Sunday Snippets: What about a letter to Mr. Gibbs?

Sunday Snippets

 By Venkatesh Raghavan

I am recalling an anecdote from my early school days that earned me the nickname “Lance Gibbs”. I was in my sixth standard and our class teacher asked the entire class to write a letter to a friend. Those were the days when I used to check only the last page of the newspaper, namely Indian Express as it contained everything about sports. 

I came across the name West Indies for the first time when I read about their scoring above six hundred runs against England. I was a bit confused and I asked my father, “Is the West Indies a part of India or is it Indian territory?” He laughed and explained to me that it was a group of Islands that were situated near the equatorial region bordering both the Americas, namely South and North. I then started regularly reading the score cards including the fall of wickets and bowling analysis. Lance Gibbs was a name I remembered reading frequently, others being Bernard Julian and Vanburn Holder. 

Also read: Sunday Snippets: Those good old days of journalism!

On that day, when I was asked to pen a letter to a friend by my class teacher, I decided to address my letter to Lance Gibbs. I started off saying, “My dear Lance Gibbs” and went on to make enquiries about his grandmother and other family members I could imagine in my head. Little did I realise that this letter would get loudly read in front of the whole class, more to do with the choice of friend I had made. From then on the entire class and subsequently the entire school called me Gibbs. 

A few months later, a colleague of mine read out a eulogy that was heaped on Lance Gibbs: “Lance Gibbs is a crafty old fox.” From then on I got to learn more and more about Gibbs. A book penned by Gary Sobers, to defend the bowling action of Charles Griffith in the 1965 series threw light on how highly Gibbs was rated by the Carribean team. The book was penned as Sobers wanted to counter the perception generated by the English press that dubbed him “Charlie the  Chucker.” 

Before arriving at the eulogising bit about Gibbs, Sobers threw light on how his captain Frank Worrell imposed complete faith in his instincts. It was usually Griffith who opened the bowling attack. For some reason, Sobers felt that he wanted to bowl the opening over of the English innings. Worrell complied with the request and handed over the ball to Gary Sobers. In the very first delivery, Colin Cowdrey’s middle stump was airborne.

I am mentioning this to emphasise the stature and reputation that Gibbs enjoyed in the Windies team. Sobers mentioned this in a subsequent chapter referring to a bowling spree in which Gibbs was taking valuable wickets. It came to their notice that Gibbs’ fingers were bleeding. Yet the team persisted with Gibbs as they knew it would be a match-winning performance. Sobers summed it up, stating, “Pain is nothing for a great man like Gibbs.” 

In the mid-term of my sixth standard, India played a five-match series against the touring West Indies. I recall the final match that was played in Bombay at the Wankhede stadium. The Windies had scored over 600 runs and declared their innings. When it was India’s turn to respond, opener Farooq Engineer went for a duck. Sunny Gavaskar was joined by Eknath Solkar who came in as nightwatchman. Sunny went on to score 86 in the innings and even as talks were on in the commentary box about the likelihood of Sunny getting another century, Lance Gibbs came along and had him clean bowled. 

The next day, I was the target of teasing from many of my school colleagues, “Gibbs, you took Gavaskar’s wicket. You spoiled his chances of another Test century.” Finally, when Gibbs did hang his boots his name was in the Guinness Book for the player having taken the maximum number of Test wickets. At that point of time, Freddie Truman, the English pace bowler was holding the record and his tally stood at 307 wickets. Gibbs ended his tally with 309 wickets.

Gibbs’ record stood tall for quite some time before it was eventually crossed by more than a mile  from the likes of Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev, and finally Sri Lanka’s Mutthaiah Muralitharan who reached the 800 wicket mark. The nickname stuck to me even after years had passed and subsequently when decades had passed. When my school colleague Uma Ramnath showed my Facebook photo to her brother Shivaram, who happened to be my classmate, stating, “I just made one more school friend,” Shivaram promptly responded, “Oh It’s Gibbs.” To this day I remain Gibbs to my school lot.