Lawrence Rowe - Unfulfilled Genius
Shashin Shah
Feb, 1994 (with arrangement w/ The Cricketer)
In an article appraising Brian Lara, Sir Gary Sobers, in pass-
ing, assessed Lawrence Rowe as "a genius, a player with more
ability than any other West Indian I've ever seen or known." But
sadly, Sir Gary was forced to add, "one who faded for one reason
or another." On Rowe, Sobers is on the mark. Few discussions on
West Indies cricket evoke more ecstacy and at the same time more
ire, than those concerning Lawrence Rowe's career. Between his
'immortal' Test debut against New Zealand at Kingston in 1972 and
his controversial 'rebel' tours to South Africa in 1983 and 1984,
this Jamaican enigma took Caribbean fans on an emotional roller
coaster. England's visit to the Caribbean this month will fuel
memories of his momentous feat in Bridgetown 20 years ago.
Leading all test averages with an even 88 in that series
against England, Rowe could well claim the year 1974 his best.
It was the pinnacle of his career, as never again in any Test
series would the artisan's average even approach 50. This fact
alone serves to brand Lawrence Rowe as probably the most incon-
sistent of all top-class batsmen ever to appear for the West In-
dies. Yet to see Rowe "on-the-go" was to witness a genius plying
his trade. For him, even a modest score would afterwards be
paraded as 'sweet'. His deftly placed strokes, marked by non-
chalance yet inerrant timing, imparted mesmerizing pace to the
cricket ball.
His class notwithstanding, Rowe's triple century at Kensington
must have been astounding. Until then his scores in the regional
Shell Shield on that ground read 4, 3, 12, 17 and 9. In his Test
appearance against New Zealand and Australia the previous years
there he made 0, 51 and 16. This meant that at Kensington Oval
prior to the 'triple', Lawrence had amassed a measly 112 runs at
a threadbare average of 14.
As the annals have it, Fredericks and Rowe, for only the third
time as a opening pair, began the West Indian response to
England's 395 on the afternoon of March 7, the second day's play.
The 'sheer enchantment', as Manley puts it, took shape early with
Rowe's effortless six over square leg. Wisden went on to
describe the innings as one "more impressive in style than
statistics...of languid ferocity that owed everything to Rowe's
timing and perfect balance". It critiqued his cutting, driving
and hooking as "fearsome...yet always having more poetry than
brutality about it."
He and Fredericks put on 126 for the first wicket, and then,
with Kallicharan, Rowe went on to add 249 for the second wicket -
a record against England. It erased the 228 by R. K. Nunes and
George Headley in the fourth Test at Sabina Park in 1930.
Another tribute to the occasion came from Tony Cozier. "Rowe's
magnetism swelled from the stands to a bursting point on the Sa-
turday when he moved from one century to another. On the Sunday
he passed his third century and finally, after over 10 hours with
a six and 34 fours, he was caught in the deep for 302, the first
Test triple-century on the ground, and his own first-class centu-
ry outside Jamaica."
The next big score for Rowe came in the fifth Test in Port of
Spain. In a losing cause, he crafted 123 on a turning pitch. He
and Fredericks put on 110 for the first wicket before Tony
Greig's rout of eight for 86 in 36.1 overs began.
Towards the end of 1974, the West Indies began a tour to India.
It was at its start that Rowe's health problems intensified. For
him, the problem of appearing regularly in Tests, really began in
his first series against New Zealand in 1972. Through injury,
Rowe missed the final Test in Port of Spain; the following year
against Australia, also in Port of Spain, Rowe pulled some liga-
ments in an ankle while fielding on the first day of the third
Test. He took no further part in that series. In fact, on ac-
count of his health, West Indies had to go to England in 1973
without him.
It was during the first tour match in India in 1974, against
the West Zone at Poona, that Rowe's eye problems began. After
the second tour match, he was sent away for treatment which in-
volved surgery to remove a growth called Teryginum, rapidly cov-
ering both of Rowe's eyes. Even though the operation was succes-
ful, Rowe never regained the '20/20' vision he had before. Early
in 1975, the West Indies played two Tests in Pakistan, under-
standably without Lawrence.
Solid performances in the 1975 Shell Shield, signalled Rowe's
return to health. Back in vogue, he was included in the six-Test
tour of Australia later that year. No front-line West Indies
batsman mastered with any consistency the pace of Lillee, Thomson
and company. With the exception of a commanding 107 in the first
Test at Brisbane and his 67 - the West Indies top score in the
fourth Test in Sydney - Rowe was unspectacular. But then again,
with the exception of Richards, and to a lesser extent Boyce,
both towards the end the end of the tour, who else wasn't?
In 1976 when India toured the Caribbean, Rowe played in all
four Tests as Fredericks' opening partner and averaged a modest
29.83. By that time the mantle had passed, and Vivian Richards
was the latest batting sensation. From a Test run which began in
Sydney that January and ended at the Oval in London in August,
Richards had amassed an astounding 1,710 runs at an average of
90. 'Yagga' had to step aside. Rowe's image as a batsman was so
powerful, that even after this phenomenal run by Richards, some
were still insisting that 'on-the-go', Rowe was the classier.
On the 1976 tour to England, however there was a growing feel-
ing that Rowe had succumbed too early to injury or ill health and
curiously was too slow to recover. Primarily due to hay fever,
Rowe didn't see action until the last two Tests in which he
scored 50, 6, and 70. In Jamaica in particular, fans were begin-
ning to give up on him. The mystery was, Rowe's class was beyond
doubt, what was keeping him from staying healthy and making runs
consistently? Rumours had it that Rowe believed in obeah (a kind
of witchcraft). More in tune with reality, the average cricket
fan was simply perplexed by the cricketer's problems.
Matters were not helped when in 1977, when Rowe, could not play
at home against Pakistan, due to a new health problem. To this
point since his debut in 1972, the West Indies had played 47
Tests. Incredibly, either through loss of form, health or inju-
ry, Rowe the crowd-pleaser, had missed 23 of them.
It was during the West Indies tour of England in 1976 that Gor-
don Greenidge made the opening slot with Fredericks his.
Richards anchored himself in the one-drop position, and so Rowe
became an itinerant. In fact Rowe was left out of the West In-
dies team when Australia toured the Caribbean in 1978. He sur-
faced, however, for Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket.
Whenever, Rowe was about to written off, he conjured batting
displays that rehashed 'who-is-the-best' argument. His 175
against Australia in the second 'SuperTest' series in 1979 was
one of those. The World Series circuit then moved to the West
Indies but again Rowe was the centre of misfortune. In the first
'SuperTest' at Sabina Park, he was unsighted by a bouncer from
Dennis Lillee and suffered a fractured left temple. He saw no
action until the Fourth 'Test' in Guyana where he got 64 in the
first innings. In the final 'Test' in Antigua he made 135, while
Richards was still going through a bad patch getting out cheaply.
The timing of these knocks caused the experts to elevate Rowe to
the rank of greatness again.
The schism caused by the Packer affair healed in 1979. West
Indies toured Australia for a three-Test series and the one-day
triangular World Series contest. Batting at number five in the
Tests, Rowe contributed reasonably to help West Indies beat Aus-
tralia in Australia for the first time.
Even though he began the tour of England later that year, his
last Test series appearance was to be in February 1980 in New
Zealand. Some nine years earlier, Rowe had made that immortal
debut of 214 and 100 not out in Kingston against them. He rem-
inded them of his class by getting an even hundred in the second
Test at Christchurch. In the final Test in Auckland, Rowe got a
50 to pass 2,000 runs in Tests.
With a dislocated shoulder early on the trip to England in
1980, Rowe's injury script was being replayed. It was rumoured
that Clive Lloyd, this time around, was openly concerned about
Rowe's inactivity. It was no surprise then that towards the end
of 1981, when the team toured Pakistan, he was again left out.
In January 1981, England visited the West Indies for a tour
marked by sadness and politics for England. The domestic Shell
Shield competition was on when the tourists arrived, and the slot
to partner Desmond Haynes was up for grabs. In the West Indian
tour of Pakistan, Faoud Bacchus, occupied that position, and
averaged 19.83. The summer before in England, Gordon Greenidge,
losing both favor and form, averaged 20.66. For Rowe, the table
was set.
Rowe got 76 against the Combined Islands in St Kitts and suc-
cessive half centuries Guyana. Both attacks were formidable.
The Combined Islands had Andy Roberts and Winston Davis, and
Guyana included the vicious Colin Craft. Lloyd was impressed
enough to ask Rowe to play for the West Indies in a one-day
international series against the tourists. It is said Rowe de-
clined.
There were two reasons rumoured for Rowe's disinclination. One
was that he did not want to play as an opening bat. The other
was that he had not yet fully recovered from being struck by
Croft during the Guyana game. Either, if true, was ludicrous.
The final leg of that Caribbean tour came to Jamaica in April.
In the Caribbean, there is nothing more contentious than a local
player in form being left out of his home Test. Rowe, by scoring
a neat 116 for Jamaica against the tourists, stirred fond
memories of his dream debut against New Zealand in 1972 and his
120 against England there in 1974. He was ready, so was Jamaica,
if not the entire Caribbean. This was not to be. Having won the
series and with Greenidge back in form, Clive Lloyd balked at
making a change. Only a fool would surmise that Rowe's disincli-
nation to play earlier when asked did not influence Lloyd's deci-
sion.
Rowe was dashed by his omission from that Jamaica Test. More
salt was rubbed in the wound when Bacchus was selected ahead of
him for the 1981/82 tour of Australia. When Greenidge was lame
for the first Test in Melbourne, for some time the team manage-
ment flirted with sending for Lawrence, but balked again.
On January 12, 1983, Rowe landed at Jan Smuts Airport in Johan-
nesburg, South Africa, leading the first of his two 'rebel' West
Indian teams. "We're professionals and we've come here to do a
job," Rowe declared on his arrival. West Indian people, more so
than its cricket, were split at the seam. Castigation by the
Caribbean heads of state was predictable. What was not was the
result of the Carl Stone Poll taken in Jamaica on the matter. In
an economy which was becoming increasingly merciless, more than
half of those polled, supported Rowe. Politics aside, Rowe's
team in South Africa drew huge, multiracial crowds and was con-
sidered a success. On his trip the following year Rowe typical-
ly, got a big score - a double century in one of the five
'Tests'.
Was Rowe simply before his time? The whole South African ques-
tion remains a riddle to most. I would not dare to question
Rowe's judgment. I can only savor some of his breathtaking per-
formances. For a batsman 'on-the-go', I will take Lawrence Rowe.
Shash
V. Sridharan
>Lawrence Rowe-Unfulfilled Genius - Raymond Ford - Sportstar 5th
>Feb, 1994 (with arrangement w/ The Cricketer)
> It was during the first tour match in India in 1974, against
>the West Zone at Poona, that Rowe's eye problems began. After
>the second tour match, he was sent away for treatment which in-
>volved surgery to remove a growth called Teryginum, rapidly cov-
>ering both of Rowe's eyes. Even though the operation was succes-
>ful, Rowe never regained the '20/20' vision he had before. Early
>in 1975, the West Indies played two Tests in Pakistan, under-
>standably without Lawrence.
>Shash
-------
Thanks a lot, Shash!
It is said that Rowe's vision was better than 20/20 before he had this
problem, in his 'History of West Indies Cricket', Michael Manley says that
Rowe was able to read two lines below the '20/20 line' with one eye, and
one line below it with the other. Supposedly, after his surgery, he had
less than 20/20 vision, but with contact lenses, in Australia, for
while, he supposedly tantalised the world with some utterly classy batting
performances.
After that, as Sir Garfield put it, "for one reason or another", he went
downhill again. In one game at Sabina, he was hit on the head by Lillee,
and he claimed that that was because he was unsighted by a ledge in the
pavilion, but supposedly, the management at Sabina refused to do anything
about it. In another game (against New Zealand?) he twisted his ankle in
the field, and then he missed some games because of an allergy (to
grass?).
Lastly, Rowe scored 70 in the Oval test of the 1976 series against
England, a match made famous by Holding's 14 wicket bowling performance,
and by Viv Richards' 291. Manley says that Rowe and Richards had a longish
partnership, and during the course of his 70, "Rowe matched Richards
stroke for stroke".
One can only ponder over what the world missed... a stable West Indian
middle order with Richards, Rowe, Kallicharan and Lloyd would certainly
have been any cricket lover's dream!
Win or lose, forever Windies.
Venky (Venkatesh Sridharan).
email: srid...@staff.tc.umn.edu
PS: Interestingly, in an interview with Sunil Gavaskar on a show the
latter was hosting on India's national TV network, Richards too
said that he had "teryginums", and that he was worried about
having anything done about it right then (this was in 1988, maybe?).
He added that he was waiting till he was done with the game, and
hoped that it would'nt be too late. Does anyone know anything more
about this ?