KALLICHARRAN, Alvin Isaac
D.O.B: March 21, 1949 (Berbice, Guyana)
Teams: Guyana, West Indies, Warwickshire
Alvin Kallicharran was a beautifully balanced and wristy left-handed batting star who played 66 Test matches and 31 One Day Internationals for the West Indies with great pride and purpose during a first-class career spanning 23 years. His determination and skill came to the fore during his duels at school and he duly made the Guyana youth team that contested the West Indies championship in 1966.
Notwithstanding his exceptional talent, he learnt a lot of his craft while playing at the famous Port Mourant club alongside Test stalwarts Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher and Joe Solomon among others.
At age 18, he made an inauspicious start to his first-class career against the Windward Islands in Grenada in the 1967 Shell Shield competition. He only returned scores of 14 and 2 in a massive 230-run Guyana victory.
Undaunted, he proceeded to compile a series of consistently substantial scores in subsequent tourneys including a superbly fashioned, fluent 137 against the Combined Islands in 1970 which forced the regional selectors’ eyes to be trained on him.
By 1972, Kallicharran and the Jamaican stylist, Lawrence Rowe, were vying for the spot left vacant by the legendary Kanhai who was not invited by the selectors to be a part of the New Zealand tour of the Caribbean.
Rowe was given the early nod but after distinguishing himself on debut in front of his home fans he fell away badly and in fact was omitted for the fifth and final match.
Kallicharran, in the meanwhile, had chalked up a hundred for Guyana against the tourists and so persuaded the authorities to cap him in the fourth Test at Bourda in front of his countrymen and on a wicket he had played on several times over for his adopted club – the Georgetown Cricket Club.
In a high-scoring, dull draw and in an innings interrupted by rain and a bottle-throwing incident, the compact, diminutive player batted at number six and stroked an unbeaten even century. Onto the Queen’s Park Oval for the final match of the series, in only his second Test innings, the little master caressed his second ton – a splendid 101.
These exploits ensured that he featured prominently in the 1973 home series against Australia during which he compiled three half-centuries including 53 and a flawless 91 on a treacherous pitch in the third Test in Trinidad which had put West Indies on course for victory until he departed.
His first overseas tour was to England in 1973 when he struck three centuries against county opposition and averaged a healthy 64.78 per innings. However, his highest score in the three-match series was a pair of 80s in the first Test at the Oval and though he improved on this on his 1976 visit, he never registered a Test hundred in England.
On the 1973 tour, he played in the West Indies first two ever ODI games and promptly thumped a match-winning unbeaten 53 in the second match.
At this juncture of his career he was gradually building a reputation as one of the most complete players in the game – exceptionally excellent against both pace and spin – with a wide variety of strokes on both sides of the pitch.
When the English visited the Caribbean in 1974, Kalli composed a masterful 158 in the first Test at his favourite Queen’s Park Oval which many commentators acclaim was his best innings in terms of class, technique and elegance.
In this particular series, he flayed another hundred in Barbados and aggregated 397 runs at 56.71 per innings although he suffered the indignity of being dismissed for a pair in the final Test in Port-of-Spain.
There was a touch of controversy on the second day of the first Test when Kallicharran had made 142 out of his eventual 158. Bernard Julien played the last ball of the day’s play to Tony Grieg at short-leg and Kalli, backing up, continued to walk towards the pavilion without bothering to ground his bat.
Grieg threw down the non-striker’s wicket and upon appeal he was given out by umpire Douglas Sang Hue although some of the fielders had their backs turned against the action, heading towards the pavilion.
Amidst lengthy discussions and a few ugly scenes, the decision was over-ruled and Kalli resumed his innings but only garnered 16 more before his knock ended.
He again excelled on the tour to Asia (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) in 1974-75 where he averaged 56.77 per innings in seven Tests and constructed two high quality centuries at Bangalore and Karachi.
In the Bangalore game, the West Indies had closed the first day on a comfortable 212 for two (Kallicharran 64 not out) but overnight rain had left the pitch soft and the Indian spinners were creating havoc. The side were bowled out for 289 – adding just 77 more runs – with Kalli contributing 60 of those as he reached 124.
He carried his rich vein of form to England for the first ever World Cup tournament in mid-1975 and scored runs at will including a memorable batting assault on a fired-up Dennis Lillee at the Oval in a preliminary match.
The Australian speed ace was thrashed for one six and seven fours in the space of ten deliveries as Kallicharran hooked, drove and cut his way to an imperious 78 which carried West Indies to the verge of an emphatic win.
Earlier in the year he had played a vital role in helping Guyana secure the regional Shell Shield title for only the second occasion during which they defeated Barbados at the Kensington Oval for the first time.
In the Barbados match he powered his way to 110 and in partnership with the late Roy Fredericks (250) he ensured that Guyana had a mammoth first innings total on the board.
When he captained against Trinidad at Bourda in 1981 Guyana were struggling at 59 for four and later 112 for six on the first day. In tandem with Clive Lloyd (144), who arrived late at the venue by helicopter, they took the game away from the Trinis by putting on a monumental 286 with Kalli registering a shot-filled 184.
He stood up admirably to the fearsome pace of Lillee and Jeff Thompson on West Indies ill-fated tour ‘Down Under’ in 1975-76, constructing a century at Brisbane and half-centuries at Perth and Adelaide.
He also had a fair season against the visiting Indians in the Caribbean in 1976 where he narrowly missed a century in the Barbados game but eked out the customary one in Trinidad in the rescheduled third Test which the tourists won with a record-breaking performance.
By the time the West Indies were on tour to England later in the year, Kallicharran was afflicted with fibrositis in his shoulder and played in only three of the five Tests. He did manage to reach 97 in the first game (his highest Test score in England) during which he partnered Viv Richards in a 300-run stand.
Against Pakistan in the West Indies the following year, he again struggled with his best effort being 72 in front of his home fans.
In the height of the Kerry Packer Affair, a depleted Australian team visited these shores in 1978 and a renewed and reinvigorated Kalli carved a sumptuous 127 in Port-of-Spain in the first encounter. The West Indies won comfortably and then made it 2-nil with a nine-wicket win in Barbados.
On the eve of the third Test in Georgetown, differences between the players and the West Indies Board erupted over the Packer issue and a second string team, with Kallicharran at the helm, had to contest the remainder of the series.
Kalli had originally signed to play for Packer but pulled out at the last moment due to contractual arrangements he had with a Queensland radio station. The West Indies won the series 3-1 with the batting maestro adding scores of 92 and 126 to his earlier feats.
He took the same team to India in 1978-79 where they acquitted themselves well, losing 1-nil in the six-match series. He made a regal 187 (his highest Test score) in the first duel in Bombay and ended the series with 538 runs at an impressive 59.77 per innings.
The Packer issue now settled, he was retained in the original West Indies party to Australia and New Zealand in 1979-80 and made a deft 106 in the second innings of the third and final Test at Adelaide as the side won a series in Australia for the first time.
On the controversial tour to New Zealand he failed to score in three innings although he compiled a stylish 75 at Christchurch. On subsequent visits to England (1980) and Pakistan (1980-81) he had an extremely lean patch totalling a paltry 182 runs in nine Tests at the measly average of 16.54 per knock.
To compound matters he suffered a broken arm to Andy Roberts in Grenada in February 1981 which sidelined him for the series against the English in the Caribbean later that year.
Perhaps disillusioned, he signed for Transvaal to play in South Africa’s domestic competition and was part of ‘rebel’ West Indies tours there in 1983 and 1984. His decision to go that route debarred him from playing for Guyana or the West Indies due to South Africa’s apartheid policies at the time.
He also focused on playing for Warwickshire in the English county championship which he did with tremendous acumen. In fact, in five of his first seven seasons he recorded over 1 000 runs and in 1984 he went past 2 000 with a county-record nine centuries.
The batting artist engaged in first-class cricket until 1990 and made 32 650 runs in 505 games at a rate of 43.64 per innings.
Kallicharran resides in Birmingham and occasionally turns out for Masters tournaments.
RECORD
TESTS: 66  RUNS: 4399 AVG: 44.43          HS: 187 v India, Bombay, 1978-79
ODI: 31 RUNS: 826 AVG: 34.41          HS: 78 vs Australia, The Oval, 1975
(Digicel: Guyana’s Bigger, Better Network)