ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Fifty years since hoist­ing the first World Cup tro­phy on the steps of Lord’s Crick­et Ground, there is still a sur­re­al feel­ing for two-time World Cup-win­ning cap­tain Sir Clive Lloyd.

On June 22, at the Wyn­d­ham Grand Bar­ba­dos, Crick­et West In­dies and the West In­dies Play­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion will ho­n­our the leg­endary cap­tain at their an­nu­al awards gala, along­side oth­er liv­ing cham­pi­ons.

Stand­ing at an im­pos­ing six feet five inch­es, Lloyd played a ma­jor role in restor­ing the West In­dies’ sta­tus as the most dom­i­nant unit in world crick­et af­ter lead­ing his team to back-to-back World Cup tri­umphs. In 1975, Lloyd cap­tained a pre­dom­i­nant­ly in­ex­pe­ri­enced squad in­to the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment, and to cop the ti­tle un­der such cir­cum­stances still res­onates deeply with him.

Re­liv­ing the vic­to­ry, Lloyd shared, “It was a very sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment for us be­cause we were not do­ing so well in test match­es and giv­en that the tour­na­ment was new to us with a very young team made the feel­ing ex­tra spe­cial, es­pe­cial­ly when you re­mem­ber that we were not the favourites.”

“It was won­der­ful, af­ter that scare we had against Pak­istan, we re­al­ized that we could not lose that tro­phy, and with all those young­sters now com­ing through, it gave our crick­et a huge lift to win the World Cup,” he said. “When you are not the favourites, it makes the mo­ment more spe­cial and West In­di­ans around the world were very hap­py,” he fur­ther added.

Dur­ing the fi­nal, the skip­per strode to the crease with his team in strife at 50 for 3 against Aus­tralia, but a pow­er­ful coun­ter­at­tack­ing in­nings trig­gered a re­nais­sance for the Caribbean team. Lloyd ham­mered 12 fours and two six­es in a bel­liger­ent in­nings of 102 from 85 balls to pro­pel the West In­dies to 291 for 8, even­tu­al­ly carv­ing out the his­toric 17-run win.

Lloyd earned his rep­u­ta­tion as a leader of men, and cre­at­ing a plat­form for his team to se­cure vic­to­ry epit­o­mized his lead­er­ship skills.

“We had lost a cou­ple of ear­ly wick­ets, and I was left with Ro­han Kan­hai to re­cov­er the in­nings, and we added over a hun­dred to­geth­er which brought the game back in the bal­ance while help­ing us to a com­pet­i­tive to­tal, fol­lowed by a stun­ning dis­play in the field which re­sult­ed in five run outs.”

One of Clive Lloyd’s most renowned traits was unit­ing in­di­vid­u­als from var­i­ous Caribbean coun­tries with the sin­gu­lar goal of be­com­ing the best crick­et team in the world. Hav­ing such a di­verse cul­ture at his dis­pos­al, Lloyd saw it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cher­ry-pick the best play­ers to build the West In­dies side he en­vi­sioned.

“Be­ing cap­tain of the West In­dies is al­ways dif­fi­cult be­cause we have 14 is­lands, dif­fer­ent cul­tures, dif­fer­ent back­grounds, and to get them to­geth­er is the great­est tri­umph, be­cause you get every­one think­ing as one while want­i­ng to win to­geth­er for the peo­ple, which is the com­mon goal.”

There was a lin­ger­ing sense of pride and pas­sion that came with the play­ers cop­ping the top prize at the Home of Crick­et.

“When we got home, we re­al­ized the mag­ni­tude of this suc­cess, be­cause there were mo­tor­cades, peo­ple there cheer­ing us on, and we re­al­ized how much it meant to the peo­ple, and it gave the Caribbean that im­pe­tus to be­lieve that we were now back on top of the world.”

The lega­cy of cre­at­ing his­to­ry for the peo­ple of the Caribbean re­mains at the fore­front of Lloyd’s mind, as he urges cur­rent and fu­ture stars of the re­gion to live by a sim­ple mind­set.

“I hope that it will give that feel­ing that if you put in the ef­fort, you will do well be­cause the on­ly time suc­cess comes be­fore work is in the dic­tio­nary and if you put in the hard work, the suc­cess will come.”

Dur­ing his cap­tain­cy, the West In­dies were the most suc­cess­ful team in the world, go­ing 27 Test match­es with­out de­feat – a run that in­clud­ed 11 con­sec­u­tive wins and the in­fa­mous “Black­wash” of Eng­land in 1984. He al­so served as a West In­dies team man­ag­er, se­lec­tor, and ICC Match Ref­er­ee. In 2009, he was in­duct­ed in­to the ICC Crick­et Hall of Fame.

(CWI Me­dia)