Charlie Griffith: The Bajan Express

The name C.C. Griffith doesn't often figure among hypothetical alltime World Elevens, the latest of which has been Sir Donald Bradman's strange posthumous collection.

But there is a generation of cricketers who can attest that there was no more aggressive, fearsome and effective fast bowler than Charlie Griffith at the peak of his powers.

Memories of Griff in his heyday, mostly unpleasant ones for those who had to face him in club, first-class or Test cricket, are being stirred this week as Empire Club, which he has served as player and administrator with such distinction, stage a week of celebration in his honour.

It is called simply A Salute To Excellence, for Griffith's achievements extend beyond the boundary. If he is a serious individual with an inherent wariness of all but those closest to him, it is hardly surprising after a career in which he was constantly hounded as a thrower, but only once ever called. And it certainly did not turn him away from the game he loves.

He has been president of Empire, vice-president of the Barbados Cricket Association (recently appointed for life), chairman of selectors and a member of the West Indies Cricket Board.

When the Barbados Cricket League (BCL), where he first played competitive cricket in his native St Lucy, was brought into the BCA's Division 1 competition in 1971, Griffith was made their captain. His job was to see them through their difficult initiation but he didn't see it that way and almost immediately led the BCL to the Cup.

By then, his best days had passed but, for a period in the early 1960s, there was no more feared bowler on the planet.

At a time when Barbados cricket was at its strongest, cricketers with considerable reputations, some even at Test level, were known to deliberately plan their holidays over the three weekends of the Empire match to avoid Griffith.

Close relatives would suddenly be buried on the Saturday afternoon when Empire were bowling. One West Indies player actually refused to take singles that would carry him to the opposite end to confront Griffith. A club No.11 once deliberately cut down his stumps rather than going through the purgatory.

The venue, after all, was Bank Hall with its grease-lightning pitches, its short boundaries, with no sightscreen and Griff starting his run from almost within the crowd. And these were the days before helmets and chest guards.

Soon batsmen in territorial and Test cricket would come to understand how devastating Griffith could be, even if the enviroments were somewhat less intimidating than Bank Hall.

In his debut match for Barbados against the MCC over the 1959-60 new year period, he despatched five of the finest of all English batsmen, Colin Cowdrey, Mike Smith, Peter May, Ken Barrington and Ted Dexter, in quick succession. On his first tour with the West Indies, to England in 1963, when he first teamed up with his pace partner and eternal friend, Wes Hall, his returns were such as to be now barely credible 119 wickets in all first-class matches at an average of 12.83, 32 wickets in the five Tests at 16.21. In his first season in the Lancashire League the following year, his record 144 wickets for Burnley were taken at 5.3 runs each read that again, 5.3 runs each.

So what was it that made Griffith so terrifying and so successful?

His strength, stamina and physique were clearly attributes. But it took constant practice and meticulous attention to fitness to develop the accuracy of a bouncer of almost perpendicular lift and its complementary delivery, the yorker, sent down at genuine, if not express, pace.

There were those in the opposition who believed there was another element to Griffith's mastery an illegal action. Several former and contemporary English and Australian players publicly accused him of throwing. Others did so privately. The Australians in the Caribbean in 1965 became paranoid about it.

As early as that 1963 tour, Wisden, the game's bible, was perceptively describing Griffith as deeply sensitive.

The chucking charge, the most damning in cricket before Hansie Cronje admitted to fiddling with the game for money, clearly affected him as did the racial hate mail he and Hall received on that tour.

That Nari Contractor, the Indian captain, almost died after he was struck in the head by a Griffith delivery at Kensington on the same day in 1962 he was called for throwing by Cortez Jordan was another incident that would have troubled most 23-year-olds.

He also played the game hard and to win. It did not gain him many friends but it did win his team matches.

Barbados has been lucky with the quality of its cricketers over the years and with the input they have made into the game's development once their playing days are over.

This week, Empire Club are saying thank you to one such player who would not have heard those two words much when he was instilling the fear of God into the poor batsmen 22 yards away.