Rohan Kanhai — The Most Exciting Batsman in the World, England Tour 1963

West Indies batting in 1963 was a luxury of riches — Hunte, Kanhai, Sobers, Butcher, Worrell — but Kanhai was the one who made spectators run from work to reach the ground.

Kanhai had been a fixture of West Indian cricket since his debut in 1957, but the 1963 England tour was his full flowering. He batted at number three or four, with the freedom Worrell's captaincy gave the middle order to express themselves, and his range of strokes was extraordinary: the off-drive, the square cut, the pull to mid-wicket, and the signature falling sweep — a shot played to a ball pitching on or outside off stump where Kanhai would lose his footing in the execution of a sweep, fall to the ground, and watch the ball race to the boundary. English crowds were entranced. His 73 at Old Trafford, made in conditions that suited Trueman and Statham, showed the technical basis beneath the pyrotechnics; his 92 at The Oval was one of the innings of the tour. He was unfortunate not to make a hundred in the Test series; he scored two in the county tour matches. He succeeded Sobers as West Indies captain in 1973.

“He would fall over and the ball would still go for four. Nobody else could do that.”