Lawrence Rowe

Lawrence Rowe possesed every stroke in the book and, like so many great players, he raely lifted the ball off the grass. Every stroke he played seemed to be played with that extra bit of time. Rowe was a beautiful driver of the ball a master of the Square cut, he could sweep like Kanhai and late cut like Worrell. Rowe made his Test debut against the touring New Zealand side of 1972-73, making history at Kingston scoring 214 and 100 not out, the first time that a cricketer had scored a double and single century on Test debut.

In the 1973-74 home series against England Lawrence Rowe had his best series for the West Indies. Rowe scored 616 runs made 3 centuries, one a tripple 302 at kensington Oval Barbados, and top the batting averages with 88.00

After this magnificant series Lawrence Rowe suffered many unfortunate occurances which forced him to missed a number of Test matches. On the 1974-75 tour of India it was recognised by the senior players and management that Rowe was being bowled with unusual frequency. In his first three innings he had scored nought, one and fifteen not out, after the second match it was establish that Rowe had serious eye trouble and was not tracking the flight of the ball.

Lawrence Rowe was sent home and had to undergo eye surgery afterwards there was a tragic downward turn in Rowe's career. Rowe happened to develop a stye on one of his eyelids, he went to a distinguish opthalmic surgeon who tested his eyes as a matter of routine. It was discovered that Rowe had better than 20/20 vision, hence it can be assume that Rowe had more time to track the flight of the ball. 

It was also discovered that a growth known as Pterygium was forming on both of Rowe's eyes, it had almost covered the right eye completely and was well on the way to obscuring the vision in the left.  The growths were remove but after Rowe could only just manage 20/20 vision in his right eye and  was well short of 20/20 vision in the left eye, contact lens were prescribed but these were before soft lens were develop.  

The next few years saw Rowe struggled with inflamation, irritation and often watering of the eyes, until during Packer World Series it was discover that his right eye was not absolutely symmetrical. Special lenses, were design to accommondate the slightly misshapen eye. It was also reccommended that he wear no contact lens in the right eye afterwards there was marked improvement in Rowes batting.

However, Lawrence Rowe never regain the prominance with the bat after the problems with his eyes. In 1982-83, Rowe led a rebel tour to South Africa during the days of apartheid. The West Indian public were outraged by the tour, Rowe and his rebel team mates received a lifetime ban by the West Indies Cricket Board from all levels of cricket.

Lawrence Rowe Test Cricket Statistics

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