So World Boss like parties. Six Machine don’t like running. But I’m a man of contradictions. I can turn it on in nightclubs across the continents and still be disciplined. I can stay out till break of dawn and sleep past midday and still be the hardest worker you’ll know. I had to be disciplined or I’d never have made it out of Rollington Town. I had to be hard-working or I’d be back there now.
Another lesson from Mr Mac. My little brother Wayney was more gifted than I was. A natural talent in both bowling and batting; aged 14 he took five wickets with his fizzing leg spin for Lucas against the adults of Kingston in the Senior Cup. Wise men thought he would make it to the top, and faster than me.
He made it to captain of Lucas, but no further. Not serious enough. He loved his cricket, but not with obsession. Big brother Andrew was a regular for the Jamaica under-19 team and won the Senior Cup with Lucas, and that was enough for him.
Michael Crew, the most talented of all, up in the fast bowlers’ faces all day? He’d be in their faces the day before too. One of his favourite tricks was to hunt down the opposition pacemen in the streets on the Friday before the match and tell them exactly what he was going to do to them. He would go over there to Kensington, even to fearsome Patrick Patterson, and tell them what’s coming their way. ‘I’m gonna kill yuh wit’ licks!’
He was never going to change. That’s who he was. I would be on the outfield with my friends, he would be at the rum bar on Giltress Street with his people. They still like him on our old streets and corners. He had some charm as well, the George Best of Rollington Town. But he’s still doing his own thing, and that thing is drinking. When I’m playing cricket he’ll come around, and he always asks for money. I give him what he asks for. It’s not like he’s doing drugs, so I give it to him.
I wasn’t the perfect pupil. Popeye and I used to sneak through a hole in the fence to cut school. But we did it so we could go to play cricket. And we did. I would bat for hour after hour, even though I could take a couple of months off, pick up a bat and score a century, just like that. I would bat for days on that concrete, long, long, long. You don’t do that if you don’t have discipline. You don’t do that if you can’t work hard.
Michael Crew taught me other lessons. You got talent, all the bowlers on your day gonna get perish. On the other side, shit happens. You can be in the sweetest form, get a jaffa and you’re gone. And when you’re not in form, when the runs won’t come, don’t wait for someone else to fix it. ‘Beat yuh way out of it.’ Beat your way back in.
Only 24 men in almost 140 years of Test cricket have scored a triple century. But it’s not just a landmark or a badge of honour, a club for the coolest cats with the mightiest bats. It’s an endurance race, a strange form of mental torture, both the ultimate solo mission and a series of vital relationships, some with people you love, some with people you share nothing else with at all.
I’ve always done well against South Africa. I had a golden period from the start of 2004 to the end of 2007 when I averaged 68 against them in Tests and 52 in one-day internationals. Towards the end of that sweet spell I mash them too for the first international T20 century in history.
At the start of the 2005 season none of that was on my mind. I missed the first Test of their tour to the Caribbean over a contract dispute, and that was about as good as it got. In the second Test I made just six and one, the small consolation being that at least it was Makhaya Ntini who got me out both times rather than Andre Nel. And then we go to Barbados for the third Test and Nel gets me for a duck in the first innings, one of four wickets, before taking six more in the second innings. Ntini got me second time around, this time for five, but there could be no consolation, not when Nel had career-best match figures of 10 for 88. Welcome back, Gunther. It’s your day in the sun.
To Antigua for the fourth Test. Nel is out injured, his back playing up, probably as a result of carrying two personalities on it. Sir Gary Sobers is around the West Indies team, and we will sit down and he and I will talk cricket, but there is something else on my mind: my mum is sick, in serious trouble with diabetes and high blood pressure, and I pack my bags to fly home. The team won’t miss me, not when I’ve scored an aggregate of 12 runs in four innings.
Two things happen. I wake up on the morning of the match to a message that Mum is on the mend. Slowly, but there is improvement. She wants me to stay, and in that moment I feel light where there has only been darkness. Then, thinking about family, I remember Michael Crew. ‘Beat yuh way out of it.’
On that compact ground it is a long first day. South Africa bat on, centuries for the openers, Graeme Smith and A. B. de Villiers. The second day is even longer; they bat on and on again, hundreds too for Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince. Not until the third day do they declare, 588 runs on, a whole lot of licks.
I’ve bowled 31 overs, more than all but one of our proper attack. I’ve kept it tight with my darts and gone for only two an over, but the real job is still to come, and when you’ve been in the sun-baked field for two and a half days and then have to go out again and open the batting, your mind can be weary and your reactions just that little bit dulled. And so it is for my opening partner, Wavell Hinds, gone for a golden duck to that man Ntini again. Two and a half days of waiting and gone first ball.
South Africa now crank up the attack even more. The mountain for us to climb is so high you can’t even see the summit. We’re barely in the foothills and we’re a man down, so they wind up some spicy fields and have catchers and men in close all around.
Oh-kay. Don’t stand with your back to the wall or try to run away. Take them on. Beat your way back in.
I hit some balls spicy over point, down to the boundary for four. I slash some balls down to third man. And they still keep the field up and be attacking still, even as I reach my 50 off 34 balls, 42 of the runs in boundaries.
They’re expecting chances. I’m a strolling wicket. They’re defending a mountain. So men stay up attacking, and I keep hitting it over their heads. You play some more shots. It comes on. You start working some balls, flying off through point for four, some balls fly here, some balls fly there. They’re still not changing the field or anything, still hoping I might give them the chance, and by the time they realize it’s too late – I’ve flown past 100, 16 fours, three sixes.
And as I look up at the scoreboard, and down the other end at my partner, Sarwan, I realize my game has come back to me. From nowhere the magic is at my side. I’m dictating where I want to score, when I want to score, all around the wicket, off everything this attack can throw at me. Big up, Michael Crew.
I’m in command, and the aggressive part calms down a bit. I just bat naturally, cruise along and just bat and bat and bat. Lucas and the concrete strip, all over again.
South Africans don’t like to back down. They don’t like to be taken on. The field is kept offensive, and the ball keeps finding the gaps. 150 up, Sarwan to his own slow and steady century, the bowlers toiling toiling, the old nightmares of the preceding Tests forgotten in the dust and heat and rat-a-tat-tat of ball on boundary boards.
Mr Mac was right in so many ways. If you make hundreds, someone is batting with you. Sarwan and I are old comrades, and we love to bat together. We watch each other and give a little advice here and there; our styles mesh, and our pace and personalities complement and comfort. We get together between overs as the minutes turn into hours and the hours into sessions and days, and we plan how we will take this even further.
Batting long is as much about what you do when the ball not coming at you as when it is. The non-striker’s end is your safe place, your opportunity to analyse the bowlers and the field and their body language free of heavier thought. You are in the game but not in the game, more aware of all the detail and nuance around you and able to plot it and plan it as you advance.
The 200 come. Both a wonderful feeling and a weary one. You have been batting for ever, and your body is ringing bells. Your bat feels heavy. You’re not drinking enough water, you’re not eating. You can’t eat, not even in the dressing-room at lunch or at tea, because your appetite has gone. Your body will shut down the need for food when the battle rages on. Afterwards, when it is all done, it will come racing back in with a vengeance. You’ll want to eat everything, pile more and more on your plate. Dyamn me hungry! And you’ll sleep like a king, like a dead man king. But for now you can only pick at your food. You just want to put your feet up and shut your eyes for a while. Maybe a piece of fruit, taste a likkle ting, but no more.
Sarwan goes for 127. Brian Charles Lara comes in and goes for just four. There’s your reminder. Nothing can be taken for granted. There is a match to be saved, there are runs that only you can score.
When you’re at 230, you can feel it. A long way from the start, a long way from a landmark. On even from the 405-stand with Leon Garrick at Montego Bay. You’re trying not to think about triple centuries, even though this is where Lara scored his 375. You’re just batting and batting, just as you’ve always done. Your energy comes from being in the middle.
South Africa are weary. Their earlier hostility and conviction are long since gone. Captain Smith is at first sacrificial, bowling over after over of wobbly spin himself, and then desperate – not only do the batsmen get a bowl, but so does the wicketkeeper, Mark Boucher. You can mock it, but Boucher does enough to get rid of Dwayne Bravo. You can never relax.
250. 494 minutes I’ve been batting now. Aches and pains everywhere, your bat feeling like a railway sleeper. Don’t think about the ice-bath, don’t think about the massage. Watch the ball and let your natural instinct take you there.
Evening on the fourth day. I’ve been involved in almost every over, bowling, standing at first slip, standing tall at the crease. We’ve climbed the mountain, and we’re pushing on to a peak beyond. The total goes past 600, rattles on to 700.
When I am on 298, Smith brings on De Villiers. A part-timer, right-arm military medium, going round the wicket, the ball coming into my legs. A thought: ‘Easy pickings.’ A push square, and there it is.
There is nothing left in my legs but I jump high and punch the sky. Mrs Hazel G, your son sends you best wishes. This work’s for you. Helmet off, bat in the other hand, raise both and let the sweet feelings rush in.
On 317 I get caught at slip. Graeme Smith and his hands there, taking some rest, only one man anywhere in the field in a catching slot now, and the nick goes straight to him and he catch it.
There are no regrets. I haven’t been thinking of all the scores I have been passing, all the records that are within reach. I don’t hunt records. I was just batting, doing what comes naturally, doing what I was born to do and raised doing daily. I wasn’t even thinking about 375. If it comes it comes. That’s how it is.
I am just grateful. There are blisters on my feet and a hunger in my belly, but there is a deep satisfaction too. Critics have said I’m not a Test player. Critics have said I’m too loose, that I’m lazy, that I don’t care. Look at the board now. That’s the first ever lazy loose Test triple century, is it?
You keep that feeling within yourself. You are a gladiator, and you can never show what lies behind the mask. Yet something has changed in you. You realize you have done something marvellous, that you have achieved something most have not. And it bleeds into other areas of your life. You know you’ve passed a brutal examination, and it establishes a deep-rooted confidence inside. When the challenge came, you were ready.
Some players do care about records.
When Brian Lara was out for four in that match, he sat in the dressing-room and read a book. Occasionally he would go out onto the balcony and check the scoreboard, then go back inside. Sarwan was watching him, because he was wondering. And every time Brian came out to see my score getting closer to his record, he looked more and more worried.
When I came in for lunch and tea he didn’t say anything to me. No advice, no ‘Keep it going,’ no ‘Do it for the team.’ When I went back out he would go back to that slow shuttle: read inside on his own for a bit, come out to check my score, look worried.
There was a point in my life when Lara was the only batsman I would watch. The way he scored his runs, that attacking style, a joy to watch when he was on the go. Good hand-speed, so quick, jumping across the crease yet still balanced in every way, able to score wherever he chose. Wearing down bowlers, calculating his innings. He knew who he wanted to score off and when he wanted to score. Which particular bowler to target, which one to take more chances off, which one to avoid. And the dominance and world-beating all came from that.
But he was not my primary inspiration, and he was not my first.
Delroy Morgan. The best opening batsman I think Jamaica has seen. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s because you’ve heard of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes instead. Without that all-time legend partnership, Delroy Morgan is 50 Test matches in and everyone sees what I saw.
When I got in early to Lucas to score the board, it was Delroy and his sweet style that I was going to see. Delroy and my brother Michael Crew, the sweetness and the spice, the rapier and the wrecking-ball. I would sneak out of school early and dash across town to Sabina Park to see him laying waste for Jamaica – blagging a ticket from somewhere, finding my way in through a gap or a ruse or a friendly face on the gate. Always to the same spot, the George Headley Stand, as close as you could get to the team’s dressing-room. The only place to be: a Lucas boy, watching a Lucas man, under the name of a Lucas legend.
I would sit there nervous for him, because I didn’t want him to get out. I wanted him to perform. And when Delroy Morgan performs, the textbook purrs. Textbook for every single shot. High elbow, on-drive the best in the Caribbean. Best cover drive. When he cover drives, oh man! A brilliant fielder in the slips, in at bat-pad, taking catches others might just hope for and some that others could never conceive of. Axe anyone ’bout Delroy Morgan. Unbelievable!
There was a big, big scoreboard at Sabina Park. I used to look at Delroy Morgan’s name on that board, and I’d think: one day. One day I will see my name on that.
And then the day comes when we opened the batting together for Lucas. He gave me a bat to match his – a Gray-Nicolls, a Dynadrive, one of the best bats I’ve ever used, two scoops out of the back, light and powerful. I’m still at school, and I’m playing with Delroy Morgan and his sweet bat. Very little that comes after can match up to that.
In 1999, just as my international career was about to start, we were part of the Lucas team that won the Senior Cup. In the final match of the season, against Leon Garrick’s Middlesex team, Delroy hit 112 and I took four wickets. When they followed on, I got rid of Leon in the best way possible. Garrick, caught Morgan, bowled Gayle.
Later I would start to watch a bit of television, and I would notice Brian and his flamboyance. But only after Delroy Morgan.
There were other role models and heroes. Walter Boyd, the former Jamaica striker, a maverick and a magician. Dwight Yorke, because he was representing the Caribbean across the world. Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman.
There was a window when basketball went big in Jamaica, and despite Kingston-born Pat Ewing being the man at the Knicks, it was the Bulls who rocked our worlds. When the NBA finals were on you would come home from school and pile to whoever’s house had the TV and the access. I loved how Rodman looked and I loved how he operated on the court, totally different to anyone else. Worm, him up in yuh face! And I loved Jordan, not just for the success but for the way he went about playing. Taking over a game, winning it at the death, winning Game Five of the ’97 finals sick as a lame dog, having the confidence in himself to deliver and the character to always come through. I watched a documentary where he said, ‘Lissen man, I can shoot a free throw with my eyes closed.’ And he did. Doing things only he could get away with, doing things that no one else would even try.
And so it was different with Brian Charles Lara. I’m proud that I played 52 of my 103 Test matches with him. I salute his skills. When I got the call to go to Toronto for my West Indies debut and suddenly you’re in a dressing-room a few pegs down from B. C. Lara, it’s another something special to lock away inside.
But he was different. He was moody. I never sat down and talked cricket with him, partly because I’m just a quiet person at times, just laid back and happy to observe, but also because you never knew what to expect from him. Sometimes you tell him good morning and you don’t even get a reply. Some people put him on a pedestal. For sure he had done his thing to be recognized, and you had to give him credit. Yet I didn’t believe we should accept it was just the way he was; I just thought, fine, you just don’t get another good morning from me. Leave him to it. Most people don’t interfere with him, and he’ll just have his own way. He go left, you just go right. As simple as it is.
He got crazy amounts of attention. Everybody came to see Lara. He was the one selling tickets, and you could understand it. On the pitch he could do crazy things; when he scored his 400, I batted with him for a while, and it was fun.
I’m pleased for him. But you have to look after your own performance, so my main memory of that day was that I got out for 69. There was a century there waiting for me, trust me. I got out just before lunch, so I was scoring quickly, almost a run a ball. Caught and bowled. And that’s one of the worst ways to get out.
Lara’s motivation came from chasing records. Jordan’s came from refusing to accept defeat. Rodman was at war with authority, Michael Crew at war with the world.
You take it where you can. Some take it from rivalries. Me against you, my strength against yours. I’m not a man who likes to get angry. I don’t like to hold a grudge. Jus’ breathe. Breathe an’ let the stress an’ anger go.
I’m not a man to have rivals. But I’m from Rollington Town. If you say something to me, then it’s my turn to say something back. I’m not going to stop. And what I say will hurt you. Be prepared to get what you give.
The semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy against Australia. October 2006, Mumbai. Batting first, we are in trouble at 63-4. Then in comes Runako Morton, my mad bad Morton, and his unbeaten 90 rescues us to 234.
Still, Australia are cruising in reply. Adam Gilchrist’s flaying it. I come on to bowl to Michael Clarke, and suddenly he decides he wants to spark a fire.
‘Lara’s been speaking to me. He thinks you’re an idiot. He hates having you in the team.’
Now Clarke likes his aggressive chat. Remember him to James Anderson in the Ashes of 2013/14: ‘Get ready for a fuckin’ broken arm.’ But usually the Aussies keep their sledging for other nations. They know not to cross the West Indies’ path. Because we don’t take that bullshit.
They became world-beaters, so they feel high and mighty. So that’s how they’re going to try to come across. But they couldn’t dream of coming up like we did, of going through what we’ve been through. South Sydney is not east Kingston. They might be rude but they ain’t tough, I can tell you that. And whether us West Indians are the number one team or the lowest-ranked team, we’re just not going to take your bullshit. Nah gonna tolerate it. Straight. It doesn’t matter who. And they know it.
So I start giving it back to Clarke. Up in his face an’ every ting like dat.
Andrew Symonds starts giving it to me too. Now that’s fine, because I used to love giving it to him, give him talks and barbs. In his team he feels like the tough guy, because he’s from the Queensland sticks and he fancies himself as a hunter. Well, he ain’t tougher dan me, know whatta mean? He might chase a wild pig or a wild animal somewhere, but we chase other things. He hunts animals, we hunt something better looking.
So now the umpires come over, telling me I cyaan do this, I cyaan do that. But I’m not stopping. They started it, let me finish it then.
Now I get Andrew Symonds out, clean bowled for a slow and dull 18. Clarke’s still in there. The ball goes to short extra cover off my bowling, I sprint over, pick it up and throw it at his head, and it goes over the keeper and away for four more runs. Aaaall happenin’ out dere! He’s laughing and whooping, but the aggression and the battle has totally changed the whole entire energy on the pitch. Lara has gone off the field and Sarwan taken over as skipper, and it’s like we’re a different team.
We’re not going to take your bullshit. Wavell and I run out Adam Gilchrist, and then Dwayne Bravo gets Clarke caught and bowled, and then Jerome Taylor comes charging in with fire in his eyes and smoke coming from his ears and cleans out the three last standing, bowled, bowled, lbw. A game that was lost has been saved, and we let them know, we let them know in a way they can’t miss it. Everybody jumpin’ up in dem face an’ dis an’ dat.
I was the only one who got fined in the aftermath. Thirty per cent of my match fee, which was both ridiculous and harsh, because I wasn’t the one who started it. But such is life, huh? I say some stuff you cyaan even repeat. And I won the battle, even if I lost the pocket.
So you can see why I never really get sledged. I just love to play against the top teams – South Africa, England, Australia – and when I started, those were the ones I wanted to beat ball. Sometime I would get carried away and fall in a trap because I wanted so badly to beat the best. But you have to put these boys under the pump. Put the batsmen under. Put the bowlers under. Get two batsmen going berserk, and they will crumble.
And don’t mess with West Indians.
The T20 World Cup in 2014. Australia again, and this time it’s James Faulkner making a fool comment. Don’t say you don’t like West Indians, not any time, and definitely not the day before you’re meeting them on the cricket pitch. Our whole team is sparked up, our whole team breathing fire.
They bat first and make 178. Faulkner goes for a slow 13, but the bad luck hasn’t started yet. I open with Dwayne Smith, and off the first 14 balls I face I mash them for 40. On to 53 before holing out to deep midwicket, and then the baton passes to Dwayne Bravo and captain Darren Sammy. Runs come but so do overs pass, until 12 are needed off the final six balls. And who’s to bowl? James Faulkner . . .
Sammy on strike. First ball, dot. Second ball, dot. Twelve needed off four. Faulkner’s going to be the hero.
Until he bowls a full toss, which Sammy sends over long-on for six. And then another in the slot, which Sammy slams over the same spot and way, way back.
As the ball sails I run out onto the field, punching the air, punching the sky, jumping up an’ all sort, everybody celebrating, everybody up in their faces. Bravo and me together, rocking the Gangnam dance, but an angry Gangnam, a gangsta Gangnam.
I tweeted afterwards. ‘When you come to shoot – shoot, Don’t TALK!’ Kieron Pollard followed up. ‘Chat too much! Talk . . . nah! Faulk . . . nah!’
A few months later I was chatting about it all with their captain, George Bailey. And he said, ‘When I saw you running onto the field, I thought you were going to fight us! If you could have seen the look in your eyes . . .’
A sweet victory, a sweet sweet victory. And all because Faulkner gave us that spark.
So remember. Don’t play hard with men harder than you. The only hard that’s going to help you is work.
And if you feel that anger, let it go. Breathe and let the stress and anger go. You can’t live in the darkness.