up with Greg Chappell before the Sydney Test at the start of 1976. ‘Australia had just been rescued by its captain,’ wrote the cricket reporter John Woodcock at the time, ‘the West Indies not led by its.’

Some of the MCG spectators celebrate an Australian boundary during the third Test. ‘In the crowd there was a different tempo when it came to this race stuff. There were a few rotten apples in the sack,’ remembers Vivian Richards.

‘The gloom, the heavy silences... guys weren’t speaking to one another. The blame game was on.’
Another defeat in Australia – this time at Melbourne at the end of the third Test.

‘He should have been watching the game from a bar, enjoying a drink. These men were past it.’
John Edrich (39) looks on as Brian Close (45) avoids a short ball on that Saturday evening at Old Trafford in 1976. Neither would play for England again.

A shirtless Roy Fredericks had forearms like 10-pound trout, observed The Times – ‘and wild ones at that.’
Here he shares a moment of joy in the Headingley dressing room with Vivian Richards after the fourth Test of 1976. The series was won.

Vivian Richards drives square off the back foot at the Oval in 1976, adding more runs to his record total of 1,710 for the year. Alan Knott is the wicket-keeper.

The Test and County Cricket Board had asked Clive Lloyd to appeal to supporters before the match to make less noise. He did, they didn’t.

Michael Holding turning England to dust at the Oval in 1976. He took 14 wickets.

Tony Greig has his stumps knocked over for the fifth and final time against the West Indies in 1976. Who’s grovelling now?

Greig’s wicket at the Oval is a delight for the players – and a spectator.

From Bequia to Buxton. Charles Ollivierre in the Derbyshire XI at the turn of the 20th century.

Charles Ollivierre batting in the nets for Derbyshire during the 1905 season. He was the Neil Armstrong of Caribbean cricket, but his achievements have never been widely acclaimed.

‘Cricket is the most obvious and apparent, some would say glaring, example of the black man being kept in his place,’ said Learie Constantine.
Learie Constantine was a brilliant West Indian all-rounder, highly-paid league cricketer, politician and diplomat.

The Times reported a rush of people, ‘one armed with an instrument of the guitar family singing with a delight that rightfully belonged to them.’ Lord Kitchener and his backing band on the Lord’s outfield in 1950.

‘The nature of his spin has not been exactly specified... we must wait and learn.’
Sonny Ramadhin, aged 20 in England in 1950.

The body of Kelso Cochrane is driven up Ladbroke Grove in June 1959. More than 1,000 people were at the funeral service but his murderer was never found.

‘We were crossing from one world to the next,’ recalls Clive Lloyd. He wasn’t wrong. World Series Cricket in 1977. R. McDonald, centre, second row.

‘It was a colour that is, should we say, less than manly in the Caribbean parts.’ Wayne Daniel does his best to look butch in Packer Pink during the second season of World Series Cricket in 1979.

The eight-team photo at Lord’s before the start of the 1979 World Cup competition. Some were told to wear blazers, others chose for themselves – with mixed results. From l-r: Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies, England, Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada.

‘You been drinking rum?’
‘Brandy.’
Vivian Richards in a mid-pitch discussion with Collis King during their match-winning stand in the 1979 World Cup final.

Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Andy Roberts and Michael Holding in the dressing room at Adelaide about to bowl against Australia on the 1979-80 tour.

‘The leg over the waist and past the shoulder then the head. Stumps flying. Fantastic. Ballet teachers throughout the world furious with envy.’
An infamous moment in West Indian cricket. Michael Holding kicks down the stumps in Dunedin on the 1979-80 tour of New Zealand.

Bernard Julien warms up in front of an almost entirely white crowd at Durban before a one-day game on the renegade tour of South Africa in February 1983.

Frank Worrell in August 1963, checking on the progress of his waxwork at Madame Tussaud’s. The first black official Test captain of the West Indies became one of the most influential men in the Caribbean.

West Indians watching Frank Worrell’s side during the 1963 tour of England.

‘He knows everything?’ C. L. R. James once asked Frank Worrell. ‘Everything,’ Worrell replied.
Garry Sobers sits behind the gleaming Wisden Trophy at the end of the tour of England in 1966. He was the greatest all-rounder cricket had seen.

The West Indians at Worcester in May 1984. All but six of the squad had played county cricket and England held no fears for them.

‘I should have played it better, but even now, every time I go through in my mind how I could have played it, it still haunts me’
The end of Andy Lloyd’s Test career at Edgbaston in 1984.

Vivian Richards batting with ‘extreme prejudice’ at Old Trafford during his 189 not out in the 1984 one-day international.

A missed chance? It may have been, given the looks on the faces of (l-r) Joel Garner, Gordon Greenidge, Roger Harper, Vivian Richards and Clive Lloyd. The slip cordon for the third Test at Headingley during the 1984 tour of England.

The 1984 Blackwas in England. Five-nil to the West Indies. ‘In the 1980s’ says the writer Colin Babb, ‘the Test ground was a point of assembly... It was the only time in my life where I stood in an open public arena with lots of other people like me.’

‘He has moulded the most successful team in the history of the game. He and his men have expanded the horizons of cricket... he has shown us how and has taken us to the mountain top.’
He understood the West Indian psyche. Clive Lloyd – the captain who taught his cricket team how to win.

‘Clive was more like the father figure, Viv was more the sergeant major,’ says Desmond Haynes – who was captained by both men. Richards played the game to represent his people. He played to prove that the creators of the game were no better than the people who had learned it from them.

Colin Croft: ‘When the warrior walks out on to the field, it’s a war zone.’

Malcolm Marshall of Barbados. Possibly the best fast bowler the West Indies have ever had?

‘How do I score against Joel Garner?’ Geoffrey Boycott once asked Ian Botham. ‘You don’t. No one does,’ was the reply.

Andy Roberts wasn’t a big party man. ‘I didn’t drink, so most nights I would stay in my room and think about cricket.’