Sabina Park is the home of the Kingston Cricket Club, and is the only Test cricket ground in Kingston, Jamaica and is often referred to as "The Holiday Home of Cricket". Sabina Park became a Test cricket ground in 1930 when it hosted the visiting MCC team for the second Test in the West Indies' first home series. This picturesque ground is perhaps one of the most significant in Test cricket history recording the first triple century in the game with England's Andy Sandham's 325 versus the West Indies in the 1930 game. The 365 not out by Sir Garfield Sobers which stood as a Test record for over 36 years is more regaled, as was Lawrence Rowe's world record on debut 214 and 100 not out against the visiting New Zealanders in 1972.^[1]

The George Headley stand which dominates the south end is currently the only stand in the ground named after anyone, and has a capacity of just over 6,000. The Eastern Stands has given way to a "Party Stand" replacing the popular "Mound" stand. The general capacity of Jamaicans for excess is aptly demonstrated in the construction of the huge five-level concrete stand which hosts the outside broadcast facilities, players facilities as well as a fleet of upscale private boxes. The members pavilion lies square of the wicket on the west side.

The Blue Mountains form a backdrop to the north, facing the George Headley Stand, with Kingston Harbour to the south. This view is currently blocked by the Northern Stand, built as part of the ground's redevelopment for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. Jamaican artist Richard H.Blackford produced two striking paintings of the romantic ground showing the northern section with the famous Red Stripe Mound before its redevelopment, and the second painting showing this area after its redevelopment. Both can be seen on his website at http://www.richardhblackford.com. ^[1]

In terms of size, Sabina Park is still relatively small. It can fit a 400 metre running track comfortably on its perimeter, but little else, and with its refurbishing, the capacity has increased to 16,000.

Sabina Park was the venue for the abandoned test in 1998 involving the touring England team. The test was abandoned after less than an hour's play due to the pitch being deemed unfit for play.^[2][3] Prior to Independence Park opening in 1962, it would also host the Jamaica national football team.

See also[link]

• List of Test cricket grounds
• List of international cricket centuries at Sabina Park

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Heatley, Michael (2009). World Cricket Grounds: A Panoramic Vision. Compendium. ISBN 978-1-905573-01-1. 

External links[link]

• Satellite image at Google Maps

Coordinates: 17°58′40.47″N 76°46′57.24″W / 17.9779083°N 76.7825667°W / 17.9779083; -76.7825667

v t e Sports venues in Jamaica Stadiums Elleston Wakeland Stadium · Emmett Park · Ferdi Neita Sports Complex · Jarrett Park · Harbour View Stadium · National Stadium · Prison Oval · Railway Oval · Sabina Park · Trelawny Stadium Racetracks Caymanas Park Swimming National Stadium

Jeremy Vernon Coney MBE (born 21 June 1952) is a former New Zealand cricketer, who played 52 Test matches and 88 ODIs for New Zealand, captaining them in 15 Tests and 25 ODIs. He was one of New Zealand's most successful batsmen, at least by average, and he made 16 fifties, but centuries often eluded him and he had to wait nine years to make his first - by that time, he had turned 31. He only lost one Test series as captain, against Pakistan away, and he became Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1984. Married to ex New Zealand netball representative and netball commentator Julie Coney.^{[citation needed]}

Coney was the captain who in 1986, after the England wicketkeeper Bruce French was injured by a Hadlee bouncer, allowed Bob Taylor to leave the sponsor's tent and play as a substitute. It was one of the great sporting gestures of all time.^{[citation needed]} New Zealand won that series with the bowling of Richard Hadlee only slightly more potent than the captaincy of Coney. His medium-pace bowling was often used in ODIs, where it yielded 54 wickets, including four for 46 against Sri Lanka in 1985.

During his playing days, Coney's height, reach, and reactions as a slip fieldsman, earned him the nickname "The Mantis".

He now lives in the UK and works as a commentator/ summariser for Sky TV and Test Match Special, where he is famed for his regular use of the word "parsimonious". Coney is trained as a stage lighting designer; he lit I Found My Horn, a solo play which has enjoyed runs at the Tristan Bates and the Hampstead theatres. [1]

External links[link]

• Cricinfo profile

v t e New Zealand squad – 1979 Cricket World Cup Semi-Finalists 1 Burgess (c) 2 Cairns 3 Chatfield 4 Coney 5 Edgar 6 Hadlee 7 Howarth 8 Lees (wk) 9 McKechnie 10 Morrison 11 Stott 12 Troup 13 Turner 14 Wright

v t e New Zealand squad – 1983 Cricket World Cup 1 Howarth (c) 2 Bracewell 3 Cairns 4 Chatfield 5 Coney 6 JJ Crowe 7 MD Crowe 8 Edgar 9 Hadlee 10 Lees (wk) 11 Smith (wk) 12 Snedden 13 Turner 14 Wright

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (July 2011)

Richard Benjamin Richardson (born 12 January 1962) is a retired West Indies cricketer and a former captain of the West Indian cricket team.

Richardson was born in Five Islands Village, Antigua. He began his career with the Leewards Islands in 1982 as an opener and after his second season he was called up by the West Indies to tour India in the 1983–84 season. Richardson joined a successful West Indies Test team captained by Clive Lloyd batting in the middle order. He was a flamboyant batsman and superb player of fast bowling. He was famous for his wide-brimmed maroon hat which he wore in preference to a helmet against even the fastest bowlers.

After Viv Richards's Test match retirement, Richie took on the mantle of captain of the West Indies. He captained the team 24 times winning 11 matches. In the 4 years of his captaincy, the West Indies only lost one series — versus Australia in 1995 which was the West Indies' first series defeat since 1980. Under his captaincy, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh led the bowling attack and Brian Lara emerged as a world-class batsman.

Richardson played 86 Test matches until 1995 scoring 5,949 runs and 16 centuries. He was very successful against Australia, hitting 9 centuries against them, and scored his highest score of 194 against India in Guyana in 1989. He also played 224 One Day Internationals including 3 World Cups. Richardson's last international was the 1996 World Cup semi-final defeat against Australia, after which he resigned the position of captain.

Richardson also played for Yorkshire in the English County Championship in 1993 and 1994. In 2009 he was signed to Thames Ditton Cricket Club in Surrey.

After his retirement from international cricket, Richardson became the first high-profile signing by the English all-star club cricket team Lashings World XI, and is the current captain of the team. He also plays bass guitar in reggae band Big Bad Dread and The Baldhead, alongside Curtly Ambrose.

Richie Richardson's career performance graph.

External links[link]

• Richie Richardson's Cricinfo statistics
• Lashings Cricket Team
• Sportstar Caribbean Diary
• Play-Cricket Profile of Richie Richardson

Sir Viv Richards

Personal information
Full name	Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards
Born	(1952-03-07) 7 March 1952 (age 60) St. John's, Antigua
Nickname	Master Blaster, Smokey, Smokin Joe, King Viv
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right-arm medium/off-break
Role	Batsman
International information
National side	West Indies
Test debut (cap 151)	22 November 1974 v India
Last Test	8 August 1991 v England
ODI debut (cap 14)	7 June 1975 v Sri Lanka
Last ODI	27 May 1991 v England
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1990–1993	Glamorgan
1976–1977	Queensland
1974–1986	Somerset
1971–1991	Leeward Islands
1971–1981	Combined Islands
Career statistics
Competition	Test	ODI	FC	LA
Matches	121	187	507	500
Runs scored	8,540	6,721	36,212	16,995
Batting average	50.23	47.00	49.40	41.96
100s/50s	24/45	11/45	114/162	26/109
Top score	291	189*	322	189*
Balls bowled	5,170	5,644	23,226	12,214
Wickets	32	118	223	290
Bowling average	61.37	35.83	45.15	30.59
5 wickets in innings	0	2	1	3
10 wickets in match	0	n/a	0	n/a
Best bowling	2/17	6/41	5/88	6/24
Catches/stumpings	122/–	100/–	464/1	238/–
Source: cricketarchive.com, 18 August 2007

Viv Richards' career performance graph.

Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards, KNH, OBE (born 7 March 1952) is a former West Indian cricketer. Known as Viv (or King Viv^[1]), Richards was voted one of the five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, by a 100-member panel of experts, along with Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs and Shane Warne.^[2] In February 2002, he was judged by Wisden to have played the best One Day International (ODI) innings of all time.^[3] In December 2002, he was chosen by Wisden as the greatest ODI batsman of all time, as well as the third greatest Test batsman of all time, after Sir Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar.^[4]

Personality and playing style[link]

Richards was a very powerful right-handed batsman with an extremely attacking style, besides being an excellent fielder, and a handy off-spin bowler. He is often regarded as the most devastating batsman that ever played the game by cricketers, journalists, fans and others alike,^[5][6] and played his entire career without a helmet, across the 17 years from 1974 till 1991.^[5][6][7]

Several prominent personalities including former cricketer and legendary fast bowler and all-rounder Imran Khan and noted writer John Birmingham are of the opinion that Richards was the best ever batsman against genuine fast bowling.^[8][9] Many other former players of the game rate him extremely high overall as a batsman. For Barry Richards, Ravi Shastri and Neil Fairbrother, he remains the best batsman they ever witnessed.^[10][11][12] Wasim Akram rates Richards the greatest batsman he ever bowled to, ahead of Sunil Gavaskar and Martin Crowe.^[13] Martin Crowe, arguably the greatest batsman to have ever emerged from New Zealand, rates Viv Richards as the best batsman he played against along with Greg Chappell. Richards was also Crowe's cricketing idol along with Donald Bradman, Garfield Sobers and Greg Chappell.^[14]

The ICC came out with their rankings for the best batsmen and bowlers in the history of the game for both the longer and shorter versions. The ratings for Test Cricket had Vivian Richards ranked at 6 equal after Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Len Hutton, Sir Jack Hobbs, Ricky Ponting and Peter May.^[15] The ODI ratings again had Richards comfortably perched at 1 followed by Zaheer Abbas and Greg Chappell.^[16] These rankings were based on the level achieved by the batsmen at their respective peaks.

In 2004, in a poll by ESPN, participated in by 15 of the leading names in cricketing history, Richards was voted the third greatest ever player after Bradman and Sobers, and the second greatest ever batsman after Bradman.^[17] He was also voted the greatest cricketer since 1970 by another poll ahead of Ian Botham and Shane Warne.^[18] That poll saw both Botham and Warne vote for Richards, and in the opinions of both, Richards is the greatest batsman they ever saw. In 2006, in a study done by a team of ESPN's Cricinfo magazine, Richards was again chosen the greatest ODI Batsman ever.^[19] Former cricketer Derek Pringle also rates Richards to be the best batsman ever in the history of Limited Overs Cricket.^[20]

His fearless and aggressive style of play, and relaxed but determined demeanor made him a great crowd favourite and an intimidating prospect for opposition bowlers all over the world. The word "swagger" is frequently used to describe his batting style.^[9][21] His batting often completely dominated opposing bowlers.^[9][21] He had the ability to drive good-length balls from outside off-stump through midwicket, his trademark shot, and was one of the great exponents of the hook shot.^{[citation needed]}

International career[link]

Richards made his Test match debut for the West Indian cricket team in 1974 against India in Bangalore. He made an unbeaten 192 in the second Test of the same series in New Delhi. The West Indies saw him as a strong opener and he kept his profile up in the early years of his promising career.

In his Test career, he scored 8,540 runs in 121 Test matches at an average of 50.23 (including 24 centuries). Richards also scored 5 centuries in World Series Cricket between 1977–79. These are not recognised by the ICC as "official" Test centuries, but the high standard of cricket played in this series means that they can arguably be ranked alongside his 24 Test centuries. Richards won 27 of 50 matches as a Test captain, and lost only 8. He is also the scorer of the fastest-ever Test century, from just 56 balls against England in Antigua during the 1986 tour. He hit 84 sixes in Test cricket. His highest innings of 291 is sixth on the list of West Indies' highest individual scores.

In 1975 Richards helped the West Indies to win the inaugural Cricket World Cup final, a feat he later described as the most memorable of his career.^{[citation needed]} He starred in the field, running out Alan Turner, Ian Chappell and Greg Chappell. The West Indies were again able to win the following World Cup in 1979, thanks to a Richards century in the final at Lord's, and Richards believes that on both occasions, despite internal island divisions, the Caribbean came together.^[22] He was until 2005 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. He rescued his side from a perilous position at Old Trafford in 1984 and, in partnership with Michael Holding, smashed 189 to win the game off his own bat.

1976 was perhaps Richards' finest year: he scored 1710 runs, at an astonishing average of 90.00, with seven centuries in 11 Tests. This achievement is all the more remarkable considering he missed the second Test at Lord's after contracting glandular fever; yet he returned to score his career-best 291 at the Oval later in the summer. This tally stood as the world record for most Test runs by a batsman in a single calendar year for 30 years until broken by Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan on 30 November 2006.

Richards captained the West Indies in 50 Test matches from 1984–1991. He is the only West Indies captain never to lose a Test series, and it is said that his fierce will to win contributed to this achievement. His captaincy was, however, not without controversy: one incident was his aggressive, "finger-flapping" appeal leading to the incorrect dismissal of England batsman Rob Bailey in the Barbados Test in 1990, which was described by Wisden as "at best undignified and unsightly. At worst, it was calculated gamesmanship".^[23] This behaviour would nowadays be penalised according to Section 2.5. of the Rules of Conduct of the ICC Code of Conduct.^[24]

Viv's featured in the documentary movie Fire in Babylon and spoke about his matches.

English county cricket[link]

Richards had a long and successful career in the County Championship in England, playing for many years for Somerset. In 1983, the team won the NatWest Trophy, with Richards and close friend Ian Botham having a playful slugging match in the final few overs.

However, despite his totemic presence at the club, over time his performances declined and the county finished bottom of the County Championship in 1985, and next to bottom in 1986. New team captain Peter Roebuck became the centre of a controversy when he was instrumental in the county's decision not to renew the contracts of Richards and compatriot Joel Garner for the 1987 season, whose runs and wickets had brought the county much success in the previous eight years. Somerset proposed to replace the pair with New Zealand batsman Martin Crowe, and consequently all-rounder Botham refused a new contract and joined Worcestershire. After many years of bitterness and the eventual removal of Roebuck from the club, Richards was honoured with the naming of a set of entrance gates and a stand after him at the County Ground, Taunton.

After his sacking from Somerset, Richards spent the 1987 season in the Lancashire League playing as Rishton CC's professional,^[25] in preparation for the West Indies tour the following season. Richards returned to county cricket for the 1990 season towards the end of his career to play for Glamorgan, helping them to win the AXA Sunday League in 1993.

Retirement[link]

Richards being interviewed after a cricket match in 2006

Apart from his very exciting style of play, Richards is held in great public esteem for his personal principles in refusing a "blank-cheque" offer to play for a rebel West Indies squad in South Africa during the Apartheid era in 1983, and again in 1984.

Richards remains one of only four non-English cricketers to have scored 100 first-class centuries, the others being Australian Donald Bradman, New Zealander Glenn Turner and Pakistani Zaheer Abbas

He was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1977.

In 2000, Richards was named by a 100-member panel of experts one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century. He received 25 votes, behind Sir Donald Bradman (100 votes), Sir Garfield Sobers (90 votes), Sir Jack Hobbs (30 votes) and Shane Warne (27 votes).

He also played international football for Antigua, appearing in qualifying matches for the 1974 World Cup.^[26]

Richards is frequently heard on BBC's Test Match Special (TMS).^[27]

Personal life[link]

Richards and his wife Miriam have two children: Matara, who currently lives in Toronto, Canada, and Mali, who has also played first-class cricket.

Richards had a brief relationship with Indian actress Neena Gupta,^[28] with whom he has a daughter, Masaba,^[29] born in 1989.^[30]

Honours[link]

In 1994, Richards was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to cricket.^[31] In 1999, he was made a Knight of the Order of the National Hero (KNH) by his native country Antigua and Barbuda.^[32]

The Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua, is named in his honour. It was built for use in the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

See also[link]

Cricket portal

• List of international cricket centuries by Viv Richards

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Viv Richards

• Antigua's National Hero links
• Player profile: Viv Richards from ESPNcricinfo
• Viv Richards at the Internet Movie Database