Viv Looking for Tearaway Pacer

Sun, Apr 27, '03

A worried Sir Viv Richards admits uncovering the next great West Indian spearhead remains a major concern as he searches for a way of blunting Australia's pace attack.

Brett Lee's withering spell to Brian Lara in the second Test has reinforced to Richards, the Windies' chief selector, how much of a psychological stranglehold the Aussie fast bowlers have over their West Indian counterparts.

While Lee served up a series of nasty, rearing deliveries in Port of Spain to Lara and the tailenders, Windies quicks Mervyn Dillon, Vasbert Drakes and Pedro Collins, who has been dropped for the third Test, have been reluctant all series to bombard the Australians with short balls.

The Windies pacemen fear that if they do this, Lee and Jason Gillespie will hit back even harder -- not only at the specialist batsmen but at them personally.

"It's easier to give it when you know you are not going to get it back," Richards said.

"We don't quite have that at the moment. These things can play a major role in being successful.

"Lee and McGrath can come in and bowl it short. But if McGrath had to face (Andy) Roberts, (Michael) Holding, (Malcolm) Marshall...his arm would be trembling before he came out to bat. They wouldn't bowl as many bouncers if we had that attack."

When the West Indies ruled the cricket world for 20 years from the mid-1970s, most opposition quicks were loathe to regularly bowl bouncers at the likes of Richards himself, while such deliveries to the Windies' tail was almost unheard of for fear of retribution.

Attacks featuring the quality of Roberts, who put the career of David Hookes on hold after breaking his jaw with a short ball, Holding, Joel Garner and Marshall were as fast and mean as any ever assembled and gave the Windies a major advantage.

Richards feels even the great Dennis Lillee, who loved nothing better than serving up a bumper barrage, softened his stance when the likes of Holding and Garner began to dominate the international scene.

"Lillee realised what would be coming at him," Richards said.

"You could see it in Lillee. He was all huff and puff, but he wasn't quite the same later on."

Since Curtly Ambrose retired three years ago, the West Indies have not had a speedster who, by his presence alone, would frighten the tailenders, let alone a top-order batsman.

Until this changes, Richards knows Lee and company will continue to dictate terms. "It's a worry," he said. "We are still looking."

Richards hopes young quicks Jermaine Lawson, who missed the second Test with chickenpox, and tearaway uncapped Barbadian Tino Best may change this attitude.

Both are tipped to play in the Test starting here on Thursday night and join Dillon and Drakes in a four-man pace attack on a Kensington Oval pitch expected to be green and fast.

Thrust into the role as spearhead after Craig McDermott went home injured on the 1995 Caribbean tour, McGrath debunked the theory of not bowling bouncers to a Windies tail that comprised Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Kenny Benjamin.

This was a significant move by McGrath, a renowned batting bunny, as it showed Mark Taylor's men were no longer prepared to be intimidated.

McGrath went on to take 21 wickets in a breakthrough series for not only the lanky quick but also Australian cricket.

"The Windies did that for so long and they did intimidate sides," McGrath said.

"If you have bowlers in a team giving it back to 'em and they don't like it, it gives your batsmen a little bit more confidence to realise that we are not going to sit back and take it, we are going to dish it out as well."