Curtly Ambrose – A true giant of cricket
“Never a great swinger of the ball, he compensates with a smooth, leggy run-up, fast arm action and accuracy. Like Joel Garner, he possesses a lethal yorker and a nasty bouncer, but his career-best eight for 45 against hapless England at Bridgetown in 1990 owed everything to the virtues of speed and straightness.” – Tribute paid to Curtly Ambrose by Wisden.
The West Indies have a rich history of regularly producing a big crop of quality and successful fast bowlers. While the other countries have often struggled to have a potent fast bowling strike force, the West Indies instead invariably had almost double the pace strength.
And then, suddenly, the era of nasty and quick West Indian fast bowlers seemed to come to an end, and the team appeared to lose their way after dominating world cricket for ages. But it wasn’t long before a devastating fast bowler in form of the 6’7” Curtly Ambrose was discovered, who formed a deadly partnership with Courtney Walsh to continue the tradition of rich fast bowling in the team.
Born on September 21, 1963 at Swetes Village in Antigua, Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose didn’t really like cricket as a boy, and preferred to play basketball and football. He used to feel that a cricket match’s duration was too long and the sport took up a lot of energy, and hence tried to avoid the game.
He began by playing tennis ball cricket for leisure at the Antigua beach with his friends, and was later pressed by peers to play for his school and village teams. Looking at his performances, people believed he had the potential to play the proper version of cricket where he could exploit his tall height.
His first game was for Swetes in the national league in 1984, at the age of 21, which according to many would be considered a late start. Ambrose gave it his best shot, and his impressive performances meant that he was fast tracked to the Antigua and Barbuda team in 1985. In 1986, he was picked for the Leeward Islands side, where he found a place in the team alongside West Indian stalwarts like Viv Richards, Richie Richardson and Eldine Baptiste.
Ambrose missed most of the 1987 season for Leewards as the team’s fast bowling department included West Indies players like Baptiste, Winston Benjamin, Anthony Merrick and George Ferris. He finally got his chance in 1988, when Baptiste and Benjamin were away on national duty, and Ambrose made the most of the opening he got.
In 1988, Ambrose found a place in the West Indies team to play a visiting Pakistan side, to replace Joel Garner who had just retired. He made his debut in the Test at Georgetown, which turned out to be the first test in a decade which West Indies lost at home. It wasn’t a great start to Ambrose’s career, in a game where he managed to grab just 2 wickets. But he didn’t lost heart and later described his experience.
“It was a great experience playing for the best team in the world alongside great men like Captain Viv Richards, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge Malcolm Marshall and Courtney Walsh. Maco was the top bowler in the world at that time and Courtney Walsh was making a name for himself so I didn’t want to be the weak link, therefore I had to learn very fast. I was known as the “other guy” amongst those world-beating bowlers and it forced me to improve quickly. I learned a lot from Maco and Walsh who were really helpful in getting me to adjust to International cricket.”