Meeting my heroes
| 15:38 UK time, Thursday, 9 November 2006
Working for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport does, as you might imagine, offer certain perks. For example, I consider it a privilege to have covered golf's Open Championship on seven separate occasions, such is the unique atmosphere of that great and historic event.
But that in no way compares to the absolute thrill I experienced when I shook the right hands of Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards and Mr Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge.
They were members of the greatest cricket team I have ever seen - even better than the Australian side which has dominated the game for the past few years. Between them, they made almost 28,000 runs in Tests and one-day internationals for West Indies, including 65 centuries.
The year of 1976 is memorable for many people as the year punk rock came to the fore.
But for me it was the year when I passed my O-levels - OK, not all of them, I failed physics - and saw Richards score the last 91 runs of his .
It wasn't, however, their numerical feats which made both batsmen heroes of my younger self, it was the manner in which the runs were scored.
As a teenager, I spent hours trying to work out how Richards could unerringly put perfectly respectable deliveries pitched on middle and off or off stump away through mid-wicket for four and how to add the savagery of Greenidge's square cut to my own array of strokes.
Unfortunately for team-mates who once endured my batting through our entire 48-over allocation in a league game and only reaching 50 in the final over, I succeeded in doing neither.
Anyway, back to the present day.
The chance to meet and arose when I was invited to a reception at the offices of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Caribbean Service in central London.
Before the reception, they, along with another former West Indies great, Wes Hall, took part in a studio interview with Caribbean Service reporter Orin Gordon.
With a few minutes of studio time still available when the interview was over, I had the chance to pop in and .
It was then that it hit me.
All I could think was, I'm sitting in a chair about three inches away from SIR VIV RICHARDS! And GORDON GREENIDGE is looking at me from the other side of the table!
Richards was relaxed, informal in his shiny open necked shirt and corduroy trousers, and always ready with a light-hearted quip. Greenidge, wearing a smart blue suit and tie, was all business and more serious in his replies.
Both looked fit enough even now, in their mid 50s, to take on the current crop of fast bowlers in world cricket and still give them some serious punishment.
Backing down from a challenge never entered their heads on a cricket field and thinking about what would have happened if he'd faced the likes of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Brett Lee, a glint of inner steel momentarily appeared in Sir Viv's eye.
Now that's a contest I would love to be able to see.
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