The dynamic Dwayne Bravo

In the cricket season of 1994, I was sitting downstairs in the Queen’s Park Cricket Club’s pavilion looking on at a first-division cricket game between QPCC and Santa Cruz.

Some activity caught my eye in the club’s practice nets: three boys, approximately ten years old, playing cricket there.

It always gives me great pleasure when I see youngsters playing cricket, whether it’s a game, practising, or just having fun.

What caught my attention that day – and I recall it vividly – was that one of the boys had a rhythmic approach when bowling and it was so perfect that I thought I had to go and discover who was this lad with the beautiful action.

I stood there observing for about five minutes and then called him. The practice stopped and the three lads encircled me.

I asked his name and age, and he answered, “Dwayne Bravo. I’m ten.”

I told him he had a lovely bowling stride to the crease, with a very good delivery, and that he would become a fine bowler one day.

One of his friends then said, “Bowler? You should see him bat!”

We all laughed. Immediately, he got his pads on and went to bat. There was no doubt about it: this boy was talented with both bat and ball. His excellent co-ordination was very noticeable.

He said he was there with his dad, who had come to see the game, and they were from Santa Cruz. After a few days, one of the assistant coaches at my cricket-coaching school, Charles Guillen, approached me and told me a friend of his had a son who looked to be a fine young cricketer and wanted to bring him to the coaching school where classes were held at the Queen’s Park Oval on Sunday mornings.

Charles’s father, Noel Guillen, who represented Trinidad at cricket in the early fifties, started this coaching clinic in 1956. I joined Noel in 1971 on my return from playing county cricket with Glamorgan, and succeeded him in 1973 on his retirement.

John Bravo, Dwayne’s father and Charles’s friend, accepted the scholarship offered to his son to join the coaching school.

(Samuel Badree, commentating on the night of Dwayne’s farewell CPL game at the Oval on September 18, while remarking on Dwayne’s beginning at QPCC, had some of his facts wrong: firstly, he said he was eight, not ten.

Secondly, Badree remarked that Charles Guillen had paid the fee, as Mr Bravo could not afford it. Totally false! Dwayne was accepted at the coaching school on a scholarship, hence there were no fees to pay.)

Dwayne represented the North Zone in the British Gas sponsored under-15 cricket tournament when he was only ten.

There was no stopping his forward surge.

He moved on to play in the North vs South fixture, the annual local first-class game at the time, when he was just 16.

His batting and bowling developed at the same rate. As a cricketer, one has to be very skilful for both disciplines to progress simultaneously. One usually advances more quickly than the other.

Dwayne was 18 when he first played for TT; and within two years he was on the West Indies’ Test team. His first selection for the WI was for a tour of England from June-August 2004.

His batting average on the four-Test tour was 27.75, which was a decent average for a 20-year-old on his first Test series in England, especially when one considers that the captain, Brian Lara, averaged just 33 per innings. His bowling was 26.18 per wicket, which placed him second in the averages. He bowled the most overs, 128.4, and had the most wickets – 16.

The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack of 2005 carried a photo of the youngster, the only one of the touring team, depicting the completion of his bowling delivery, both feet off the ground, with a caption underneath: “Leaps and bounds: Dwayne Bravo, whose improvement was West Indies’ best news of the series, bowls at the Oval.”

In the review of the tour, Stephen Fay mentions: “...but Bravo at no 6 performed manfully for a young lad. Even more impressive, he was the tourists’ top wicket-taker with 16 at 26.18. He was the one West Indian who was a better cricketer by the end of the summer.”

A brilliant cricketer, the dynamic Dwayne Bravo!