14 Tuesday 5th January, 2010 Best and Worst of Clive Rice What was the best moment of your . In (WSC) tic. What is the best thing about the each light. The company is called career? you could get four short balls an over. We Who was the best you modern game? Envirolight and, with the emphasis now had a lot of fantastic moments, includ- had a game at VFL Park in Melbourne in played under? Batsman are more innovative now. We on climate change, we have to save ener- ing captaining South Africa when we 1979 on the quickest we had ever was a good captain in would never have dreamt of playing some gy in the world and be more efficient in Igot back into international cricket played. The World XI was bowled out for terms of making you believe in yourself of the shots they play. The game moves a what we do. We have to wake up and sort [after apartheid] with a tour to India in 102 and we had the West Indies 67 for and getting stuck in. Mike Brearley, who whole lot faster. it out. is our agent in India 1991. When we arrived, the streets from nine. was and I was very shrewd, and were What was the best sledge you heard? and, believe me, India needs street lights. the airport to the hotel were lined with people. It was overwhelming and I thought: “Let’s take another route to the hotel to get out of this environment.” We On the trip we met Mother had to stop every 400m and get out of the coach to do some more speaking to the Teresa, and there is a classic public. It was an incredible welcome. There must have been about 6,000 people photograph of me shaking outside the hotel to catch a glimpse of the players climbing onto the team bus. I had hands with her. I had the pic- to pinch myself when 100,000 people came ture mounted on the wall next to watch our game in . On the trip we met Mother Teresa, and there is a clas- to my bed. The night she died, sic photograph of me shaking hands with her. I had the picture mounted on the wall the picture fell off the wall. next to my bed. The night she died, the When I picked it up, I thought: picture fell off the wall. When I picked it up, I thought: “Now, what’s gone on here?” “Now, what’s gone on here?” There was no reason why it had come off but it was announced on the news the There was no reason why it next day that she had died. You ask your- self: “What goes on in this world?” The had come off but it was work she did helping people was amazing. announced on the news the What was the worst moment in your career? next day that she had died. When I was playing for Nottinghamshire we lost the county You ask yourself: “What goes championship off the last ball of the sea- on in this world?” The work son in 1984. The ball was going for a six when Mike Bore got caught on the bound- she did helping people was ary, and a six would have won the title. There was also the time when South amazing. Africa’s tour of Australia in 1972 was called off. The reality struck that we were Clive Rice leads his team back to international cricket in Calcutta. not going and may never be back in , and we never were during my bowled him a bouncer which smashed tough captains to play against. It was when a guy in the crowd had a We are starting to manufacture them career. I never bowled a ball in Test crick- into his glove. The bat went to mid wicket, What was the best advice you were go at me in . I was about to there now. The technology is based on et. When we got back into international a glove to cover, another glove to extra given? run in to bowl and he shouted to me: reflectors used in motor cars rather than cricket I had done all the preparation for cover and Joel broke a finger. I thought I remember Joe Hardstaff at “Ricey, you’ve got so many wrinkles on a dog’s dish. I am also involved in a fax- what we would do in the World Cup in Kerry Packer was going to be waiting at Nottinghamshire speaking to me about your head, do you screw your cap on?” to-email package. My wife Susan runs a 1992 but was told I wasn’t going. That was the top of the stairs ready to give me a playing spin bowlers in one-day cricket. Where are you now? sport and bush safaris tour company and a real kick in the teeth. ticket straight back to South Africa. Well, He suggested standing outside the leg I am 60 years old and live in part of that includes a corporate golf Who was the best opponent you he was there and he congratulated every- stump and they would have to bowl at , where I am involved with league in which I have a team. I live next faced? one in the world side and said it was the you. When I applied it, my goodness, it street lighting. We have patented what to the Royal Johannesburg Golf Club and Playing against the West Indian pace best game of cricket we had had in WSC. worked. Joe never played one-day cricket are probably the most efficient street play off a handicap of six for my sins. attack of , , That is how hard the cricket was. To have and yet from the side he gave me the best lights in the world with reflector technol- Wayne Daniel and Joel Garner was tough played in it and witnessed it was fantas- ever tip on how to play. ogy, using only 53 watts of electricity for Times Online Decade of change that put game to test

by Mike Atherton of India’s new-found infatua- retiring early to take up IPL that they were this remarkable cricketer. balance between bat and ball tion with Twenty20 cricket, offers and the world game mourning, at some personal Warne was on 699 Test shifted firmly in favour of the or England, the “noughties” and the can-do attitudes of wondering how to cope with risk, too. The decline of crick- as Boxing Day arrived, willow was never better illus- began and ended in South Lalit Modi, the vice-president this challenge to the estab- et in Zimbabwe has been one although on a green, damp trated than in the remarkable FAfrica, although not one of the Board of Control for lished order of things. of the calamities of the pitch any seam attack worth one-day international at the member of the XI that started Cricket in India, and IMG, the 4 Andy Flower and Henry decade; the failure of the ICC its salt would have been Wanderers, where South the decade survived it in sports management company. Olonga, 2003 World Cup, to act over the financial irreg- embarrassed to have a leg Africa successfully chased the England colours. As for the The opening night, when the South Africa ularities of the Zimbabwe spinner bowl at all. Cue 434 posted by Australia. A England team, so for world Royal Challengers faced the That sport and politics don’t mix Cricket Union, its greatest fail- Warne, who bamboozled one good pitch, altitude, better- cricket: it was a period in Kolkata Knight Riders, was a is one of life’s great fallacies, ure. through ’s than-ever bats, short bound- which the game changed at a heady mix of cricket, as two humble cricketers 5 ’s 700th Test defences in his fourth over aries and the horizons of what more rapid rate and more fun- Bollywood and money. It was a showed when they competed wicket, MCG, December and finished with five for 39 in was regarded as possible damentally than, probably, resounding success. Cricket, in the 2003 World Cup wearing 2006 17 valedictory overs. It was an stretched like never before, any decade since the 1970s, suddenly, had changed, with black armbands. It doesn’t Shane Warne announced his act of will as much as any- reducing bowlers to mere when the Packer revolution players being bought and sold take much for players to dis- retirement on the eve of the thing else, a final moment of punchbags for pugilistic bats- altered the face of profession- according to their market play their grief these days — Boxing Day Test in triumph in front of his home men. The strokeplay was al cricket for good. Here are value, and owned now, not by soon enough, the death of a Melbourne, with the Ashes crowd. Warne was the crick- remarkable, but the game ten of the decade’s most sig- national governing bodies, but captain’s cat will be so com- once again in Australia’s safe eter of the decade; of the age, lacked the ingredients of a nificant moments. by private investors. The memorated — but Flower and keeping. The script had been no less. classic. Cricket’s greatness is 1 England v South Africa, effects are still being played Olonga had due cause. It was written, only the full stop 6 Australia v England, Sydney predicated on an equal bal- Centurion Park, January out with international players the death of democracy in needed to be administered by 2007 ance between bat and ball, 2000 This Test match did not exactly something the administrators Right to the start of the decade end the period of Australian need to remember as we we go for the most significant greatness — that would come approach the next ten years. occurrence of all. This was later at the hands of South 9 The 2005 Ashes series the rain-affected Test in which Africa. But with the retire- This was the Test series of the swallowed his ments of Justin Langer, decade, illustrating perfectly pride for a leather jacket and Warne and Glenn McGrath, that nothing can better a five- a fistful of dollars. soon to be followed by Adam match series of two-innings Cronje’s entrapment by the book- Gilchrist and Matthew games between two high-quali- ies came to light after this Hayden, it was clear that the ty teams. Drama, tension, gen- Test, which then shone a team who had defined the eral excellence, sportsmanship harsh spotlight on the activi- decade had run their course. It and individual brilliance, this ties of many international was a fitting way to go, becom- was the Test series that had it players during the previous ing the first Australia team all. It reignited interest in the decade in which cricket, espe- since Warwick Armstrong’s in Ashes series after the previous cially on the sub-continent, 1920-21 to whitewash England. one-sided decade. had become little more than a It was a magical occasion, too, 10 Allen Stanford’s helicopter giant casino. Amazingly, that stayed just the right side lands on the Nursery Cronje is still revered in of sentimentality. ground, Lord’s, 2008 South Africa. At least his 7 Terrorist attack on Sri In a way, Stanford’s descent on to admission of guilt paved the Lanka team, Lahore, March Lord’s, with fawning execu- way for tighter policing of the 2009 tives parting the waves for game: without that it is Until the attack on the him as he went, summed up unlikely we would have the team in Lahore, cricket had the direction and some of the clean game that we have today. considered itself immune to emptiness of the decade. 2 India v Pakistan, ICC World terrorism. Cricket danced to the tune of Twenty20 final, Somehow, we felt, the status of the money men, so that finan- Johannesburg, September cricket on the sub-continent, cial imperatives not cricketing 2007 and the hero worship of the considerations dictated sched- Until its team’s victory in the players, would keep the real uling, with players burnt out first World Twenty20 competi- world at bay. Obviously, in ret- at the altar of corporate tion, India had rather turned rospect, it made an attack excess. its nose up at the newest, more likely. When the gunmen With the advent of Twenty20, this shortest, brashest form of the opened fire on the buses carry- obsession reached new levels, game. At least, the television ing the Sri Lanka players and and the sight of English crick- executives had, feeling that the match officials, the car- et licking the boots of a man the truncated nature of the nage that ensued could have who cared little for the game game, and shorter advertise- been much, much worse. summed it up. Stanford’s heli- ment breaks because of the Something changed for ever on copter was false, his money time imperative, threatened that day: Pakistan is still a no- was false and his grandiose revenues. The enthusiasm go zone, and those of us who plans for cricket are now sub- that greeted Yuvraj Singh’s travel to the sub-continent to merged beneath the millions six sixes in an over, off Stuart watch cricket are resigned to of pages of evidence as he Broad, and India’s ultimate what the authorities call “pres- awaits trial for fraud. As victory over Pakistan changed idential” levels of security. Not cricket enters a new decade, it all that. that it helped Benazir Bhutto is not a bad lesson to remem- 3 First much. ber: without sporting integri- match, Bangalore, April 8 Australia v South Africa, ty, the game is nothing. 2008 England’s triumph in the 2005 Ashes series was a fine moment in cricket during the decade as the underdogs beat Australia 2-1 to Johannesburg, March 2006 The IPL was the inevitable result regain the Ashes. That this was a decade when the Times Online