Sir Curtly Ambrose: The dreaded bowler who devoured teams for fun

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Tall, menacing and fiery – Curtly Ambrose No one of his generation bowled faster and with greater ferocity. When Ambrose released the ball from some 100 feet above the ground, the batsman could do just three things- pray, pray and pray some more.
Who would have thought that a man whose father was a carpenter would drop his interest in basketball to become one of the best bowlers of his generation? Who would have thought that a man of few words would scare batsmen with a single glare?
“Legs like stilts, arms that never seemed to end and pouting lips that looked like they’d been stung by a swarm of bees.”

This is how Steve Waugh describes the physical presence of the Curtly Ambrose the guy he foolishly took on when he said“What the f...are you looking at?”
The swearing got Ambrose all riled up.

He says “I got seriously heated. I told him, ‘Man, I will knock you out – here and now. I don’t care if I have no career left’. (Cont)
Waugh says- “I was totally unsure what to do if he lunged at me, because I am certain he would have made light work of me even though I had a bat in my hands.”

Luckily Richie Richardson somehow managed to pull him away.
What happened next?

He put in the big ones, striding out to full pace before letting go an absolute scorcher of a bouncer that reared alarmingly off a shortish length and crushed Waugh’s top hand against the handle of the bat, directly in front of his gril. (Cont)
Such was the venom in the execution that he was a foot of the ground at the time of impact. A fired up Ambrose ended up with 5 for 45 as WI won the test. (Cont)
Instance 2:

Yet another Aussie who made the mistake of disturbing the beast. It was the final of the World Series Cup. Dean Jones came into bat and made a legendary mistake of asking for Curtly Ambrose, who was bowling with a white ball, to remove his sweatband (cont)
Richie Benaud who was commentating said- “Umpire has a difficult task here: he has to convince Curtly Ambrose, who is six-foot-eight to remove his sweat band. That could generate an extra yard or two from Curtly I would think.” (Cont)
Ambrose was not amused. He was very reluctant to do it and he thought the request was nonsense. The captain and others somehow convinced him but it made him really upset and he decided to rough Jones up. (Cont)
Dean Jones said- “Well the next three deliveries were probably the quickest I ever faced! I was thinking, "What the hell have I done?" And when the umpire called "over", I had 11 West Indians and one Australian batsman sledging me! (Cont )
Mark Taylor was furious and yelled out, "What are you doing? I have two kids. What are you thinking?" Ambrose got so mad he took 5-32 and WI won. Two days later, in the second final, Ambrose was still furious and took 3-26 to wrap up a series win.
His spell against England at Kensington Oval, against Australia at the WACA, against England at Port-of-Spain all showcased him in his most fiery avatar.
His ability to cripple opposition by targeting the best in the side is evident from his wicket tally Of his 405 Test dismissals, he got Michael Atherton 17 times, Steve Waugh 11, Mark Taylor and Allan Border nine times each. (Cont )
Some records:
Against the best team Aus, he always raised his game- In just 27 Tests against them, he took a five wicket haul 8 times!
On helpful pitches, he was quite unplayable. He got 24 wickets at the WACA from just 3 Tests, which is still the most for any overseas bowler.
Ambrose broke into the Top 10 bowler rankings in just 1 year and stayed there throughout his career even being number one for most of his career. (Cont)
When we talk of the best West Indian bowlers, we think of Roberts, Holding, Garner, Marshall. When we talk of the fastest, we talk of Thomson, Akhtar, Lee and Tait. When we talk of the most accurate, we talk of McGrath and Pollock but Ambrose was a combination of all of them.
The guy who rarely spoke, the one who stared but didn’t sledge, the cool Man , Sir Curtly Ambrose is a true legend.
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