Viv Richards

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Richards was born to Malcolm and Gretel Richards in St. John's, Antigua, then part of the British Leeward Islands. He attended St. John's Boys Primary School and then Antigua Grammar Secondary School on a scholarship. His brothers Mervyn and Donald both played cricket, representing Antigua as amateurs, and encouraged him to play. At age 17 in 1969, playing for Antigua against St Kitts, he got out for a golden duck; supporters occupied the pitch for two hours, and Richards was given a second opportunity to bat, again out for a duck. He was suspended from playing cricket for two years. He later worked at D'Arcy's Bar and Restaurant in St. John's and joined St. John's Cricket Club, then Rising Sun Cricket Club. In 1973, his abilities were noticed by Len Creed, Vice Chairman at Somerset, who arranged for him to play league cricket for Lansdown C.C. in Bath. Richards made his first-class debut in January 1972 and his Test debut in 1974 against India along with Gordon Greenidge. His best years were between 1976 and 1983, during which he averaged 66.51 with the bat in Test cricket. In 1984 he suffered from pterygium and had eye surgery which affected his eyesight and reflexes, but he remained one of the best batters in the world for the remaining four years of his career.

Reader's Guide

Richards scored 8,540 runs in 121 Test matches at an average of 50.23 and retired as the West Indies' leading run-scorer, overhauling the aggregate of Garfield Sobers. He also scored 1,281 runs at an average of over 55 in World Series Cricket, sometimes regarded as the highest and most difficult level of cricket ever played. As captain, he won 27 of 50 Test matches and lost only 8, and is the only West Indies captain never to lose a Test series. He scored nearly 7,000 runs in One Day Internationals and more than 36,000 in first-class cricket. He was knighted for his contributions to cricket in 1999. In 2000 he was voted one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Century by a 100-member panel of experts, and in 2002 the almanack judged that he had played the best One Day International innings of all time. In December 2002, he was chosen by Wisden as the greatest One Day International batsman who had played to that date and as the third-greatest Test cricket batter. In 2009, Richards was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. In October 2013, Wisden selected the best test team in 150 years of test history and included Richards at No. 5; he is one of only two batsmen of the post-war era (the other being Sachin Tendulkar) to feature in that team.

Did You Know?

• Richards was suspended from playing cricket for two years at age 17 after a crowd disturbance following his golden duck against St Kitts in 1969.
• In 1976, Richards scored 1,710 runs at an average of 90.00 with seven centuries in 11 Tests, a world record for most Test runs in a calendar year that stood for 30 years.
• Richards is the only West Indies captain never to lose a Test series, winning 27 of 50 Tests and losing only 8.
• He became the only man to score a century and take 5 wickets in the same one-day international, against New Zealand at Dunedin in 1986–87.
• In 2002, Wisden judged that Richards had played the best One Day International innings of all time.