King Richards puts the Three Lions to Sword

This article is a part of the series “This month in world cricket”

DR Cricket relives one Antiguan afternoon when Viv Richards scored a 56-ball ton against David Gower’s English side – fastest test century at that time – in front of a jubilant home crowd.

When Viv Richards passed Richie Richardson – who was on his way back to the pavilion after getting out – and swaggered to the centre of St John’s on a balmy afternoon, David Gower had everything to fear. He was the captain of a ship that was fast sinking. The English cricket team had lost all the four test matches prior to this one, were again on the ropes in this match and faced the daunting prospect of bowling to the greatest batter of the time who had nothing on his mind other than to score quick runs. And that’s what he did. In no uncertain terms.

“Richie Richardson opened with Desmond Haynes, but things weren’t going as quickly as I wanted,” wrote Richards later in his book, Sir Vivian: The Definitive Autobiography. He wanted to make England bat again that evening and this necessitated quick scoring. So, he launched a frontal attack on the English lines, wreaking havoc and laying waste their arsenal. “As captain, I had given myself permission to go out with all guns blazing, even if it meant sacrificing my wicket,” wrote the great man.

Viv swung his bat ferociously. And it rained boundaries. Though no one escaped the carnage, but the blade fell the hardest on Ian Botham and John Emburey. The gentle, medium-paced deliveries of Botham and the slow off-turners of Emburey were repeatedly deposited into the stands by Richards who played with complete abandon. Using his feet to spinners and pacers alike. Hitting through the line and across the line with equal success.

Sometimes, he tried to hit the ball so hard that he ended up hitting one-handed shots, finding boundaries all the same. He hit fours and sixes in equal proportions, seven each. It was an exhibition of brute force. However, the most delicate shot was the sweep of Emburey that took him to his century in 56 balls. All this while, the Hi-fi blared and the crowed danced calypso in the stands as Antigua’s favourite son made the English bowlers regret embarking on the Caribbean tour.

When Graham Gooch offered some advice to Botham, he was told by Beefy “to go and field in the stands.” Maybe, the second tier would have been a better choice. Such was the force of his shots. Some cricketers have rightly wondered that had Richards wielded the modern-day bat, which is much thicker and lighter than those from his time, many a bowler or an umpire would have found his life threatened.
England went on to lose the test. It was a whitewash of the test series, 5-0 in favour of the hosts.

The record was equalled in 2014 by Misbah in Abu Dhabi and ultimately broken by Brendon McCullum in 2016 when he scored a test century in 54 balls against arch-rivals, Australia, in Christchurch.