KINGSTON, Jamaica – The last time anything positive and in public was said about Lawrence George Alphonso Rowe was some 33 years ago.Under lights ‘Down-Under’, Jeff Thomson had served a ‘loosener’ to his namesake. Hardly ever getting one, the batsman clicked his heels and punched straight. Bill Lawry’s pigeons scurried, and the other camp’s crowd ‘oowed-and-aawed’.

“A glorious shot this, by Jeff Dujon,” Alan McGilvray hailed it. Finding an illustrious comparison, he then mumbled into his microphone: “Only Lawrence Rowe could have timed that better.”
Things returned to normal service last Saturday night at the South Florida Conference Centre in Margate, Fort Lauderdale, when a glitterati of West Indies cricket stars were singing from the same hymn book.
“I’m seeing great evidence of him helping the youth,” said Sir Wesley Hall, a man who gets around with a cane these days, but one of the men, who seemed delighted to have made the long haul – in his case from his faraway Barbados.
“You can give back not only to the place where you come from, but also give back to your adopted country,” Sir Wesley noted instructively, of the non-profit Lawrence Rowe Cricket Legendary Foundation, which targets underprivileged children in the South Florida area.
And then there was Sir Garry, who, when he made his way to the podium, as he did to cricket middles all over the world, the crowd elegantly rose to their feet while pounding on their tables. “This weekend has been wonderful.” And, said the man who has travelled the world attending banquets such as that one: “It’s one of the best I’ve been to in a long time.”
‘The Garf’ then briefly rolled back the clock to touch on still the most regal entry into Test cricket.
“I captained Lawrence in his first Test match,” said Sobers to the, by then, hushed crowd. They wanted to hear more about what took place at that Test match staged at Sabina Park in February 1972, against New Zealand.
“And I saw Rowe play one shot, that I’d never before, nor ever after, seen.” The crowd of over 300 began again to pound their dining tables as if at Gordon House. “Such was the timing and the elegant placement.”
But back to the order of business:
“Lawrence worked hard to put this on and I know that he will be successful,” said Sir Garry, in a commanding tone, which seemed to have suggested: ‘Enough-was-enough’.
Then there was Faoud Bacchus, Gordon Greenidge, Lance Gibbs, Larry Gomes, Desmond Haynes, Alvin Kallicharran, Collis King, Desmond Lewis, Deryck Murray, Albert Padmore, Sir Andy Roberts, all of whom Rowe had greeted at the Sheraton Suite in Plantation, the night before.
“I’m pleased to be among my teammates once again,” said Rowe, the one-time batting genius, choked up with emotion.
And it was Deryck Murray who gave the keynote address on Saturday night in Margate. He, too, was full of respect for Rowe, and full of praise for his cause.
But how could he have forgotten the scene at Kensington Oval back in March 1974, on hand for the West Indies-England Test? He didn’t.
“Kensington Oval never saw a crowd like that,” reflected the West Indies vice-captain at the time, and one of Rowe’s batting partners during his legendary triple-century.
“This means the world to him,” said Rowe’s wife Audrey, who knows what it is to see Lawrence beaten down – and by his own people, and in his own homeland.
It was in October of 2011 that Lawrence and Audrey suffered ignominy.
Unless he or she comes with a box of money in-tow, Jamaica has not always done well, when it comes to acknowledging, much less dignifying the works of its own. It does not bury hatchets easily.
“For what you are now doing (referring to Rowe’s foundation), it shows that you are not only a great West Indian, but a great man,” said Brian Lara, when his turn to speak on Saturday night came.
And it was Lara, who on the Sunday which followed, and batting for the Legends, stole the show with a scintillating 108 in 20 of the allotted 30 overs. It virtually sealed the victory over the Cavaliers on a chilly night under lights, at the Central Broward Regional Park and Stadium.
Lara, by his presence for the weekend extravaganza, represented the younger brigade, the likes of Carlisle Best, Merv Dillon, Daren Ganga, Wavell Hinds, Nixon McLean, and Ricardo Powell, the latter who now resides in Texas.
Every man deserves to find his own way back to his own redemption.
And if one road is blocked, there’s always an alternate route. (Jamaica Observer)