NORTH SOUND–West In­dies leg­end Sir Vi­vian Richards has likened Jer­maine Black­wood to "a bit of Col­lis King", and be­lieves the young Ja­maican has the mak­ing of a "good bats­man in the mid­dle" for the West In­dies in the long-term fu­ture.

Sir Viv, one of the great­est bats­men of all time, was speak­ing on the 29th an­niver­sary of his world record 56-ball cen­tu­ry against Eng­land at the An­tigua Recre­ation­al Ground.

He was on hand to see Black­wood score his maid­en Test match cen­tu­ry, an un­beat­en 112, on the third day of the open­ing Test yes­ter­day.

"He re­minds me sort of a guy like Col­lis King, a kind of bats­man with that won­der­ful nat­ur­al abil­i­ty who can play the big, strong shots, but can al­so bat you out of a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion," Sir Viv said.

"He has the abil­i­ty to play those 'big' shots ... he's a very con­fi­dent young man ... but to­day we saw a dif­fer­ent kind of Jer­maine. They bounced him and made life a lit­tle un­com­fort­able but he fought through that sit­u­a­tion and proved he's got guts and strength ... you need that to make it in Test crick­et."

"He's a very con­fi­dent young man and he plays with that West In­dies style and I like that. I def­i­nite­ly be­lieve we have the kind of in­di­vid­ual we are look­ing for in terms of some­one who can hold down a spot in the mid­dle or­der Test crick­et is con­cerned." CMC