Nass­er Khan

The Sun­day Guardian had the priv­i­lege, cour­tesy of the T&T Crick­et Board, to sit down for a spe­cial in­ter­view at the Queen's Park Oval with West In­di­an bat­ting leg­end Alvin Kallichar­ran dur­ing his re­cent coach­ing stint here in T&T. This was his first vis­it back to the West In­dies in 20 years.Now 65 years old, the spright­ly and jovial Kallichar­ran had his young charges lap­ping up his coach­ing tech­niques when we met up with him. He even end­ed the ses­sion by hav­ing them bowl at him in the nets, show­ing flash­es of his bril­liant left-hand­ed bat­ting of yes­ter­year.

In 1975/76 ca­lyp­son­ian Mae­stro sang af­ter the West In­dies won the 1975 World Cup: It was a fan­ta­sy to see, tiny lit­tle Kalli hit Thom­mo and Lillee bound­ary af­ter bound­ary. This was af­ter the mas­ter bats­man tore apart the bowl­ing of the Aus­tralian great fast bowler Den­nis Lillee dur­ing one of the World Cup match­es (view at www.youtube.com).That on­slaught is etched in the an­nals of crick­et­ing his­to­ry and folk­lore–Lit­tle Kalli in the days of no hel­met and the myr­i­ad of oth­er pro­tec­tive gear. In fact, Kallichar­ran al­so had the ho­n­our of rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies in their re­peat tri­umph at the 1979 World Cup four years lat­er. He was al­so a mem­ber of the Guyana Shell Shield win­ning squads of 1973 and 1975, and he scored five re­gion­al cen­turies in­clud­ing one against T&T of 184.

Dur­ing his ca­reer, he played 66 Tests (4,399 runs at an av­er­age of 44.43 and 12 cen­turies) and 31 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als for the West In­dies from 1972 to 1981. He scored test hun­dreds in his first and sec­ond Test match­es, a feat few have ac­com­plished. In his first class ca­reer, he played 505 match­es scor­ing 32,650 runs at an av­er­age of 43.64 with 87 cen­turies and 160 50s, while in his One-Day ca­reer he played 383 match­es scor­ing an­oth­er 11,336 runs with an av­er­age of 34.66 and 15 hun­dreds and 71 half-cen­turies. Out of his 12 Test cen­turies, four were scored at the Queen's Park Oval–scores of 101, 158, 103 and 127.

He played coun­ty crick­et in Eng­land for War­wick­shire from 1972 to 1992, 20 years, end­ing in his ear­ly 40s. In be­tween and there­after, he played with Trans­vaal and Or­ange Free State in South Africa in the 1980s. He al­so had a brief stint in Aus­tralia for the state team Queens­land in the 1977/78 sea­son. Af­ter his War­wick­shire days, he did some crick­et con­sul­tan­cy and coach­ing around the world and then be­came the man­ag­er/play­er for ten years with the Lash­ings in Kent, Eng­land. "I've made the rounds," ac­cord­ing to Kallichar­ran.He had the ho­n­our of cap­tain­ing the West In­dies team in six match­es dur­ing the in­fa­mous Pack­er era, los­ing just one game at the helm.

There is a mem­o­rable in­ci­dent at the Queen's Park Oval in 1974, when dur­ing what many re­gard as his finest in­nings, 158 in a match win­ning in­ning against Eng­land, there was a huge con­tro­ver­sy. While on 142, he watched T&T's Bernard Julien (who made 86 not out) play the last ball of the first day to Tony Greig at point be­fore walk­ing down the pitch to­wards the pavil­ion. Greig threw down the bowlers stumps and Kallichar­ran was giv­en out by Dou­glas Sang Hue. The out­cry that erupt­ed then and overnight, led to Kallichar­ran be­ing re­in­stat­ed next morn­ing af­ter the fu­ture of the tour was put in jeop­ardy.

Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: In Port Mourant (con­trary to what is shown on Cricin­fo).

What schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

St Joseph An­gli­can School and Port Mourant Com­pre­hen­sive High School. Af­ter high school, from the age of 16, my ed­u­ca­tion was ob­tained from play­ing or be­ing in­volved in crick­et re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. From then un­til now, you could say the 'uni­ver­si­ty of crick­et'.

Who are the peo­ple who in­flu­enced and in­spired you the most, in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al?

All my un­cles on both sides were crick­eters. My fa­ther cap­tained the lo­cal team, so it was crick­et all around. We fol­lowed them around, fed off the pas­sion and learnt a lot from them. In­ter­est­ing­ly, it was a shop­keep­er back in my vil­lage, Mr Ram­sey and his fam­i­ly, who in­flu­enced me in the ear­ly days by pro­vid­ing mon­ey to trav­el to George­town to see and play crick­et, and I was in­spired by be­ing in a vil­lage that pro­duced so many West In­di­an crick­et he­roes like Ro­han Kan­hai, Basil Butch­er, Joe Solomon, John Trim and Robert Chris­tiani. I al­so read a lot at the lo­cal li­braries about ear­li­er he­roes like Learie Con­stan­tine, George Headley, Weekes, Wor­rell, Wal­cott (the 3 W's), Frank Wor­rell and then came the ge­nius Garfield Sobers. These were the peo­ple who in­flu­enced and in­spired me the most, peo­ple who you copied men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly and felt their vi­bra­tions and sense of pur­pose, those who set high stan­dards and the strong foun­da­tions for us who came lat­er.

Be­tween your play­ing days as a pro­fes­sion­al crick­eter and to­day, what have you done job wise?

Ba­si­cal­ly trav­el­ling to dif­fer­ent parts of the globe do­ing crick­et­ing con­sul­tan­cy and coach­ing. These days, I share my time be­tween the USA and Eng­land.

What are your plans for the fu­ture? What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have?

We all have dreams but for me, be­ing back in the West In­dies af­ter such a long time has had me think­ing that it would be nice to fin­ish my life's work where it all start­ed. But it's on­ly a dream, who knows.

Why do you think West In­dies crick­et has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed like it has?

The feed­er sys­tem leaves a lot to be de­sired. There are too many gaps from the grass­root to the na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. These gaps are a lot wider than in my era. Al­so to be a suc­cess, you have to be hun­gry, to want it and be pre­pared to work hard. Most of all, you must have dis­ci­pline. I don't know how many have the up­bring­ing and the in­flu­ence in their lives to have that burn­ing de­sire and dis­ci­pline to make it hap­pen. The men­tal strength and un­der­stand­ing that you are in a bat­tle, in a war, you do not see dan­ger or anx­i­ety, but you must win the bat­tle men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, whether as a bats­man or a bowler. That's how we played as a team in my era and were able to dom­i­nate for so long.

What else would you have been if you weren't a crick­eter?

You know Nass­er, who knows, maybe a fish­er­man or a cane cut­ter back in my vil­lage, but my fate was to be a crick­eter. It has and con­tin­ues to be my life.

What is your great­est ac­com­plish­ment in crick­et?

It was to play a Test match for the West In­dies which was my dream as a child grow­ing up in my vil­lage. That was my great­est achieve­ment in crick­et, to wear the West In­dies colours at an in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. It was the high­est ac­co­lade, prize, award, what­ev­er you want to call it. Of course, there are many medals and tro­phies, but play­ing that first Test match back then, noth­ing can beat that. Be­ing recog­nised and be­ing in­vit­ed to con­tribute to crick­et in the West In­dies for the first time by the T&T Crick­et Board is very spe­cial too, I must say.

Is an au­to­bi­og­ra­phy in the mak­ing?

Many peo­ple ask me this ques­tion. As a hu­man be­ing, some­times it's best to leave the past be­hind. To go back and dig up and bring out the truth be­hind the scenes that no one writes about is some­times best left alone. There is so much to say but who knows, maybe one day...There is a lot I would say about South Africa, for ex­am­ple, and Pack­er and the West In­dies ad­min­is­tra­tion in those days. I bet­ter keep qui­et yes (laugh­ing).

Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: In Port Mourant (con­trary to what is shown on Cricin­fo).

What schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

St Joseph An­gli­can School and Port Mourant Com­pre­hen­sive High School. Af­ter high school, from the age of 16, my ed­u­ca­tion was ob­tained from play­ing or be­ing in­volved in crick­et re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. From then un­til now, you could say the 'uni­ver­si­ty of crick­et'.

Who are the peo­ple who in­flu­enced and in­spired you the most, in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al?

All my un­cles on both sides were crick­eters. My fa­ther cap­tained the lo­cal team, so it was crick­et all around. We fol­lowed them around, fed off the pas­sion and learnt a lot from them. In­ter­est­ing­ly, it was a shop­keep­er back in my vil­lage, Mr Ram­sey and his fam­i­ly, who in­flu­enced me in the ear­ly days by pro­vid­ing mon­ey to trav­el to George­town to see and play crick­et, and I was in­spired by be­ing in a vil­lage that pro­duced so many West In­di­an crick­et he­roes like Ro­han Kan­hai, Basil Butch­er, Joe Solomon, John Trim and Robert Chris­tiani. I al­so read a lot at the lo­cal li­braries about ear­li­er he­roes like Learie Con­stan­tine, George Headley, Weekes, Wor­rell, Wal­cott (the 3 Ws), Frank Wor­rell and then came the ge­nius Garfield Sobers. These were the peo­ple who in­flu­enced and in­spired me the most, peo­ple who you copied men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly and felt their vi­bra­tions and sense of pur­pose, those who set high stan­dards and the strong foun­da­tions for us who came lat­er.

Be­tween your play­ing days as a pro­fes­sion­al crick­eter and to­day, what have you done job wise?

Ba­si­cal­ly trav­el­ling to dif­fer­ent parts of the globe do­ing crick­et­ing con­sul­tan­cy and coach­ing. These days, I share my time be­tween the USA and Eng­land.

What are your plans for the fu­ture? What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have?

We all have dreams but for me, be­ing back in the West In­dies af­ter such a long time has had me think­ing that it would be nice to fin­ish my life's work where it all start­ed. But it's on­ly a dream, who knows.

Why do you think West In­dies crick­et has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed like it has?

The feed­er sys­tem leaves a lot to be de­sired. There are too many gaps from the grass­root to the na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. These gaps are a lot wider than in my era. Al­so to be a suc­cess, you have to be hun­gry, to want it and be pre­pared to work hard. Most of all, you must have dis­ci­pline. I don't know how many have the up­bring­ing and the in­flu­ence in their lives to have that burn­ing de­sire and dis­ci­pline to make it hap­pen. The men­tal strength and un­der­stand­ing that you are in a bat­tle, in a war, you do not see dan­ger or anx­i­ety, but you must win the bat­tle men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, whether as a bats­man or a bowler. That's how we played as a team in my era and were able to dom­i­nate for so long.

What else would you have been if you weren't a crick­eter?

You know Nass­er, who knows, maybe a fish­er­man or a cane cut­ter back in my vil­lage, but my fate was to be a crick­eter. It has and con­tin­ues to be my life.

What is your great­est ac­com­plish­ment in crick­et?

It was to play a Test match for the West In­dies which was my dream as a child grow­ing up in my vil­lage. That was my great­est achieve­ment in crick­et, to wear the West In­dies colours at an in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. It was the high­est ac­co­lade, prize, award, what­ev­er you want to call it. Of course, there are many medals and tro­phies, but play­ing that first Test match back then, noth­ing can beat that. Be­ing recog­nised and be­ing in­vit­ed to con­tribute to crick­et in the West In­dies for the first time by the T&T Crick­et Board is very spe­cial too, I must say.

Is an au­to­bi­og­ra­phy in the mak­ing?

Many peo­ple ask me this ques­tion. As a hu­man be­ing, some­times it's best to leave the past be­hind. To go back and dig up and bring out the truth be­hind the scenes that no one writes about is some­times best left alone. There is so much to say but who knows, maybe one day...There is a lot I would say about South Africa, for ex­am­ple, and Pack­er and the West In­dies ad­min­is­tra­tion in those days. I bet­ter keep qui­et yes (laugh­ing).