BEHIND THE WALSH

 

HE WANTED TO BE A PASTOR

 

By Shenda Murray

Midweek Sports

Trinidad Publishing Company

March 1, 2000

Page 4

 

In 1984, if Courtney Andrew Walsh was looking to the future, he may not have seen himself as a member of the 400-Test wicket club, far less in a position to challenge Kapil Dev's presidency 15 years later.

 

Growing up he wanted to be an accountant.  His mother Joan Wollaston did not have the slightest idea that he would become a Test cricketer.  She thought that this present-day antagoniser of batsmen would become a pastor.  This last statement came with a hearty laugh, brimming with the wonder and delight that the particular memory churns up.  "Yeah," she says "(my son) was a church person, but cricket was played on Sunday."

 

Courtney, Joan's only child was raised a Baptist by his mother and grandmother in the Half-way Tree area of Kingston.

 

His cousin Gerald Wollaston played cricket for Jamaica in the past and another one now plays at club level.  His uncle substituted as the father figure in his life.  But, as his mother proudly reflects he never had much to do.  "He was never given the occasion," she says.

 

"I'll tell you something,' she continues, "he never gave nay trouble at all - being a boy-child.  You'll talk to him and he'll hear you.  He's the child that you love.  It's so nice to know that you have a child and you say don't go there and he doesn't."

 

Hovering near six feet, with a strong resemblance to her son and a personality able to keep anyone on the straight and narrow, Joan talks with healthy admiration for her cricketing son - not just as a mother - but as a person feeling privileged to have seen him growing up.

 

"I'm not really surprised you know," she says, talking about his achievements and the praise heaped on him by many admirers."  Maybe someone who doesn't have to deal with him would be surprised.  Dealing with him, you wouldn't be."

 

Sitting under the Holding pavilion of the Melbourne Cricket Club, where she works and of which Walsh is a member, she recalls with slight amusement, the keen interest he took in his cricket clothes when he hoped to be chosen for the Jamaican team and even for school matches.  "My clothes clean?" he would ask.  "The selectors would be there."  And, he would sit and "whiten' all his cricket shoes because he said the selectors looked at those things.

 

Walsh, 37, started his school career as a leg spinner.  That attention to detail, along with his developing skill with the ball (and bat!) got him noticed, not just at Jamaican level, but also at the West Indies youth level.

 

 By that time he had developed into a fast bowler.  He toured with them in England in 1982 and got inquiries from the English League with whom he started his association in 1983.  He continued with Gloucestershire in 1984, the same year he got his first cap for the West Indies senior team in Perth.  His English association came to an unceremonious end in 1998, with a bitter departure he described as a "stab in the back" after 15 years with the Bristol team.

 

Colourful description aside, Walsh has developed a reputation for being a gentleman both on and off the field.  A role model of sorts to a generation searching desperately to get someone of character and balance to emulate.  While appearing reserved, he's not afraid to show his emotion.  His competitiveness.  His hurt.  

 

Mike Atherton summarized it in Walsh's autobiography - Heart of the Lion.  "I think Courtney plays cricket the way I like it to be played…the hardest possible opponent but remain friends afterward."

 

And, according to the cricket bible 'Wisden", Walsh heralded a new era of relations between the West Indies and New Zealand under his captaincy.  They claimed, "he showed himself better equipped to get along harmoniously in New Zealand (than his predecessors), with the wry smile half-forming from the left-side of his mouth by no means his smallest qualification.

Statistics say only so much about you, the impression you leave on others says much more.  His 423 (and counting) Test wickets in 110 matches tell only one part of the story of determination.  Dennis Waight, West Indies team physiotherapist gives one example of another part in the 1996-97 Test series against Australia.  It was the fifth Test.  Walsh's 87th and he tore hiss hamstring, an injury that would cripple any sportsman and tempt them to hang up their boots.  After attention from Waight, he bowled for 20 overs.  Three and a half hours.  "He didn't walk properly for another two weeks after tha," said Waight."  But for Courtney, the pain had been all worthwhile.  That's special."

 

Clive Lloyd thinks he plays with the same passion and keenness as he did when he made his debut in Australia, as a 22-year-old under his captaincy.  Walsh was brought in as the "substitute" bowler in the West Indies famed fast-bowling attack.  He was used when Michael Holding, Joel Garner or the late Malcolm Marshall needed a rest.

 

His familiarity with the old ball meant that he played second fiddle while later debutants, like Tony gray and Winston Davis were promoted ahead of him.  Although, today a team without Walsh seems like half of a team, he too had to suffer his share of displacement - as by Ezra Mosely in 1990 - before he earned a permanent spot.  Even at the times he thought he was bowling his best.

 

Of those times, his mother laments, "He's been through a lot…during his career from Jamaica level to this level.  He has guts," she said as the amazed observer.  "I'm not so tolerant.  He's exceptional.  He didn't get it from me and he didn't get it from his father.  He's very tolerant."

 

Unfortunately, no chronicling of Walsh's life or career would ever escape mention of his captaincy of he West Indies team.  His loss of the job always being emphasized more than his enjoyment of it.

 

Placed in the context of the less than smooth transitions of previous captains - Sir Viv Richards thought the WICB wanted to keep him from the job, Richie Richardson left in humiliation - the removal may not have been exceptional.  Historically, it may be little more than a footnote.  But, it is still fresh in the public's mind, given the current performance of the team under Walsh's replacement, Brian Lara.

                 

Sir Viv said: "The captaincy made him a man.  The fact that he had the captaincy taken away from him and he still continued to play, shows the measure of him as a man."

 

Walsh's mother agrees.  She communicated a lot with him during this period and advised her son that since cricket was his first love and he could still play, then continue.  She believes nothing is gained by getting disgusted over simple things.  He told her he would consider her advice.

 

Walsh's grouse was not the removal from the captaincy as much as the manner.  "It is not a Courtney Walsh team or a Brian Lara team.  It is a West Indies team, and we are supposed to be united," he told his mother.

 

The close communication during this time is reminiscent of the close relationship mother and son has shared throughout Walsh's life.  "As a child he would sit down and talk to you as a parent, some children would have it in their mind.  He'll tell you," says Joan.

 

She attributes his popularity with the female fans to his celebrity status.  Though she claims she wouldn't mind if he were to marry tomorrow.  "After 15 years of living in England" she claims, he's not easy.  He can take care of himself.  When she felt sorry for him during his first living stint in England, he turned to her and said, "Don't you know, I can cook?"  He also likes dancing, reggae, soul music and cars.

 

Walsh clearly enjoys the celebrity status, the accolades and the fans it brings.  He seems relaxed among the public and if cricket needs a star poster boy, he is a good candidate.  He even takes the heckling about his batting skills or lack thereof in stride, having so far accumulated the most ducks in Test cricket along with his wickets.  Children seem naturally drawn to him and as a result to Joan because she is his mother.  She too has had to sign her share of autographs, while his own son is a budding cricketer and is proving to be quite handy with the bat!

 

Underneath the gentleman's demeanor, he has the ego of any modern day warrior and may have the last laugh on the former West Indian fast bowler who dismissed him early in his career.  He told him he would never get over 300 wickets.  Nevertheless, the "work horse" of the West Indies team, all long legs and tireless lungs, has proved beyond a doubt that perseverance can lead to greatness.  And, yes, as his mother said adamantly.  "He can bat too!"

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