By Winston McGowan
This series of articles focuses on the six Guyanese cricketers who have scored only one Test century in their career. The earlier instalments dealt with the first five of these players, namely, Robert Christiani, Bruce Pairaudeau, Joe Solomon, Leonard Baichan and Faoud Bacchus. This instalment will begin to focus on the last of these players, Clayton Lambert.
Apart from Roy Fredericks and Leslie Wight, Clayton Benjamin Lambert is arguably the best opening batsman produced by Guyana. Like many of Guyana’s more successful openers, he was a left-hander, following in the tradition set by players such as Glendon Gibbs, Fredericks and Baichan.
Lambert, like Fredericks and Baichan, was a Berbician, born in Islington in February 1962. He was a bulky muscular player who had an unorthodox somewhat ungainly stance not found in the coaching manuals and described by some observers as “crab-like” and “in-your-face”. He stood square or front on, with his legs splayed and his shoulder pointing in the direction of mid-wicket, with all three stumps exposed.
Lambert was at his best when attacking. He was normally a belligerent batsman who possessed a fair array of strokes. In particular, he was a fine driver and puller of the ball which he hit hard and with good timing.
He had limitations but they did not inhibit his aggression and he showed good sense by playing within them. He was tenacious and also showed great powers of concentration. One of his strengths was in his own words “my will to bat for as long as it takes.”
He was a good fieldsman, often placed in the dangerous positions close to the wicket at short leg or silly point within touching distance of the batsman. He was also outstanding in the outfield, for in spite of his bulk, he was nimble on his feet. Furthermore, he was a right-arm medium pace change bowler.
He displayed considerable potential at an early age, scoring an aggressive hundred with an injured hand while attending primary school and displaying the guts and determination that would characterise his adult career. In 1980 and 1981, he came to wider notice when he represented Guyana in the regional under-19 competition.
Lambert made his first-class debut in October 1983 at the age of 21 in an inter-county game for Berbice against Demerara. Early in the following year, 1984, he had an impressive start in regional first-class cricket. Opening the batting with Andrew Lyght, he had scores of 52 and 49 against the Windward Islands at Bourda, 123 against the Leeward Islands at Albion and 23 and 68 not out against Barbados at Bourda-an aggregate of 315 runs with an excellent average of 78.75.For the rest of his first-class career, which ended fifteen years later in 1999, Lambert was Guyana’s first-choice opener.
Admittedly, he failed to maintain his impressive start. In the following three seasons in the regional Shell Shield competition he averaged only 19.30, 30.33 and 39, failing to score a century in 31 innings. However, in 1988, another vintage year, his fortunes changed. In inter-territorial matches in that year he scored 550 runs in nine innings with two hundreds (103 not out and 162) and one fifty (59) and an average of 78.57. Thereafter his batting became more consistent than before.
Though productive in the regional tournament, Lambert was unable to gain selection in the West Indies Test team, owing to the presence of the world-class opening pair of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. When he eventually made his Test debut in August 1991 at the age of 29 in the fifth and final Test in London of a series against England, it was in fortuitous circumstances. An injury suffered by Greenidge prompted the West Indian selectors to summon Lambert, who was playing League cricket there, to join the touring party. He batted brilliantly, averaging 112 in his five innings before the Test, including 116 and 82 not out in the preceding first-class match against Essex. This impressive performance enabled him to force his way into the Test team as a middle-order batsman, replacing the injured Trinidadian, Gus Logie.
On his Test debut, Lambert, batting at Number 5 in the first innings and promoted to Number 3 in the second, played two brief attacking innings of 39 in 49 deliveries and 14. Although his knock of 39 was his team’s second highest score, he angered the West Indian selectors and supporters by the manner and consequences of his dismissal, caught attempting a terrible slog off the first ball of a new spell by the left-arm spinner, Phil Tufnell.
As a result of what one observer described as “an inexplicable stroke”, the West Indies experienced a dramatic collapse from 158 for 4 to 176 all out, 243 runs behind the English first-innings total of 419. Forced to follow on for the first time in 22 years, the West Indies did much better in the second innings, scoring 385 but, nevertheless, losing the game by five wickets. It was Vivian Richards’ last Test appearance and only his eighth defeat in 50 Tests as skipper. The victory enabled the Englishmen to square the rubber 2-2, the first occasion in 20 years that they did not lose a Test series to the West Indies.
Lambert was the tenth Berbician to play Test cricket, following in the footsteps of John Trim, Rohan Kanhai, Ivan Madray, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Roy Fredericks, Alvin Kallicharran, Leonard Baichan and Sew Shivnarine. His Test debut occurred 13 years after Shivnarine played against Australia at Bourda in 1978.
Lambert continued to score heavily for Guyana in regional cricket after his Test debut in 1991. For example, in 1993 he scored 263 not out against the Windward Islands at Skeldon, then the second highest score by a Guyanese in first-class cricket. His productive batting enabled Guyana to win the regional tournament that year.
Nevertheless, the West Indian selectors refused to select him for the Test team, even though the end of the career of Gordon Greenidge and later Desmond Haynes meant there was need for new openers. Instead they preferred to Lambert, Phil Simmons, Sherwin Campbell, Stuart Williams and Robert Samuels, none of whom had his credentials, and sometimes even specialist middle-order batsmen such as Richie Richardson and Carl Hooper.
Frustration over his failure to gain selection for the Test team seems to have influenced Lambert in his decision in 1993 to go to South Africa to play domestic cricket there for North Transvaal. He spent three seasons there, enjoying moderate success, scoring 1802 runs, including one double century (214), three single hundreds and five fifties in 49 innings with an average of 39.17.
Lambert’s temporary departure for South Africa signified that he had virtually given up hope of playing Test cricket again. When he returned to the Caribbean three years later, he was reluctant to play even for Guyana but was encouraged and persuaded by his friend, Clyde Butts, to do so. Even then he had no hope or expectation that he would represent the West Indies again in Tests. Later he explained: “When you get to 36, you get to the stage where people stop looking at you and I was hesitant to play for Guyana because I thought people might say I was keeping a youngster out of the team.”
Surprisingly, in March 1998 Lambert was selected for the West Indies in the final two Tests of a series against England in the Caribbean. In the second of these two matches, his third Test appearance, he made his first and only Test hundred. His unexpected recall to Test duty and that innings will be the subject of the second part of this article.
