There were understandably mixed reactions in certain parts of England during the summer of 1976 to the batting achievements of the West Indian opener, Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge. On the one hand, he was repeatedly plundering English bowling; on the other, even though he was a native of Barbados, he was a product of a Berkshire school and he played most of his first-class cricket for Hampshire.
Gordon Greenidge emerged from a torrid tour of Australia to blossom against England in the hot summer of 1976. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year the following spring.
Greenidge is one of a generation of young West Indians whose affiliations are divided between the country of their birth and the country of their adoption – or rather that of their parents. Britain’s Olympic team is liberally sprinkled with athletes who were born in the West Indies but raised and trained in Britain. Strangely, Greenidge is the only cricketer in this category to have reached Test standard.
Born in Barbados on May 1, 1951, he spent his first 14 years of his life on an island where cricket is followed with a zeal unsurpassed anywhere else. There can be no doubt that these formative years in such an atmosphere provided the groundwork for his love and approach to the game.
That feat was preceded by his 84 out of 182 in the first innings at Lord’s and followed by yet another century, his third in succession, in the first innings at Leeds. At the end of the season, the cricketing public and, more importantly he himself could forget the frustrations of Australia.
There will, undoubtedly, be other disappointments in the years ahead but for Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge, raised in Barbados, schooled in Berkshire and discovered by Hampshire, the future is bright indeed.
Gordon Greenidge went on to establish a place as one of West Indies’ greatest batsmen. In 108 Tests, he hit 7,558 runs at 44.72
