Formar Pakistan skipper Imran Khan has been an old friend of Steven Riley, the maker of the movie ‘Fire in Babylon’. The film was released in India with much fanfare recently which interested Khan too.
The former pacer felt West Indies cricket of 70s and 80s was really special and it is nice to have been registered. But after watching the movie, he felt more could have been done.
“West Indies of that time was one of the greatest teams ever,” he said. “It wasn’t just one or two aspects of their cricket that made them so very special. It was a combination of great cricketers playing under an outstanding skipper and the manner in which they set out to dominate the world that made them special,” he said.
Being himself a fast bolwer, Khan said the West Indies team at that time had a number of match-winning bowlers with (Michael) Holding and (Malcolm) Marshal in particular. “But the interesting thing is that while they had four bowlers on the field at all times, terrorising batsmen, two good bowlers would always be sitting outside, waiting for their turn. That showed the overall strength of the unit they had at their disposal. Teams facing them would often find themselves feeling ridiculed for not being able to handle their pace and precision,” he said.
But in spite of the Windies pacers being so lethal, Khan felt the movie has been dramatised a bit too much. “Look, they were fast bowlers. Genuinely fast with relentless pace. And if a batsman wasn’t technically prepared to face them then he was bound to get hurt.
“But during that time, except for India, almost every Test-playing nation had one or two genuinely fast bowlers in their teams. Australia had Lillee and Thomson and they were equally dangerous, if not more. So overall I think the bowlers deliberately causing the batsmen injury and pain was a little exaggerated,” he remarked.
Asked to pick his favourites among those West Indian greats, Khan said “Vivian Richards is the best batsman I ever saw. And among the fast bowlers, Holding was unmatchable at his peak and then Marshal. They were very good at what they did.”
