Haynes names Border as his greatest opponent

Desmond Haynes will always be regarded as one of the finest openers of all time. The partnership that he forged with Gordon Greenidge played a major role in making the West Indies the most fearsome side in world cricket through most of the 80s. But surprisingly for a man of his stature, Haynes still carries a few regrets.

"I wanted to score more than 8032 Test runs and also score two more centuries in Test cricket to have 20 hundreds beside my name. My average is 40, but I wanted to make it 42. That would have been satisfying for me and I could have retired without any regret. But the cricket board of the country for which I played no less than 116 Test matches didn't give me the opportunity to do so," he said in an interview at the Kensington Oval, Barbados.

"And yes, I wanted to be the skipper of the West Indies cricket team (after Viv Richards). But the baton was handed over to Richie Richardson. Then why did they sent me to England as the vice-captain of the team? I am still trying to find the answers to these questions. Ask anybody in these islands. You will know that all of them are aware of the fact that the board curbed the international careers of the two openers - Gordon and me - without any reason," Haynes added.

Since the departure of the two great men, West Indies have struggled to find a decent opening pair. "I felt sorry but the board never asked us to help the youngsters. They could have selected a few talented young openers and asked us to develop them into better quality international openers. Had it happened I would have understood that the board has honoured our efforts, but they did nothing," a visibly hurt Haynes observed.

Probably it was this neglect, that made him turn to fresher pastures. Yes, he is a politician now, aiming to become a senator in two years. But how can the once highest run-getter in one-day cricket suddenly wipe out cricket from his mind? When the conversation veers to the West Indies defeat in the second Test at Port of Spain, Haynes does not mince words.

"The way they had lost the Test match in Port of Spain was disgusting. I was surprised to see that they failed to play against this bowling-attack of India. When I met Lara, I asked him, what prevented him from going all out against such a weak Indian attack. If a batsman of his calibre takes singles instead of going after this bowling-attack, why blame the others? And when I heard that he asked the crowd not to sing while he was batting, I could not believe it first. In the Caribbeans, you always associate with the noises and the songs and who knows it better than Brian?" he asked.

When asked about his experiences of touring India, he was quick to give his opinions about the poor quality of umpiring before going on to talk about the famous West Indies defeat at Chennai. "We didn't have so much of live coverage those days and we knew it well that there was always a possibility of us being given out lbw if we had padded the deliveries. Hirwani took 16 wickets against us in his debut Test on a wicket where anything but cricket could be played. Afterwards, we thrashed him so much that you don't find him any more. Personally, I felt Sivaramakrishnan was a better leg-spinner."

He also had an opinion on India's legendary all-rounder Kapil Dev that he wished to share. "You say Kapil was a fast bowler? Do you know what Viv (Richards) said about him? Viv used to tell that Kapil was so slow that you couldn't even go for hooking him!"

Haynes and Greenidge had more than five thousand ODI runs under their belts, a record which was overthrown by the Indian pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. He, though, has no regrets in this regard. "They are playing more matches and will continue to play more. So, they will break more records definitely," was his prediction.

When asked about the best batsman he had played against, Haynes, had no hesitation in naming Allan Border. "I don't like to praise the Aussies. But I feel Allan was a great batsman. It was never easy to dislodge him and his appetite for runs was just incomparable."