'We went around the country and said Barry Richards is easy'

It took Ali Bacher just one summer to discover the man he regards as the "most complete all-round batsman I've seen" - Barry Richards.

"It was the 1966-67 season and Transvaal were playing Natal on Boxing Day. Don Mackay-Coghill was bowling and Barry was facing. On the fourth ball of the over I stopped the game, called Cogs over and said, 'I want you to bowl on his leg stump and I am putting a leg-side field.

"Barry was such a correct player that I felt if he had a left-arm inswing, we might nab him at leg gully. But when I did that, I could see Barry was sniggering. He was laughing at us. Anyway, Cogs ran in to bowl a beautiful ball. Barry hit it to leg gully and was out. So that season we went around the country and we said to people that Barry Richards was easy - just put a leg-side field and out he goes.

"Then we went for the return game at Kingsmead. Natal bat first and Cogs was to bowl. Barry was taking strike. I was at leg gully and Cogs wasn't bowling, so I shouted at him to ask what the problem was, and Cogs said, 'Look where he is standing'. Barry was standing a foot outside leg stump. I shouted to Cogs to just bowl even though the stumps were open. That day Barry got about 150."

Richards is one of 14 batsmen featured in Bacher's new book South Africa's Greatest Batsmen Past and Present . At its launch in Cape Town, Bacher swapped anecdotes with Richards, Robin Jackman, the former England medium-pacer who played a lot of domestic cricket against Richards, and Gary Kirsten, also in the book.

In 1966-67, Bacher was the man blocking Richards' way into the South African Test team that took on Australia. "That greatest achievement as a batsman is that I kept Barry out for a whole season." But that would not last. Three years later, when the Australians returned, Richards was in the squad and selected for the first Test at Newlands.

"I was obviously very nervous, but it was also all very exciting, especially when Ali won the toss and we were going to bat," Richards said. "I was opening with Trevor Goddard, who I played with at club level, so I thought a few encouraging words would be nice on the way out. Trevor turned to me and asked, 'Are you nervous?' and I said, 'I'm shitting myself,' and he said, 'It doesn't get any better'."

But for Richards it did. He was the second-highest run scorer in the series, only nine behind Graeme Pollock, and the only member of the South African squad who could figure out how to play mystery spinner John Gleeson.

"After the first day's play of the first Test, we had a meeting to try and work out how to play this chap," Bacher remembered. "Barry had never played him and that night he explained that we had to watch his fingers. 'When he runs up and you can see a lot of fingers over the ball, that's legspin, and when he runs up and you can see the thumb, the forefinger and the ball, that's his offbreak,' Barry told us. After that all the players, including Graeme Pollock, still played him from the crease. We were nervous, but Barry used to go down the track to him. Gleeson got 19 wickets in that series but he never got Barry out."

Jackman was a bowler who did better against Richards, dismissing him more times than anyone else -16 in 25 first-class matches - but he remains modest about the achievement. "Let me tell you, it went: Richards caught du Preez bowled Jackman, 176, Richards bowled Jackman 125... I could carry on but you can see what it was: I just bowled a lot," Jackman said.

"I played against him more than I played against anybody in the world and I bowled a lot of overs, so there was going to come a time when, with a bit of luck, I would get him out. And most of the time, he had already got a hundred."

At least Jackman was not subjected to what Dennis Lillee and Graham McKenzie went through at the WACA, where Richards scored 325 in a single day for South Australia.

"Graham McKenzie bowled me an offspinner at first," Richards recalled. "I had a little feel and I missed it, and the little fat fellow behind called Rodney Marsh turned to John Inverarity and said, 'I thought you told me this bloke could play,'. Invers, being a studious man, never said a word until the last ball of the day, which Lillee bowled with the second new ball. I hit it to the sightscreen and as I was walking away, Invers slid up to Rod Marsh and said, 'I think he can'."

Bacher also spoke warmly of the two batsmen from the current South African side who made it into his book.

"Last December I organised to interview AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla in Johannesburg. We had fantastic interviews and I was so impressed with both of them. When I got home, I sent them SMSes to thank them, adding, 'Please don't reply, no need to'. Both replied right away. They are such wonderful people. This country is fortunate to have them, they are such special people."

Bacher said de Villiers is "the most innovative batsman I have ever seen". "When I interviewed Lance Klusener two years ago for my book on allrounders, we spoke about how, in 1998, when he had a knee injury, he had nothing to do in Durban, so he went and faced millions of balls, aiming to hit sixes. Then when the World Cup came in 1999, he could close his eyes and hit sixes.

"So when I interviewed AB this time I told him that story and I asked him, 'All those shots you play, I assume you practise in the nets?' He told me he doesn't. He goes in [to bat in a match], he gets a feel, he looks around, the bloke runs up to bowl and then it's instinct. He is a genius."

Kirsten confirmed de Villiers' instinctive approach to the game, contrasting it with Amla's. "AB is not a big hitter of the ball. He is a supreme talent. He hits a couple of balls in the nets and has a few throws and he is out of there in an hour. It's a high-quality hour and he practises properly, which I really enjoy watching," Kirsten said.

"But Hashim is the opposite. He will have his pads on for two hours to prepare for a Test if it's the next day. I love the way he ends the net. He walks around with a bag of golf balls and a stump and he gets one of the coaches to throw the golf balls, of which they are about 30, at full pace from 16 yards. When he feels he is hitting it in the middle of the stump, he finishes his net. It's amazing to watch how these guys do things differently and have the same amount of success."

Bacher hopes his book will celebrate all those types of success.