Curtly Ambrose - The Ultimate Bowling Machine

Immaculate line and length, speed fast enough to make the best of the batsmen hop around, height to gain that extra bit of bounce on the most placid of wickets, and a stare that sent a chill down any batsman's spine - that is what comes to one's mind when one hears the name Curtly Ambrose. Everything about this bowler from the small island of Antigua was big. A height of 6ft. 7 in. with long stilt like legs, long arms, humongous hands which made the cricket ball in his hand look like a ping pong ball, big staring eyes and yes the big lips than made one think what would they look like when they would be swollen!!!

With all the attributes for being a fast bowler, it wasn't cricket that Curtly loved as a sport when he was a young boy. In fact, he never loved cricket, quite an astonishing fact given the dominance of West Indies in the world of cricket at the time. He loved basketball and football. Despite the fact that he did not like the game, the physical attributes that he possessed were too obvious to be ignored and fortunately for us, he was forced by his village to play for his school. He played his first serious (with actual cricket ball and not a tennis ball) game at the age of 21 !!! Which by today's standards, is almost the age by which bowlers in India have represented their state (if not the country) in more than 50 matches! Fortunately, Curtly took it as a matter of pride to excel in whatever he did and as a result he took to cricket as a pure profession and aimed to be at the top of it. He quickly made his way up through the ranks, from representing his village in 1984, to representing the Antigua and Barbuda XI in 1985, and then making it to the Leeward Islands XI, playing alongside some of the biggest names in the West Indies; Viv Richards and Richie Richardson. He had a rocketing start to his career and was soon able to break through into the West Indies team in 1988. He was now in the team that had the famous fast bowling attack headed by Malcolm Marshall, who was joined by another upcoming bowler at that time - Courtney Walsh, with whom Curtly would form a formidable pair for the next decade.

Any young bowler would have struggled to keep up with the pressure of being a West Indian fast bowler and the reputation that was associated with it. But Curtly took it as a challenge, of not being the weakest link in the West Indian bowling attack. He was a quick learner and acquired as much as he could by watching and speaking with Marshall and Walsh. He honed his skills under their watchful eyes and soon acquired the skill of bowling the nagging line and length to the batsmen that he later became famous for. His desire to be on the top of his profession made him the most aggressive and meanest of fast bowlers to have ever represented the West Indies. His duals with the Waugh brothers are legendary, specially the one with Steve Waugh, where both the players were seen eyeballing each other only to have Richie Richardson, the then West Indian captain and a good friend of Curtly, to drag him away to prevent any mishap. Steve Waugh has later mentioned about the incident in his autobiography stating that it was one of the biggest mistakes he had ever made on a cricket field and for a moment feared for his life. He also went on to say that Ambrose was the best fast bowler he had ever faced.

One of the defining moments of his career was the spell of 7 for 1 (Yes, its 7 wickets for 1 run !!!) that he bowled at the WACA (Perth) against the Aussies. He had not bowled well in the morning session and knowing the fact that his team relied on him for a comeback, he bowled the devastating spell after the lunch. Aussies were all out for 119 and the Windies went on to win the game by an innings inside 3 days. Another of his many outstanding performances was his effort of 8-45 against England in Barbados, where the Windies were trailing 0-1 in the series. The effort won them the test and helped them to carry the momentum into the final test to win by an innings and keeping their record of not losing a series to England in the West Indies intact. There was also the unforgettable demolition of England at Trinidad in 1993-94 where he took 6-24 to skittle England out for 46, the lowest total in the history of test cricket at the time. He always enjoyed bowling against England and also against the Aussie in Australia. He never lost a test match playing at the WACA, Windies won them all when he played !!!

There was also another incident that comes to the memory, an ODI between Aussies and the West Indies, where Dean Jones asked Curtly Ambrose to remove his white wrist bands, as he claimed, were making it difficult for him to spot the white ball coming out of Curtly's hand. Curtly had to, unwillingly, remove them and replace them with red ones. This angered the giant and he bowled one of his fastest spells in ODIs, Jones was lucky enough not to have faced him as he got out early to another bowler, but his teammates were cussing him for what he had brought upon them. Curtly was not only aggressive and mean but was also a very clever bowler, as was seen when he bowled a slower ball without any change in his action to clean up Ian Healy in an ODI. Healy was so undone by the change in pace that he was already through with his pre-determined hoick over midwicket before the ball reached him and was clean bowled. He was so embarrassed that he could only afford a smile and watch Ambrose laugh his guts out as he enjoyed it to the hilt. Another of his trademarks was his celebration after getting a wicket. The hand jiving wicket celebration, with his wrists twisted to make them look like wings of a dove and the high fives with all his team members.

Curtly had done it all, but the only regret that he had when he retired was not having won a World Cup, he came very close to realizing that dream in the 1996 World Cup in the Sub-continent where they suffered a heart breaking loss to Australia in the Semi Finals at Mohali, by 5 runs. He finally retired at the age of 37, on September 4, 2000 playing his last test against England at the Oval. He finished with the tally of 405 wickets in 85 tests with an astonishing average of 20.99 and 225 wickets in 176 ODIs with an average of 24.12 and a mean economy rate of 3.48 runs per over.

He has now started a musical band with one of his best friends and former West Indies captain Richie Richardson where he plays the bass guitar. He does not follow cricket diligently but manages to watch a game or two once in a while.

My favorite fast bowler, the mean bowling machine and professionalism personified - Curtly Ambrose.