Such men as these walk onto a field of play, or enter a room, and their life-force brings everyone to silence and attention – these were two men who in their very different ways set my mind alight.
● The cover driving came from the same place as a Carter poem or an Aubrey Williams vision of an ancient land. His batting represented for me a very good reason why sport is as important as art. I remember my first sight of Rohan Kanhai batting at Bourda in 1956. I wrote that night to my father in Trinidad that I had just been witness to a wonder, the best batsman in the world. This was a big claim – after all I had seen, among others, the great Frank Worrell at his elegant best. But I was sure then and I was sure thereafter as I followed Kanhai’s career. All the times I met him I never asked his secret. In any case he would have been impatient at having to explain what came as naturally as green to leaf.
