'One day you're a hero, another a villain'
The former West Indies keeper is coaching T&T in the Champions League. He talks about his keeping days, T&T's talent, and more
Since I was so short and the smallest member in the team, they used to treat me like a baby. They handled me as if wrapped in cotton wool, and I felt very comfortable being in a dressing room with these greats… Malcolm Marshall, Viv Richards, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Jeffrey Dujon, Gus Logie - great guys all. I had such a great relationship with the seniors. I could ask many questions about cricket, about bowling and captaincy. So I learned a lot. Now I am a coach, and I still try to put things I learned from them into practice.
I had to wait a long time. My first tour was here in India in 1987-88, and I played my first Test match only in 1992, in Barbados, so that was almost five years I had to wait to play a Test. Most of time, I was sitting on the bench while Dujon was keeping wicket. He was a fantastic wicketkeeper and batsman as well, so they were definitely big boots to fill. I did learn a lot from him - how he applied himself with bat and the gloves, and I just had to wait my turn.
It was a historic Test match, but equally it was a great game of cricket. We came back from behind and won that match. The two greats, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, bowled South Africa out dramatically on the final day. It was my first Test, and it is still very, very special to me.
Not really. I had a very poor Test match in Melbourne, and we lost that Test. I dropped Mark Waugh, who went on and made a hundred. And I didn't bat very well either - I got a pair! After doing so well in the first Test, I was brimming with confidence, but that's the nature of cricket. One day you are hero, another day you are villain.
It was a great game. Hooper's experience rubbed off on me. When I first came to bat, I was trying to play my natural game. Hooper came up to me and said: "Listen, look at the scoreboard. We are going to try and maintain a share of runs for each one of us." His advice sort of changed my mindset as to how I was going to score those runs. I became more selective and started looking for more singles. We kept knocking these guys off for ones and twos, coming down until we got to touching distance. By the time I got out, we were almost there. That was a tremendous experience. Having won that game for West Indies was so important. It was one of the highlights of my career.
"I think it is good to have a part-time keeper who bats well playing in your side, but it is also important to have a specialist keeper on standby. If you drop one or two catches, or miss a run-out or a stumping, it could be crucial"
It has got to be Curtly Ambrose. Malcolm Marshall was a great bowler too, but I kept to him when he was a little past his prime. Ambrose was undoubtedly the best I kept to. He was a very smart bowler, and because of his height he bowled a length to which the batsmen could not really go back or forward. When he pitched it up he also got it to move about, and he could bowl pretty fast too. He was very difficult, very economical, and he built up a lot of pressure with his accuracy. And he was very intimidating.
Whether you're keeping to a legspinner or offspinner, you try to maintain the basics - stay down as low as possible and keep your eyes on the ball. In T&T, there were a number of top-class spinners, like Rajindra Dhanraj and Dinanath Ramnarine that I got exposed to.
Everything is changing nowadays. You used to pick a specialist keeper 10 to 15 years ago, but most of the batters are failing now, so they want an extra man at No. 7. That's how it seems to be. If you have an added batter at No. 7, it helps. From a bowling point of view, if you get rid of the top four and if the keeper is not too handy with the bat, then it is just a matter of time before you are into the tail. So that No. 7 spot holds the innings together and keeps the opposition on the back foot for a little bit longer. That's the way it is going in all three formats.
I think it is good to have a part-time keeper who bats well playing in your side, but it is also important to have a specialist keeper on standby. If you drop one or two catches, or miss a run-out or a stumping, it could be crucial. It happened to us in the World Cup in Barbados against Sri Lanka. So it is okay to have guys like AB de Villiers there, but you must have a specialist back-up keeper in case something goes wrong.
That was a great experience. John Dyson had just lost his job, and since I was the assistant, they put me in charge of the team. It was a big thing for me since Australia is not an easy place to tour. They play their cricket very tough out there, but I had some experience in those conditions. Having been there, knowing the wickets and the way they played helped us. We were humiliated in the first Test, but we sat down and had a chat and looked at their side and said: "Listen, this Aussie team may be good, but it is not as good as it looks. If we play sensible cricket, we can beat them." And we played extremely well in the second and third Tests.
The T&T side is very close-knit. The current bunch of guys started together right from the lower age-group levels. About 80-85% of the guys started at the same time, around 2004, when I took charge of the team. So we started to build the momentum from there. We started to realise that there was a lot of talent in the team, so if we trained hard, worked on our fitness and improved our intellect to the game, we knew we could be the best.
Denesh is a special talent. Like every keeper, he went through a poor phase. Even Dujon went through a phase when he didn't score at all and they wanted to drop him. And he was a great player. Denesh started extremely well - he got a 50 against Sri Lanka on debut - but for some reason he fell away. He went through a bad patch and was dropped, and sometimes that's the best thing that can happen. If you are so young, you have the time to reflect. International cricket nowadays is so constant that you have no time to think about yourself and your future - it is just cricket, cricket, cricket. So sometimes it is good to give them a break and bring them back into the fray.
Nitin Sundar is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo