London - Both Brian Lara and Sir Viv Richards yesterday urged Curtly
Ambrose and Courtney Walsh to keep on bowling through the West Indies
tour to Australia later this year.
It was as much an acknowledgement of the remarkable durability of the
two veteran fast bowlers as concern over the lack of consistency from
their support cast. The gap between them was never more starkly
evident that in the second Test the West Indies lost at Lord's on
Saturday by two wickets in three days to level the series 1-1.
While Walsh had match figures of ten for 117 from 40.5 overs and
Ambrose five for 52 from 36 overs, Franklyn Rose's solitary wicket
cost him 99 from 23 overs and Reon King's 41 from 18 overs.
Writing in his weekly column in a Sunday newspapers, Lara noted that
the 36-year-old Ambrose had stated before the team left the Caribbean
that he would retire at the end of the current England tour. He
pleaded with him to 'think again'.
'Of course, the final decision is up to him, he will know best,' the
former captain added. 'But I am sure I speak for everyone in the West
Indies dressing room when I say we want him to go on for as long as
possible.'
Lara conceded that the West Indies needed the young bowlers to come
through, but he observed that the way Ambrose and 37-year-old Courtney
Walsh are performing, 'age means nothing'.
The sentiments were echoed by Richards, another former West Indies
captain and star batsman.
Commenting of BBC's Test Match Special, where he is one of the
analysts, Richards said: 'If I had anything to do with it, I would be
going down on my knees and asking Curtly and Courtney to go to
Australia.'
'They have the experience, they are bowling as well as ever and keep
fit,' he added. 'We need them and we should try to keep them playing.'
Lara noted that, unlike Ambrose, Walsh had set no time limit on his
career and that it was 'a probability rather than a possibility' that
he would carry his record number of Test wickets past 500 in
Australia. He now has 467.
Lara revealed that Ambrose was hinting at a change of mind.
'Intriguingly, even during this series, Curtly has talked with obvious
relish and almost every day about the prospect of bowling during the
first session in a Test in Brisbane and about the carry he gets to the
wicket-keeper in Perth,' he wrote.
Walsh started his Test career in 1984 under Clive Lloyd's captaincy.
He became Test cricket's leading wicket-taker in the second Test
against Zimbabwe in his native Kingston last March and has claimed at
least five wickets in an innings in each of the last four of his 119
Tests.
The first of Ambrose's 95 Tests was in Georgetown against Pakistan in
1988, under Richards' captaincy.
His five wickets in the Lord's Test carried his overall count to 394.