Three years ago, the Great Curly Ambrose was part of an elite clique of cricketers who travelled to the United States forming a ‘starry bandwagon’ in a bid to promote the sport in a land obsessed with Baseball.
To be honest, it made for a funny and appalling sight to see Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose being plummeted for runs. He bowled poorly. He gave away lollies in the form of full-tosses that were whipped with the same ease as required by an Ice-cream vendor to whip a slice of vanilla from the box to be mounted on a cone.
And in the end, Ambrose leaking runs with Kallis and Hayden slicing him into shreds in a baseball stadium seemed as bizarre a sight as is the phenomenon of seeing Ambrose’ once-mighty Windies lurking at the bottom of ICC rankings.
This wasn’t the Great Curtly Ambrose we’d known
Of course, how would he be that man, at 52?
But if you were a purist, someone who still reminisces the age that salute Tests in stark contrast to what now seems a generation spurred by T20s, you’d have wished to put on a time-travelling glass in a bid to remember the sepia-tinted memories of a bygone era.
You’d then have clearly visited the many spectacles where true to his dexterity with the guitar and his feel for rhythm, the Great Curtly Ambrose produced chin-music, often to the chagrin of batsmen.
You’d be compelled to stay unmoved in hailing a time where many summers ago, regardless of who he came against- whether the imposing Aussies of the 90s; a league including Langer, Slater, Waugh Brothers, Ponting, or a legion of talent such as Sachin, Dravid, Anwar, Kallis, Thorpe, Atherton, Flower- Curtly Ambrose embodied the brutal bowler he’d eventually be relished as.
In fact, in his massive hands, the red ball appeared a tiny cherry with which he’d often ping-pong with the batsmen’s minds; picking holes in their techniques, probing their confidence, annoying them with his nagging accuracy and when doing none of it, he’d simply throw down an angry stare.
Blasting batsmen at will
Akin to the sweet pleasure a kid derives whilst playing ‘statue’ with mates, batsmen seemed frozen in time; the ground beneath their feat shrinking when Ambrose, upon delivering a scud-missile, would walk down a few steps, coming closer to the batter.
The man responsible for 630 international wickets was at his best, a mean adjective of his own name; he was curt, he seemed angry and oscillated between stone-cold and hot-headedness in a way that only he could have. But in the same instance of being a nightmare for everyone including Steven Waugh, Dean Jones, Rahul Dravid, he was a national treasure for the Caribbean.
Yet, in doing all of it, he seemed sagely aloof from engaging in banter or vocal abuse of the men who his mean bouncers and deliveries thrust with raw pace defied. Make no mistake, there were batsmen who found the sweet spot of their bat against Curtly’s flighted deliveries, that on occasions, visited the grandstands in a Sabina Park as also in Gwalior with Inzamam and Kambli making light work of a true heavyweight of the game.
But beyond that Curtly drew strength from a character of his personality that, whether you know or not, underlined his game: Discipline. A quiet, reserved man off the field who’d be found waking up early for a job or a light stroll, to being profusely lost with the guitar in his hand, Curtly could be spotted in any Antiguan Reggae bar today displaying passion and discipline of the kind he brought on on the popping crease; hitting the deck hard, provocating batsmen with pace and, never missing out on a single practice session.
Yet, a question lingers on. In our great and just admiration of Glenn McGrath, one of Curtly’s great contemporaries, did we somewhere underscore Ambrose’ painfully-correct tedium of sticking to the line of length? To be honest to this age where cricket is often demeaned by virtue of 5-dayers becoming 3-dayers, results often announcing themselves on the ace, even back in those days Test games would face a truncated run.
But that was because of men like Curtly
An evidence of how incorruptible to his own craft he really was, no citation of King Curtly can be rendered complete without visiting Perth in 1993 and what happened between Jan 30 to February 1.
In a matter of 3 days, Ambrose made a 5-dayer into a 3-dayer contest, striking a 7-for. He’d concede just 25 runs.
Ambrose was part of a generation that played fantastic cricket and played it fairly. Not an awful lot was left as choicest expressions picked up on the middle stump camera.
Players didn’t wage a middle finger to the crowds. Rivalries didn’t create enemies and television content didn’t succumb to a social-media driven vernacular, such as ‘Frenemies.’Â Fierce cricket was restricted to an intense provocation waged by the ball against the might of the bat.
It was simple: he who dares would win.
More often than not, it was Curtly Ambrose
Curtly dared Tendulkar and Dravid at Barbados in 1998 when Windies had a roar and India’s was a meow, at the most in the form of 83 all-out. Curtly played ‘agent provocateur’ to Kirsten, Cullinan and, Jadeja whose stumps he sent packing in the sub-continental World Cup in 1996.
It doesn’t mean that he was a saint or had no altercations on the pitch.
Steve Waugh to this day, needs to thank Richie Richardson for saving some of that face and preventing its distortion that might have resulted in a vicious blow had Ambrose was nearly about to strike.
But Australians didn’t learn. Did they?
In telling Ambrose to remove his white wristbands, cricket might never have heard from ‘Professor Deano’, had even one of Ambrose’ rip-roaring bouncers met his head, often too large for his shoulders.
But we often remain glued to Ambrose’s feats and forget the effort behind. Ambrose, it’s hardly known, opted for cricket over basketball, that happened to be his true love. He allied pace and bounce but reserved a love for the latter, by bowling from the sun to sun-downers practising on beach cricket.
He could make the ball bounce on mud, even if so fractionally
He’d gnaw at Lara in the nets, and force Chanderpaul to duck for cover.
For a man who lost so many of his farmland in a wild-fire a few years ago and thus, a part of life that was for him of heritage-value, Ambrose’s greatest successes came at the behest of keeping things simple and uncomplicated.
His physicality and that intimidation stemmed from a love for the game that was so supreme that the current West Indies bowlers should regularly pay him a visit to unlearn a lot they often pick in the wake of personifying a ‘cool Calypso brigade of swag’ when at its heart, West Indian cricket is still bleeding for a revival.
King Curtly at a glance
98 Tests– 405 wickets- 6000 maiden deliveries- 22 five-wicket-hauls- best bowling of 8/45
176 ODIs– 225 wickets- 4 five-wicket-hauls, best bowling of 5 for 17, 4 four-wicket-hauls.