Gordon Greenidge

Brooding and massively destructive, the power of Gordon Greenidge's strokeplay on any given day appeared to bear a direct relationship to the degree that he limped when running between the wickets. In such a mood he didn't run much anyway and his brutal unbeaten 214 at Lord's in 1984, to set up a nine-wicket win after England had had the temerity to declare, is considered one of the great innings. He was a superb technician, who learned solid defensive techniques on the pudding pitches of his childhood in England and then allied them to an uninhibited Caribbean heritage. Attacking was in his genes. Never in the game has there been a more withering and dismissive square-cut, nor a more willing and able hooker and puller, but he drove mightily too on both sides of the wicket. With Desmond Haynes he formed what was by a distance the most enduring and prolific opening partnership of them all, with 16 century stands, four of them in excess of 200. And they were just the hors d'oeuvres.
Cricinfo staff