"Kallicharran is one of the best players of spin bowling I have seen...This is not to say that he was inadequate against pace, and, at his best, is the complete player."
-Clive Lloyd
“Once we walk out to bat, there is no rich or poor and there is no black or white. It is just me and you. So I was brought up in that culture of being a streetfighter - that you don't see danger, you don't see anxiety. All you are looking at is tomorrow - how will you fight again. So Lillee bowling to me is, just... I'm going to bat again tomorrow. Not that I don't respect him. I respect what opposition we are playing against, but if you say that you are going to walk out and feel intimidated, what are we going out there for? Why did they select me if I am not going to fight?”
-Alvin Kallicharran
In 1979, the smallest international batsman, standing a mere 5ft 4in at full height, took apart a rampaging Vanburn Holder in a dazzling innings of 107* when Warwickshire defeated Worcestershire with such ferocious hooks, pulls and drives of sheer genius that Holder was immediately taken off. In 1982, against Somerset, he played one of the great limited overs innings in hammering 141*. When the 6ft 8in Joel Garner bounced at his head, he swiveled beautifully in trademark style and hooked his towering adversary high over square leg for 6 with stunning power. Warwickshire’s captain Bob Willis said that the little man’s "knock contained a myriad of high-class shots. His stock-in-trade pulls and hooks were supplemented by a series of silken drives on the rise through the off. Somerset came apart at the seams."
In 1983, after Warwickshire had been swept aside for 43 by Sussex, he lifted them from the doldrums with 210 at Leicester. He carved up Gloucestershire for 173 at Nuneaton. A week later came the Southport saga, when he blasted 230* in an English record fourth-wicket stand of 470 with Geoff Humpage. A marvellous195 against Surrey, followed by 109* in the return against Worcestershire preceded the big battle at Southampton. It pitted the little master, the country's leading run scorer, against Malcolm Marshall, the leading wicket-taker - a clash of titans. The little dynamo won that contest, taming the great Marshall's hostile pace with genius, and enthralled again with a superb131 raising him past 2,000 runs in a season for the first time in his career. His eight centuries in a summer equaled the Warwickshire record held jointly by R. E. S. Wyatt (1937) and Rohan Kanhai (1972).
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