Gordon Greenidge

Gordon Greenidge Biography

Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge is a former West Indies cricketer, who is considered as one of the most destructive openers the world has ever seen.

Greenidge was born on 1 May 1951 in St. Peter, Barbados. He was a right-handed batsman who was naturally attacking and ripped apart even the best of the bowling attacks with his stroke play. The attacking game, coupled with discipline resulted in great amounts of success in test cricket for him.

Background

Greenidge went on to play in the English County Cricket in 1970, before playing for Barbados. He played for Hampshire for many seasons which made him eligible to play for England but he decided to play for West Indies.

He quickly moved up the ranks with his consistent performances and amazing stroke play which impressed everyone. He made an iconic opening partnership with Barry Richards at Hampshire in English County Cricket.

Debut

Greenidge made his test debut for West Indies against India at Bangalore in November 1974. He opened the innings and scored 93 runs, including 13 fours and three sixes in the first innings.

He followed up his performance in the first innings with a century in the second innings, scoring 107 runs off 208 balls, including 14 fours and two sixes.

He made his ODI debut the following year in April 1975 against Pakistan at Birmingham where he was out for four runs.

Rise to Glory

Greenidge, with his inspirational performance on debut, quickly moved up the ranks and cemented his place in the team as an opener. In a five-match test series against England in 1976, Greenidge scored a staggering 591 runs including three back-to-back hundreds to power the West Indies to a 3-0 win over the hosts.

He could not convert his starts into big ones after this series and scored only one hundred till 1983. Then in 1984 came a fruitful year for Greenidge where he scored his maiden double hundred, an unbeaten 214 runs off 242 balls at Lord's.

Greenidge then showed a pure show of class and grit in the fourth test of the same series where he proved why he was rated so highly. He scored a brilliant 223 off 425 balls at Manchester.

Along with Desmond Haynes, he formed one of the most prolific and enduring opening partnerships ever in the history of the game. The duo scored 6482 runs in 148 innings at an average of 47.31, with 16 century stands. This is the third highest overall partnership runs by a pair in test cricket.

Stats

In a successful 108 test match career, Greenidge scored 7558 runs at an average of 44.72, including 19 hundreds and 34 fifties. In the 128 ODI matches, he scored 5134 runs at 45.03, including 11 hundreds and 31 fifties.

He had a legendary first-class career, in which he played 523 first-class matches and scored 37354 runs at 45.88, including 92 hundred and 183 fifties.

He is the first player in the history of the ODIs to hit a century in his 100th ODI match. He achieved the feat in 1988 against Pakistan. He is also the only player to have hit a century in his 100th test and 100th ODI.

He was named the Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1977.

Retirement

After retiring from international cricket, Greenidge became the coach of the Bangladesh national cricket team in 1997. Greenidge coached the Bangladesh side to win the ICC World Cup Qualifier in 1997 which led to Bangladesh qualifying for the 1999 Cricket World Cup.