Cricket- first test, England against West Indies.

Cricket - the first test, England against West Indies

Barring monsoons or snow on a prodigious scale, the first test between England and West Indies will go ahead and the chances are that cricket will have survived the coronavirus although as we have been reminded quite a few times now the match will be known as the biosecure Test which sounds as though it should be played in a laboratory surrounded by test tubes or bunsen burners.

Back in March cricket fell into that unusual category of one of those sports that had to be re-evaluated quite thoroughly because it is a spectator sport although not in the same numbers as football. Cricket, regrettably, is not nearly as high profile as it would like it to be although England's Test matches against the leading cricket nations of the world has never been in doubt.

Today, at the Ageas Bowl, Southampton England meet one of the most charismatic, happy-go-lucky, effervescent, extrovert cricketing sides in the world. When the West Indies come to any town or city in England it normally means that the cricket will be stunningly crafted, breathtakingly breezy, classically flawless and quite the most brilliant spectacle. It will be a delight to all the senses, great fun to watch and terribly therapeutic if you're feeling down in the dumps.

During the 1970s some of us could hardly believe what we were watching. It almost felt as if the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team had dropped into Lords and sprinkled some stardust all over the outfield and that well-trodden batting strip. The West Indies were a magnificent force of nature, enormously gifted, vastly resourceful, oozing technical virtuosity, full of mighty, formidable batting strength in depth and immeasurably superior to anything England could offer. This time though we won't allow anything to get us down so we'll watch with bated breath and remember who England are playing.

This year though it'll be a whole new ball game or a red ball game. Cricket, rather like football, will be taking its lead from football when it treads on the well-manicured, burnished green grass. It'll be played against a backdrop of no fans and the behind closed doors charade that has now come to characterise the winter game of football. There is a belief here that cricket will cope in adversity since, by its very nature, the hundreds and thousands who populate the seats and terraces at the Etihad Stadium, Anfield, the Emirates, Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford may not be conspicuous by their presence.

Cricket was the game that first emerged into the light of the day many centuries ago when the village greens of England would contentedly resound to the bat and bowl while the sheep in another peaceful field would graze contemplatively, only occasionally looking up at the aristocrats and gentry in all their athletic, white-shirted glory. Then cricket was a much slower game although to some extent it still is. The pace perfectly suited the leisured classes who would then take their drink breaks whenever the mood took them.

But today in the high tech, social media driven, electronic age of whizzy graphics, instant statistics, TV, radio, Smartphone and Tablet, cricket is still flourishing when we probably thought the sheer pace of change would leave it well behind the rest of sport. Cricket is bang up to date, full of helmets, umpires with earpieces, coloured clothing and, more recently, numbers on the back of their shirts. You'd be forgiven for thinking that cricket was just copying football but the summer game of cricket is, quite literally, in a class of its own.

After winning last year's World Cup in their own backyard and then tumbling to humbling defeat to the Aussies in the Ashes, England are back again on home soil. For months we didn't think it would ever happen but cricket is back again. The County Championship, along with the biff and bash slogfest of those limited-overs, day and night-time matches, has yet to come out of the winter hibernation so that one is on the back burner for the minute.

England's opponents the West Indies of course, demand our respect regardless of generation and time frame. The old days of absolute mastery, astonishingly executed cricket, beautiful cricket with equally as spectacular performances are perhaps now long gone but the beauty and the panache with which they decorate all of their displays can never be discounted. We all know how impossible to beat the West Indies used to be and there were times during the 1970s when even the neutrals just wanted them to put on their purple finery, a team of almost regal status rather than a mundane bore.

In the mind's eye you can still see the West Indian fans filling the Oval with their joyous steel drums pounding away almost ceaselessly, sending out their wonderfully rhythmic melodies across the suburban shires of Surrey. It was a day of endless music, calypso carnival and record breaking cricket as the wickets tumbled, the noise became progressively louder and the singing much more melodious than perhaps we were expecting.

This was all because the West Indies had arrived. It meant that the pantherine and graceful Clive Lloyd was on captaincy duty, a long legged, powerful fielder and prolific batsman who chalked up big scores and colossal centuries. Then we move on to Sir Viv Richards, a Somerset batsman of majestic, magisterial, lordly and princely stature. In that distinctive maroon cap, Richards would doff that cap just before the first ball of the day had been delivered and then launch into some of the most destructive, punishing, heartless, callous, forthright batting the world had ever seen.

When the mood was right and the sun in the right position, Richards was unstoppable, irrepressible, a batsman of almost barbaric ferocity. He would settle in his crease against the likes of Ian Botham, Bob Willis, the cunning spin of Derek Underwood and many a trembling Englishman. He would dig his bat gently maybe once even twice before thrashing his cover drives, hooking with fearsome intent and then strategically nicking the outside edge for innumerable fours that left the English fielders gasping for another drinks break. Then there were the carousel of sixes that soared high into the air, over a thousand church steeples, office blocks and deep into the unspoilt meadows of Somerset.

Richards also had the highly respected likes of Gordon Greenidge equally as lethal and supple with his batting wrists, pulling the ball away to the inevitable boundary then pushing the West Indies total along with almost indecent haste. Greenidge was equally as brutal with the short ball, clumping the ball viciously with bloodthirsty aggression and totally without remorse. Greenidge, like Richards, had impeccable timing, an ever present sense of adventure and natural discipline, a cricketer for all occasions and its purest exponent.

Then there was Rohan Kanhai, a batsman with patience as a virtue, a charmer, a versatile all rounder, clipping, prodding and then blasting the ball in all manner of directions. There was Alvin Kalicharran, compact and clever, sound of technique, always watchful and frequently dangerous. The West Indies class of the 1970s always knew how to express themselves because they knew exactly when to hit the accelerator and when to parade the full range of cavalier strokes, ultra confident shots that flowed from their hands like a mountain stream in full spate.

When the likes of Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding came running into their batsmen in full flight it was rather watching a family of swans gliding onto a small and placid river. But these swans had much more than the grace and majesty you might have expected of cricketers. They bowled with razor sharp accuracy, a deliberately hyped up hostility and under orders to create havoc, destruction, carnage and a clattering splinter of broken stumps.

Today though England, captained by the heroic and triumphant Ben Stokes will find himself in tandem with the rapidly maturing Rory Burns, the blossoming Dom Sibley, Joe Denly, the brand new or seemingly so Zak Crawley, the permanently enthusiastic Ollie Pope, the marvellously agile and quick witted Jos Buttler, the eager beaver Dom Bess, the excellent Mark Wood, the wily and experienced Stuart Broad while never leaving out the fiercely committed James Anderson.

For the West Indies the names may be unfamiliar but the traditions are undeniable. The likes of John Campbell, Kraigg Brathwaite, Shai Hope, Jermaine Blackwood, Royston Chase, captain Jason Holder, Kemar Roach, Shannon Gabriel and Alzarri Joseph are unknowns for some of us. But you can be sure that when they all come together with those natty maroon caps and pride in their hearts, the instincts will be as sharp as ever, the hunger for victory still there for all to see and England will certainly know they've been in a game.

With the global pandemic around them though these will not be conventional cricketing encounters. Cricket will have to contend with its shields, hand sanitisers and masks in much the way that most of us will have to grow accustomed. Cricket in the world of coronavirus will surely be the most novel of sights and it maybe hard to imagine if, rather like football, cricket will, one day, be able to safely accommodate its fervent supporters and fans. But then you think of the memories left behind of Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd and they all come flooding back warmly. Cricket at its very best.