ST JOHN’S – Fast bowling great and one of four knighted cricketers here in Antigua, Sir Curtly Ambrose, said he almost walked away from the game at an early stage in his career.
Having claimed 405 wickets in 98 Tests, Sir Curtly said brushes with the selection politics associated with West Indies cricket had left him distraught in 1990 after he was left out of the squad for the first Test against England in a series which started in Jamaica when selectors claimed he was “sick”.
“For the second Test match in Guyana the same team was selected; however, the late great Malcolm Marshall pulled out because of an injury and that’s when they sent for me to replace Marshall in Guyana and I said, not me, I am not going anywhere. If I wasn’t fit enough or good enough to play last week then I can’t be fit this week,” he said.
“I was at Factory [Cricket Ground] training with Taddy and I remember my good friend Hugh Gore was the one who came to me and literally cried and said to me ‘Ambi, you have to go, go and prove them wrong’. Then is when I said to him, maybe you’re right and then I started to focus a little more on taking the cricket seriously and that was my first brush with West Indies politics,” he added. (Antigua Observer)
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