For these superstars, the motto was: have stroke, won’t play IT’S what takes an exciting and entertaining batsman to the level of greatness. When a naturally attacking and dominating batsman curbs his instincts and chooses to go sensible. When he chooses to play a disciplined, unexciting knock to help the cause of his team. Right down the decades of cricket history we have seen batsmen make the move up. Not very often, because a Geoffrey Boycott cannot bat like a Viv Richards and vice versa. But often enough to accept the possiblity.Stan McCabe averaged 48.21 from his 39 Test matches with just six centuries. Good, not great. A batsman some call one of the hardest hitters in the game ever, is still remembered for a stroke-filled 187 not out (out of a team total of 360) he played during the Bodyline series in 1932-33. The same man, three Test matches before retiring, scored 232 against England at Lord’s. Of a total of 411, under pressure when chasing England’s mammoth 658 for 8. No rash strokes, nothing airy-fairy, Just plain responsible.Everton Weekes was by far the greatest West Indian batsman of the period. A strokeplayer who scored heavily almost right through his career, Weekes removed a lot of shots from his armoury towards the end. A lot like Australia’s Steve Waugh and Zimbabwe’s Andy Flower would do towards the end of the 1990s. In Weekes’ last series — at home against Pakistan in 1957-58 — he scored at an average of 65.00. But it was a Weekes sans the disregard for bowlers and dismissive demeanour. Like Weekes, Gordon Greenidge was a champion of brutal through-the-line hitting. But the 40-year-old Greenidge that scored a chanceless 226 in his last series — Australia, 1990-91 — was not the murderer he once was. Greenidge took 677 minutes and 480 balls simply because he chose to take zero risk.Ditto for the least attractive batsman in this selection, Allan Border, who made a career making a mockery of the claim that left-handers are naturally beautiful. But give him a situation and ask him to play accordingly. And Border would decide which shots were on and which weren’t. The result? Usually a match won.This discussion can’t be wrapped up without Len Hutton. Those who saw both Hutton and Boycott play would be excused for accepting Boycs as a seventies’ version of Sanath Jayasuriya. Such was the dourness of Sir Len. Hutton, in the late 1940s, just to prove he could play attractive cricket as well, went berserk for Yorkshire. A phase when he chose to improvise and discover newer strokes. Only, however, to go back to being the old Len when Test cricket happened.
