Charlie Griffith

Charlie Griffith, then 21, had played just one first-class game, against the visiting MCC team, when he was called up to the West Indies Test squad in 1960. The wickets of Colin Cowdrey, Peter May, Ken Barrington, Ted Dexter and Mike 'MJK' Smith (twice) can do that. So his second first-class match was a Test against England in Port of Spain, in March 1960. He got just one wicket there, but that was where one of the great fast-bowling partnerships was born - Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith.

"Ben Hoyos, the honorary secretary of the Barbados Cricket Association, came to my house on a Tuesday evening late in March and gave me the news," Griffith told the Barbados Nation in an interview in 1998. "He asked me if I was ready and I said 'yes!', but it only dawned on me later what I was getting myself into."

Griffith, the article mentions, had not played competitively for three months and was not match fit. According to him, he was a bit overweight and was not as focused as he had hoped.

And Griffith had to wait till June 1963 to play his second Test. In between came the much-talked-about incident when a Griffith bouncer smashed India batter Nari Contractor's skull. It was around that time that the first murmurs about his action being, possibly, illegal started doing the rounds.

He returned to Test cricket not long after. Alongside Hall, of course. And in the second Test of that series in England, the world saw what Griffith could do, as he knocked over Mickey Stewart and John Edrich to leave England at 20 for 2, and then added the wicket of Brian Close on his way to returns of 5 for 91. His match haul was 8 for 150. It was a pretty spectacular series for Griffith on the whole, as he ended with 32 wickets in five Tests, second on the series table, behind Fred Trueman's 34. In 1964, he was one of Wisden's cricketers of the year.

That kickstarted a career full of controversy where, in 28 Tests - the last one came in 1969 - he bowled with extreme pace and hostility to pick up 94 wickets.

Pretty much throughout his career, Griffith's bowling action was questioned. Speaking about it, Alf Gover told the Cricketer, "There has never been any doubt in my mind that he throws both his bouncer and his yorker, though I should say at once that I think that his normal delivery is perfectly fair. In my opinion, he was very lucky not to be called for throwing when the West Indies toured England in 1963."

No wonder Griffith called his autobiography Chucked Around, even though he was no-balled only twice in his career for it. Once during the game where he knocked Contractor out, and later in 1966, during a tour game against Lancashire.

The other thing that put Griffith under the scanner was something that continues to put bowlers under the scanner, more than half a century on. Running out the non-striker backing up - called 'Mankading' at the time Griffith was playing.

Writing in ESPNcricinfo in February 2016 after Keemo Paul had made headlines for effecting a dismissal of the sort at the Under-19 World Cup, Tony Cozier noted, "There can be no question over what Charlie Griffith's response would have been in such circumstances. A fierce, no-nonsense competitor, he had no compassion for dozy batsmen."

And as Cozier reminded us, "[Griffith] despatched Trinidad and Tobago left-hander Alvin Corneal in a regional match in 1964, and Australia's Ian Redpath in the Adelaide Test of 1968-69. As Australia sought quick runs pursuing 360, Redpath absent-mindedly went walkabout down the pitch when Griffith cut him short. Australia ended 21 short of their goal with nine wickets down."

The legality (or lack thereof) of his action has been discussed threadbare over the years, even by people who never saw him bowl, but, getting past that, was he good?

"You could almost put one hand in your pocket and play him," Close said once, "and then suddenly one would come at you four yards quicker."

Okay, so he was fast. What else?

Well, not many people have put together their dream Barbados XIs without Griffith in them. Like Desmond Haynes. Whose four fast bowlers were Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Hall and Griffith. Fortunately, Haynes didn't have to decide which of them would share the new ball.
By Shamya Dasgupta