da wazamba： The passing of Roy Gilchrist in Jamaica on Wednesday was noticed withmore than passing interest in India, where he played his last Testmatch in 1959 and last first class match in 1963
Sankhya Krishnan20-Jul-2001The passing of Roy Gilchrist in Jamaica on Wednesday was noticed withmore than passing interest in India, where he played his last Testmatch in 1959 and last first class match in 1963. Sir Garfield Sobershas gone on record that Gilchrist was the fastest bowler he playedwith or against. India’s current chairman of selectors Chandu Bordewho crossed swords with the fiery Jamaican in the home series of1958/59 was only too happy to concur with that assessment.Gilchrist was 67 when he died while Borde celebrates his 67th birthdaytomorrow. “He was the fastest bowler I played against, a real terror.We had never played that kind of bowling before. His motto was to hitthe batsman so that he would be scared and get out” said Borde,speaking to CricInfo from his Pune residence. “I’ve played him indomestic cricket in India and in the Lancashire League too. We weregood friends” he added.Borde struck India’s only century in the 1958/59 series which WestIndies won 3-0, aided not inconsiderably by the menacing duo of WesleyHall and Gilchrist who claimed 56 wickets between them. “Hall was fastin patches and used to mix his pace cleverly. Gilchrist was fast allthe time and had tremendous stamina. In the Bombay Test he bowledvirtually through the final day” said Borde, comparing the two speedmerchants.The fifth Test at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla brought the curtains downon an eminently forgettable series for India in which they sportedfour captains. One of the few happy memories surrounds Borde whoproduced twin scores of 109 and 96 to create a minor piece of Indianfolklore. On the last day, Borde dug in till the fag end even aswickets tumbled around him. When Gilchrist bowled Desai to extractIndia’s eighth wicket with a couple of overs to spare, the hosts were45 runs in front and the match was saved.Borde was stranded on 95 and the players trooped off since the injuredVijay Manjrekar and Polly Umrigar were not expected to bat. But HemuAdhikari, the skipper, gestured to them to stay put and sure enough,Manjrekar emerged with his arm heavily plastered. “Gilchrist’s bouncerwas very dangerous. It used to skid onto you and the aim wasunerring. He often bowled four bouncers in an over” recalled Borde. Inthe last over of the Delhi Test, Borde hooked one such snorter from Gilchrist but upset the stumps in the bargain to be out hit wicket for 96.Incredibly, that was to be Gilchrist’s last ball in Test cricket.Despite taking 26 wickets in four Tests, he was sent home in disgraceand Borde picks up the story again. It revolves around the beamerwhich was the most potent weapon in Gilchrist’s repertoire, SKGurunathan once writing that he used it as a stock ball rather than ashock ball. “Even I was on the receiving end of his beamers, butsomehow I managed to avoid them” recalls Borde.In their final engagement of the tour, West Indies were drawn to playNorth Zone at Amritsar. North Zone captain Swaranjit Singh hadincurred the Jamaican’s wrath a few years earlier and Gilchrist soughtto ping him on his turban in retribution. As Borde remembers, “WhenSwaranjit was at Cambridge University, he had written something nastyabout Gilchrist who had not forgotten it. The moment he came to knowit was the same chap, Gilchrist was keen to pay him back.”Skipper Gerry Alexander, disciplinarian that he was, was not impressedby the missiles directed against Swaranjit who was his old Cambridgeteam mate. Gilchrist was asked to pack his bags and head for homerather than Pakistan which was the next stop. Nor was he ever pickedagain and a blossoming Test career was nipped in the bud at the age of24.Four years later Gilchrist returned to India along with three fellowquicks from the Caribbean – Chester Watson, Charlie Stayers and LesterKing – in a startling display of initiative by the BCCI to improve thetechniques of local batsmen against fast bowling. He played only asolitary Ranji Trophy game for Hyderabad: the quarter final which theylost to Bengal at Calcutta where Pankaj Roy tamed the Gilchrist menacewith two hundreds in the match. As Ramachandra Guha relates in’Wickets in the East’, Roy hooked him for three successive fours andGilchrist was so frustrated that he ended the over bowling underarm.Gilchrist also played in the Duleep Trophy and the Moin-ud-Dowla Cup.His last first class appearance curiously came for Andhra Chief Minister’s XIagainst the Indian Starlets, part of a series of fundraisers for thecountry’s defence in the wake of the Chinese attack. Borde sums up theeffect of Gilchrist’s bellicose nature on his tribe withthe admission that “a lot of batsmen were out before going onto the field”to play the short but deadly Jamaican.