Syvester Clarke was
a strong, powerfully built fast bowler with a typically West Indian
love of life and the game he made his profession, Syvester Clarke was restricted
to 11 Tests by the simultaneous presence of Andy Roberts, Michael
Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft and Malcolm Marshall and his decision
to join the West Indian teams that broke the international boycott
against the apartheid of South Africa in the mid-1980s.
Yet there was a host of players in England, where he spent nine
productive seasons with Surrey between 1979 and 1988, who rate him as
clinically fearsome as any of his contemporary West Indian colleagues.
Those who played with and against him in South Africa, where he also
represented Transvaal, Northern Transvaal and Orange Free State, speak
in similar awe of his ability to generate frightening pace and steep
lift from a relatively short, ambling approach and an ungainly,
front-on delivery.
His secret was his immense strength and a snappy, pliable wrist that he
used with telling effect. Like so many Barbadian Test players, Syvester Clarke
came through the ranks of the BCL that has efficiently organised the
game in the country areas for more than 60 years. A return of 21
wickets in his debut season for Barbados in 1978 included a hat-trick
against Trinidad and a summons to the West Indies team for the Third
Test of the home series against Australia after those contracted to
Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket - in other words most of the team -
withdrew.
In the absence of Roberts,
Holding, Garner et al, he spearheaded the weakened attack on the
subsequent tour of India where his 21 wickets in five Tests - including
Sunil Gavaskar five times - made him the leading wicket-taker. His 5
for 126 at Bangalore remained his best Test figures. He toured Pakistan
in 1980-81 when Holding was injured and Roberts rested, and Australia
in 1981-82 when Marshall was getting over a back problem. But he saw
little prospect of getting back on a permanent basis and joined others
in a similar position on Lawrence Rowe's unauthorised and officially
ostracised teams to South Africa in 1982-84. It was a venture that
ended his cricket in the West Indies, for the players were all banned
by the West Indies Cricket Board of Control.
While Clarke's Test record, spread over four years and four series, is
unflattering with 42 wickets at an average of 27.85, the true measure
of his effectiveness is better judged by his returns in England and
South Africa. In the nine seasons he spent with Surrey (he missed 1985
with a back injury) Syvester Clarke gathered 591 wickets at the miserly rate of
18.99 runs each. His best year was 1982 when he took 85 wickets at just
under 20 each and helped them to the Benson and Hedges Cup. In South
Africa, his 193 wickets, at just over 20 each, included a new Currie
Cup championship record haul of 58 wickets in 1985 at the astonishing
average of 12.72 runs each. In his 238 first-class matches, he took 942
wickets at 19.52 runs each, including three hat-tricks - a statistic
not matched by many others.
Barbadians and West Indians rarely saw him at his best. He played only
one Test in the Caribbean, his first at Bourda, and had only 20 matches
for Barbados (68 wickets at 27.91 each). Syvester Clarke had the uncompromising
approach to batting typical of lower-order fast bowlers. He smashed an
unbeaten 35 off 30 balls against Pakistan in the Second Test at
Faisalabad in 1981 and his only first-class century, an even, unbeaten
100 for Surrey against Glamorgan a few months later, took him just over
an hour and was the quickest of the English season.
It was in Pakistan that he was involved in an unfortunate incident in
the final Test at Multan that brought him a two-match suspension for
the subsequent home series against England. Showered with a volley of
oranges and other missiles from the crowd, he reacted by tossing back a
brick, used as a boundary marker. It struck and seriously injured a
student leader in the stand.
At the end of his professional career he returned home to Barbados
where he continued to play in the BCL for his club, Crusaders,
alongside his close friend and former Barbados and West Indies
colleague, Collis King, until the time of his death.
From The Cricketer
Syvester Clarke Test Cricket
Statistics
Full Name
Sylvester Theophilus Clarke
Number
of Test
11
Number of ODIs
10
Test Run Aggregate
172
ODI Run Aggregate
60
Test
Batting Average
15.63
ODI
Batting Average
10.00
Total Test Wickets
42
Total ODI Wickets
13
Test Bowling Average
27.85
ODI Bowling Average
18.84
Test
Centuries
0
ODI
Centuries
0
Date of Birth
December
11, 1954, Lead Vale, Christ Church, Barbados
Died
December 4, 1999, Christ Church, Barbados
Test Debut
West
Indies v Australia at Georgetown - Mar 31-Apr 5, 1978
Last Test Match
Australia
v West Indies at Sydney - Jan 2-6, 1982
ODI Debut
West Indies v Australia at
Castries - Apr 12, 1978
Last ODI Match
Australia v West Indies at
Sydney - Jan 27, 1982
Batting
Style
Right hand bat
Bowling
Style
Right-arm fast
Screenshot
Description
Cricket
Legends These players are the 50 greatest cricketers of
the century, as voted by a blue-ribbon panel of judges assembled by
ESPN. The panelists were asked to list in order, their top 50 players.
Cricketing legends from Australia, England, India, New Zealand,
Pakistan, South Africa and the West Indies all made it to the final 50.
Among them are some famous West Indies fast bowlers, great Aussie
legends, and modern heros of the game. Disc 5 features the great George
Headley.
