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Tony Gray, 'People didn't know about my battles'

In reply to sgtdjones

Great story.....on another note...it had any Trinidadian viv richards liked?......did not like Tony Gray, certainly did not like Lara, its very, VERY debatable whether he liked Larry Gomes(from looking at clips and from what other trinidadians have told me, he didn't).......dude was just an insular hater in addition to bring a great batsman



All the same......this is the best analysis of the reason WI were so successful. Tony Gray is a very, very intelligent man

In reply to Jumpstart

did you read the article? you are so biased and carry a chip on your shoulder. that is why you never got the respect you so badly cherished.

So what really did happen to Tony Gray? How did the WI Selectors seem to hold such indifference to a gem of a fast bowler?

​The rumor mill at home was that he was “sorf.” He was prone to injury and had had the audacity to ask the Selectors to drop him for the Second Test vs Pakistan in Port of Spain (198. The allegation although never confirmed publicly hung over him for the rest of his career like a black cloud.

He believes that part of the reason was a constant production of fast bowlers in the WI.

“However, the main reason was TT did not support me. I was the first TT fast bowler in 34 years to play for the WI. There was a misconception about my heart. But people didn’t know about my battles. I had epilepsy as a child. I had to fight through it. I have an indomitable spirit. We have a culture that is very negative towards our own. People said (Viv) Richards didn’t like me but it was more than that, our people are weak.”

He continues, “The TTCBC was an interesting bunch of personalities.” Coming back from Australia, he was fined four hundred dollars for not playing against Guyana. However, he explains he was injured. I had nobody to consult with me. We had the best sports team from the 1970s – 1990s but we did not understand how to deal with and manage the athletes. I had to manage myself and deal with my own injuries. I was not soft. I was very strong. I had to fight epilepsy to make the WI. There were rumors about me but that is the culture I had to deal with.”

We have a culture that is not towards understanding sport. But maybe I had to go through that. It made me understand how to handle players.”

In reply to Jumpstart

Jumpy

Talk to Dinas....he will tell you about Viv Richards.

Ask him why he quit West Indies Cricket?.

In reply to sudden

I did read the entire article. Obviously reading is not your forte. He said it was more than that. Meaning that there was some measure of truth to the rumor. Dude everyone knows Viv did not like Trinidadians. He said in his book that when some Trinidadians of indian descent came to the oval for games involving India, they supported India, which would upset anyone because its the home team being confronted by racism. No issue there. But that was not every Indian, not even most, hell that was not every Trinidadian. The people who did that could mostly fit into the bottom half of the Learie Constantine stand.Most Trinis of Indian descent are probably the most dedicated WI fans. When nobody is in the stadium because they anticipate another beating, they are there to support a team that in tests is on life support and has been since lara and chanders left. As i said, Viv was an insular hater

In reply to sgtdjones

Man....is viv kept lara out of the side til he retired....while having keith atherton in it. Lara's debut test was not even when viv was there, dessie haynes was the captain. Have you ever noticed greenidge and haynes never have much to say about viv's style of leadership? Yuh tink dey quiet about it by accident?

In reply to sgtdjones

Viv sent Richard Gabriel packing off the field in OZ

Dont bother with the story which has been fabricated these days....we saw it wid we own eyes

In reply to Jumpstart

Viv hated Trinidadian men. If you are who I think you, check the red woman- nuff said

In reply to Barry

Not Dinas bro...seriouys about that. Got his autograph as a boy when my mums took me to the oval to watch an odi though

The others must never accept Viv’s discriminatory behavior- never again

In reply to Jumpstart

so even though Gray seemed to attribute most of his problem to TTCB, "However, the main reason was TT did not support me", the obiter dictum, "People said (Viv) Richards didn’t like me but it was more than that, our people are weak." is what attracted your ire.



interesting. you are more transparent than glass

In reply to sudden

Even if the ttcb supported him, viv had a big say in selection. He was the final hurdle and was a very big hurdle as we saw with Lara

In reply to Jumpstart

we are talking about Gray.

Gray did not even say that it was Viv who hindered his selection. he said people said that. yet further down in the piece he remarked -

“As we walked off the field, Richards pointed out the scoreboard to me (his four wickets). ‘Look at that, you did well.’ I felt wonderful, the Master Blaster pointing out how well I had done. That stands out for me.”

the fact that you bring up Lara to get to a conclusion shows you for what you are

In reply to sudden

Hoss why every 5 mins yuh editing yuh post. When ramdin posted the note in england, every trinidadian supported him. It was the reaction to years of insularity

In reply to sudden

Read again, lawyer, he was saying that Viv’s hatred was one factor

In reply to sudden

What do you understand by our people are weak?

In reply to sudden

In reply to Jumpstart

really. i edited my post to show the direct words of Gray.

his words are interesting and somewhat contrary to what you want to purport. you have a huge chip on your shoulders.

“As we walked off the field, Richards pointed out the scoreboard to me (his four wickets). ‘Look at that, you did well.’ I felt wonderful, the Master Blaster pointing out how well I had done. That stands out for me.”

i am sure you will gyrate to find some negativity in that

In reply to sudden

One tenth of your responses are related to the tooic. The other nine parts are pitiful insults that betray your contribution's irrelevancy

In reply to sudden

And? That shows Viv liked him?

In reply to Jumpstart

my posts are laced with direct quotes from the article to prove my point.

your posts reflect the chip you carry around

In reply to Jumpstart

does it show Viv hated him?

dont you think if Gray wanted to say Viv hated or didnt like him at that juncture he wouldnt say something like "but even though Viv said that to my face behind the scene he was saying something different etc"?

In reply to sudden

Listen here patnas.....Gray and the other Trinidadians are not the only people who had an issue with viv. Read what Holding says about viv's captaincy in The Development of West Indies Cricket edited by Hilary Beckles.

This is what Patrick Patterson said about an encounter with Viv.

In reply to sudden

I am a see far man and I see a chair in your future heading straight fuh yuh belly.Apparently de fella arm not as strong as before as evidenced by his fielding yesterday so de chair cyah reach yuh head!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

In reply to Dukes

Well dinas have an office job...not really the recipe for fitness success. How yuh explain hety having the attention span of a flea with ADHD

In reply to Jumpstart

why are you trying to bring other people and issues into this.

deal with the article.

your constant referrals to other people's issues with Viv just go to show you are cherrypicking from this article to mount some personal vendetta against Sir Viv.

in any case people will have issues with leaders and leadership.

In reply to Dukes

he knows i know him v well.

he can dodge but i know he knows better

In reply to sudden

Im pretty sure you don't

In reply to sudden

Nobody bas a vendetta against viv. His infantile attitude alienated many people

In reply to Jumpstart

this is a very long article in which Gray talks about a lot of things including and largely how the TTCB did not support him.

the reference to Viv (negatively) if that is how you want to interpret it, is two lines, yet that is what grabbed your attention.

from there you mentioned Lara and Patterson and their issues with Viv.

yet you want to say you have no personal vendetta against Viv.

man, piss in muh pocket and tell me it is raining

In reply to Jumpstart

In reply to sudden

In reply to Jumpstart

is that another phrase for irrelevancy


BTW i thought you were going to study law? how is that coming along?

In reply to sudden

Ask philo....he was studying law in TT too

Yuh could ask the journalist viv did rush before a test match too
Which is why i mentioned the examples of the jamaican cricketers because they are the most even tempered(with a few exceptions) cricketers who have represented the WI team....and viv managed to fall out with them too

In reply to Jumpstart

and Philo has the Scar to show for it.

how about you?

may i remind you this article is about Tony Gray

In reply to sudden
What are you trying to defend?

I met the man and he ain't a socially embracing butterfly.

Everyone knows Viv was spiteful and hated Lara,but Lara let his bat and his talent talk for him and Viv knows Lara was the real king of WI batsmen no matter how old men try to prop him up as the greatest because of their personal romantics,he barely scraped a 50 average after averaging more than 60,his run of failure and underachievement was legendary and mostly ignored in conevrsations.

Lara on the other hand was getting better and better up to his untimely retirement,actually put his head down and brought his average out of the 40s and into the mid 50s..

And as fate would have it Lara excelled the most on Viv's home ground and did what Viv could only dream of doing..

Despite glimpses of milder venom when he's given some airtime Viv has been for the most part silenced by Lara.


Holding is another old legendary hater and another one that has been totally rendered speechless and tie tongue by Lara's exploits but the mild venom is always still visible....

Those old hateful rass were well shut up by BCL.

The real notable gentlemen of modern WI cricketwere,Sobers,Lloyd,Haynes,
Gomes,Greenidge,Richardson,Walsh,Ambrose,Bishop,Adams,Lara,Chanderpaul,Sarwan and many others in between.

But men like Viv,Holding and a couple others I left out were bitter men with huge chips on their shoulders...

In reply to bravos

Hoss i remember viv was at a book fair in india and he tell de audience how lara was trying to upstage him when he first came into the team. I mean, how insecure yuh hadda be, a dude who has not even made his debut...trying to upstage the captain of the best team on earth........ridiculous bordering on absurd. Good thing he never went into politics because he would sense a coup every five minutes

In reply to Jumpstart

Yeah an ignorant old goat..

In reply to bravos

If you read alot of caribbean scholarship about the latter half of the WI dominance, the general feeling is that viv's captaincy, while successful was not good for WI cricket

In reply to Jumpstart

I know of the man well..he was a bully..

In reply to bravos

My parents thought viv was a really, really insecure dude

In reply to bravosApart from Viv there are many posters on here who try to put down Lara,bunch ah skunts.They couldn't stand the fact that Trinidad produced the best batsman the world was fortunate to see,I feel sorry for people who were not around during Lara's time.

In reply to granite

Yes boy we were around at the right time,we really had it made !! No better time !!

Those fools should embrace the fact that they were able to witness it also.. but instead they feel insecure because they think the romance of their younger days memories were compromised..

Viv cant walk in Lara's shoes no day no time..and you can see even he is confused when questions arise about Laras place in Cricket history.. just look at Antigua 400 clips you can see a man that has been silenced not once but many times,and if he wasnt sure that confirmed it for him,but his fans are the more unreasonable and bitter ones,simply because they feel the highlights of their cricketing fandom romance has been eclipsed by another..

In reply to Jumpstart

You could see it..

In reply to Jumpstart

In reply to Dukes

Eggplant

A post about Gray and his struggles which mentions Viv (negatively ???) in two sentence and positively in 4, somehow has morphed into a Viv hated Tits post when Gray for the most part blames his struggles on an unsupportive TTCB.

In reply to Dukes

In reply to sudden

Nobody can whine like dem

In reply to Narper

Absolutely!!!!!!

Actually it is one of my favorites, being vegetarian and all.
When I go to my adopted primary school they actually know to prepare that and Dholl and shine rice.

In reply to FuzzyWuzzy

And nobody could wine on yah gyal sis auntie or mammy like we can too..

In reply to bravos
Tu rass!

In reply to FuzzyWuzzy

In reply to sgtdjones

Per capita Bravos needs a hug.

In reply to Narper

In reply to Dukes
I covered that already. Maybe you need to stop following the conjoined triplets fuzzy/sudden/tc1.....they appear to be joined at the brain

In reply to Jumpstart

You are a humorless, insular twit with an inferiority complex howling at all players from the rest of the West Indies in a nonsensical diatribe of hate and jealousy.You need psychological help because with the wonders of today's medicine you can be helped.We can get you to become a fully functional part of society but first you have to recognize your problems and seek help.

In reply to FuzzyWuzzy

In reply to Dukes

I am not the only one saying these things. Nobody is criticizing viv's ability here. What we are calling out, and rightfully so is the way in which he managed the team. Why, as i said earlier, do greenidge and haynes have nothing to say about Viv's leadership, with the exception of one sentence in the Fire in Babylon book.....where all haynes would say was that viv's style of leadership was different to Lloyd's and I'm sure he's been asked that question a thousand times.

You could say im insular all you want. Does not change facts. The fact that viv was dedicated to his territory's cause, even to the detriment of the team. That he did not like Trinidadian players.

Does anybody argue that VS Naipaul is a great writer? No. Does anybody argue also that he's a conceited bigot? Also no.

Faults when they are as glaring and destructive as those two examples need to be called out

In reply to Jumpstart

Everybody knows that Viv had a temper.He was passionate about WI cricket and wanted everyone to give 100% effort.He did not have any diplomatic skills and wanted the WI to win.He did not care where you were from if you performed.He had a soft spot for Hooper but when he did not perform he was castigated. Hooper knew that Viv was correct in his assessment of him and bore no grudges.Likewise Marlon Samuels earned Viv's wrath but does not hold grudges against him.Yet you still after all these years still walking around with grudges against Viv.
Part of the maturation process is to analyze why people have said and done things against you and work out if you played a role in their behavior.Plain and simple Viv liked you if you performed and cussed you if you did not.
Now you need to wish the MASTERBLASTER a HAPPY BIRTHDAY and wish him good health and long life!!!!!!!

In reply to Dukes

Yeah which is why keith atherton( from his territory) scored his two hundreds after viv retired but was strangely a regular member of the test team

De man calling hooper and samuels mature......amateur night at the apollo yall

Well den brian hadda be de devil cuz he never got to perform under viv........viv was a biased bitter man whose insecurities was very transparent.....starting with his use of the word one to refer to the self in every sentence

In reply to granite

He look for that one..lol..

De man offering to hug man too yes..

Dem St.James bullers again..

In reply to sgtdjones

I remember Gray.... features similar to Jason Holder but was really a very good fast bowler.... during Pakistan series he did very well.... although subject to correction...that series was 1-1 draw....... pitches were prepared for Qadir and Co.... unfortunately Gray career declined thereafter.......

In reply to Dukes

Baigan or to the more English speaking peoples, Eggplant. My two cents. Gray was a great bowler who was wasted. We cannot re-live or re-write history but just need to ensure that this never happens again in our cricket. That is why it is important to nurture talents like Hety, Brandon King, Keemo etc so that their potential contribution is not lost.