MC Interview | Virat is a fantastic player, but he needs to wait for the ball: Andy Roberts

Virat Kohli. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

If there is one bowler from the glorious pace attacks of the past who would have adapted to the T20 format with ease, it is Andy Roberts. The West Indian legend picked up 202 wickets in 47 Tests at an average of 25.61. He was also part of Clive Lloyd’s first two ODI World Cup winning sides, in 1975 and 1979. Moneycontrol spoke to Roberts on modern cricket and the art of fast bowling. Here is an edited excerpt.

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In the cricketing world, nobody knew Antigua until Andy Roberts put it on the International cricket map. How do you feel when people say, ‘Oh, it’s Andy Roberts from Antigua!’?

I didn’t feel anything because I knew that the time had come for people from the Leeward Islands — Antigua, St Kitts and St Lucia — who would go all the way and represent the West Indies. We always had talented cricketers but none of them were fortunate enough to make their West Indian debut.

Grayson Shillingford and Mike Findlay were before the Andy Roberts years but I was the first one from the Leeward Islands and followed closely by Viv Richards. And then it opened the floodgates because the talent was there and you cannot keep good people down.

People know about your career, your achievements… 202 Test wickets. But a lot of people wonder if Andy Roberts could have ended with more than 500 wickets had he played in a different era. What do you have to say to that?

Well (laughs), I won’t talk about it because the game seems to have become easier now than it was before, because now you have a review system, which we didn’t have. If we had a review system then I don’t know how many wickets some of us would end up with. But we can’t go back; the game has to move forward and it’s been moving forward at a rapid pace. But sometimes you think that it’s moving too fast for the game to survive. That’s my feeling.

You speak about the game moving too fast. In your time there was no restriction on bouncers. Now, there are restrictions, a lot of pitches are flat, bats are heavier and there’s been a T20 explosion. Do you think it’s time to lift the restriction on bouncers, regardless of the format?

They need to lift a lot of restrictions and most of these restrictions only apply to bowlers — there is no restriction on batsmen. The batsmen can play any shot they want, batsmen can use any weight they want in bats… why don’t you lift some of these restrictions so that bowlers can have some of the things bowlers want?

The game is not only about batting — it’s about batting, bowling and fielding. Fielding has improved tremendously but I find — especially in the Caribbean — that bowling is not moving forward. Bowling has become stagnant and you don’t see a lot of thought being given to bowlers today.

But when you look at fast bowling in T20 cricket, nearly everyone thought that sheer pace had no place in it. But now you see teams going with 4 pacers. Do you think T20 has infused fresh life into hostile pace bowling?

That’s because people are just looking at getting wickets. I believe the best way to restrict batsmen or to win matches is to restrict the batsmen from scoring. And you have to find a way to develop a ball to stop the batsmen from scoring. I know today there’s not as much fear as in the past and that may be because of the protection of helmets, but bowlers with tremendous pace will always be respected.

In T20s and One Day Cricket, lots of slower balls are being bowled that batsmen are now getting accustomed to. They’re developing shots to hit the slow ball back over the bowler’s head for six since the bats are heavy. They wait to hit those shots.

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The aura of Andy Roberts in my generation was such that there was a very famous movie in 1980s Bollywood with Amitabh Bachchan called Amar Akbar Anthony that had a character named Robert. The police come and ask Amitabh Bachchan, “Where is Robert” and Amitabh Bachchan says: “Robert? Which Robert? Andy Roberts?” What do you have to say about the love Indians have shown you?

Well (laughing), you know that in the 70s we had been to India a few times more than the English and Australians. It seems to me that West Indies cricket is at a crossroads today. We are not playing well, which means there isn’t any love for the West Indies style of cricket any longer, because everybody knows the West Indies style of cricket.

The West Indies invented fast bowling and it was just natural — it was nothing out of the ordinary, and that’s how we play. We played games with seriousness, without cheating. I have never heard anybody saying that it was difficult to play the West Indies because they were cheating, that they swear, that they sledge — nobody has ever said that about the West Indies, and I am proud to have seen the most successful era of any cricketing team, in a team that was never accused of being sledgers or cheats.

There is so much money in cricket these days. Do you feel is it time to think about past players who have contributed so much to the game? Because of them the game has reached the level it is at today...

I welcome the money in the game. But I think some of these players must earn their money. These guys don’t take time to develop their game to a level where they can earn more money. The better players are getting more money.

The better players, like the Kohlis, the Sharmas, Cummins from Australia… these are players who make money because they are on top of their game. And I would like our players to develop their game so they can earn big money. Don’t just settle for a few dollars when you can earn millions. But you can only earn millions if you are among the top players. And that’s why I want my players to become top players, the best in the world.

How do you look at Virat Kohli? How important he is going to be in India’s attempt to win a T20 World Cup after 15 years?

Virat Kohli is a fantastic player. Of late, he has been struggling and the reason he has been struggling is because he wants to feel the ball on his bat — he wants to go at the ball, and that’s why I think he is struggling. When you are in a purple patch you can do anything. But when you start to struggle, you have to find ways to overcome that problem, and I believe, for him to overcome this problem, he has to wait for the ball to come to him.