One man on an island: Curtly Ambrose at 60

On a tiny island on the eastern fringes of the Caribbean, there lives a very tall man who was, once upon a time, the most recognisable cricketer on the planet.

Bounding in with the rhythm of a bass guitarist and delivering the ball from among the clouds, Sir Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose was something conjured up from a batter's nightmare: two-and-a-bit metres of arms and legs, and in possession of a whiplash wrist. A generation on from the rise of a cavalcade of great Caribbean quicks, he emerged with anonymity from Antigua and arguably eclipsed them all.

Steve Waugh famously described him as "the supreme fast bowling machine", and in bars and loungerooms and cricket grounds across the world, there can have been few 'greatest ever paceman' debates staged without the inclusion of his name.

"He really was the ultimate adversary," Waugh once told cricket.com.au. "He tested you the whole time … he would forensically go through every part of you, every detail, trying to break it down and find a chink in your armour.

"And he was a physically intimidating presence; he didn't say anything on the field, he just looked at you, and stared a lot. That's far more intimidating than anyone sledging you aimlessly. You're not quite sure what he's thinking: Is he trying to get me out, or is he trying to hurt me? You just had that niggling doubt in the back of your mind."

Today, the man who personified the halcyon days of Test and ODI cricket for so many presents as an amiable, even endearing figure, whose preparedness to offer a warm smile is perhaps the major physical difference between now and then.

And – nostalgists among you be warned – he has just turned 60.

"It seems like just a couple of days ago I turned 50," Ambrose says. "And now here I am turning 60. But it's a nice milestone."

While cricket continues to send him on the road, even 23 years after his playing days concluded, he is never more comfortable than in his own backyard. It has always been his way.

"It wouldn't take me more than 20 minutes to walk from where I was born and grew up to where I live now," he smiles. "I am a true Antiguan and Barbudan, to the bone.

"I have no problems travelling, but Antigua will always be my home. I will never leave and live somewhere else."

* * *

Curtly Ambrose is travelling. The bowling coach for Jamaica in the Caribbean Premier League alongside his former West Indies teammate and head coach Shivnarine Chanderpaul, he is still the most famous figure in the Tallawahs contingent as it makes its way through the Caribbean. He knows there are eyes on him. It is something he began to grow accustomed to when he was about 25.

"I can't say I feel 25 now though," he laughs. "But it comes with the territory. When I've done so much for West Indies cricket, and cricket in general, everyone wants to take a picture, an autograph, even to touch you. Just to say 'Hi' means a lot to them, so I will give my time whenever I can because it makes them happy.

"But sometimes, to be honest, you might be with your family having a quiet meal or something, and people will come and bombard you, and I'll be like, 'Oh dear', but I don't want to be snobbish to the fans."

Hearing the most frightening fast bowler of all time use the phrase 'Oh dear' feels slightly discombobulating, but as well as serving as a reminder that we do not live in a time warp and Ambrose is now in fact a grandfather three times over, it offers a gentle pointer to the man behind the mask. For few cricketers has the boundary divided a character so dramatically.

The stories abound. Dean Jones and the wristbands. Michael Slater and the "19 ambulances". Waugh and the mid-pitch showdown. The 'Curtly talks to no man' line which, he insists, was never actually uttered. Even into retirement, they rumbled on. Legend has it he was spotted in the crowd at a West Indies Test in Antigua in 2003, and asked how he would've bowled in the match if he was "still playing today". His reply was almost too perfect to be true: "If I was still playing today, this match would have been over yesterday". 

Some of it, fact or fiction, Ambrose has leaned into, happily telling and retelling upon request. Others he has summarily dismissed as he would have a tailender, and others still he has allowed to build in strength over time and distance, like the Atlantic current that rolls ceaselessly into the warmer waters that surround his island home.

He is canny enough to understand how the world likes to picture him. He hits the right notes when he speaks, talking about the "laidback, friendly nature of Antiguans – well, apart from when we're competing, obviously" and part of it feels like artifice, though he insists the on-field Ambrose was entirely organic.

"It just came naturally to me," he says of the stares and the silence and the fierce competitiveness. "Ever since I was a young boy competing in sports, that natural aggression tends to come out.

"And I don't speak to the opposition because it's not a friendly game, you know, so it's a natural thing for me. It's not something I'd rehearse or practice.

"A win to me is everything. So talking to the opposition and trying to be friendly is not part of my game.

"My stare, too, is something that was natural, and with the five-and-a-half ounces in my hand, I felt like I could perform miracles. I've had my fair share of licks, but I think for the most part I've done quite well."

* * *

A father to five daughters (including one, Annie, whom he and his wife Bridget adopted), Ambrose insists the best wisdom he has offered his kids is to be content with what they have.

"Don't look at others and envy them," he would tell them. "Work hard. Be independent."

The roots of those principles lie in a house that still stands in the village of Swetes in Antigua's interior. A guinep tree once stood out the front but it was torn down a couple of years ago, and the fate of the house and the fallen tree seem representative of the island itself; as much has stayed the same across Ambrose's six decades there, so too has much changed.

"Construction has boomed over the years," he says. "Antigua now looks a lot different to when I was growing up, and even maybe 20 years ago."

The fourth of seven siblings, Ambrose attributes virtually all his positive traits to his mother Hillie, who died six years ago aged 84 after raising her children "almost singlehandedly" through challenging times.

"She certainly was the backbone of our family," he says. "My father wasn't around much … (he) spent most of his life in St Croix and Virgin Islands, and then he moved to New Jersey, where half of my siblings still live.

"He would send stuff whenever he could, but our mother has to be credited for raising seven of us the way she did. She was a very proud woman, because growing up, even though things were a bit hard for her, she always found ways and means to keep us fed, put clothes on our backs, and send us to school. We don't know how she did it.

"She was a strong-minded woman, and she never gave up, no matter what, so I reckon my competitive spirit, my will to fight to the end, my pride in my performance, it probably all came from her."

The legend of Ambrose is such that even Hillie boasts a famous (and factual) tale of her own, though it is one her son only discovered mid-career.

"I'd just come home from a tour, and some reporter asked me if it's true that my mother rings a bell every time I take a wicket," he says. "I was like, 'No, that's news to me'.

"When I got back home, I ask her and she say, 'Yeah' (laughs). She had a small bell that she would ring every time I got a wicket – didn't matter if it was day or night, she would be celebrating.

"She saw me play quite a few Test matches in Antigua (where he holds the record for most Test wickets – 48 at 19.68), and of course on the TV. So she left this world a fulfilled woman, because she always wanted a cricketer, and I provided that enjoyment and entertainment for her."

Ambrose would think of his mother whenever he told his daughters about the concept of 'needs versus wants'. It is another lesson tied to his childhood, straight from Hillie's mouth, and it has become a foundational belief in the family. So too has respect.

"For everyone," he says. "Respect is high on my agenda."

The lighter side of Ambrose – the one that was never revealed on the cricket field – has always been close to the surface with his daughters.

"When I would go out with my girls when they were much younger, people tended to say that I'd been so fierce on the cricket field, and looking at me with my children, I'm a bit of a softie," he laughs.

"I'm very different when I'm competing to when I'm with my children. They tend to control me. My wife sometimes does get angry, because she's a little bit more stern with them than I am, so when I soften them up and pamper them, she does get real annoyed sometimes (laughs), but they're all good girls."

* * *

From the autograph and selfie hunters, Ambrose is typically quizzed about any number of his classic Test spells. Fans zero in on his 7-1 against Australia in Perth, 1993, the 6-34 final-day demolition job on South Africa in '92, and the devastating hauls of 6-24 (1994) and 8-45 (1990) against England.

The last of those, he has said, finally earned him the respect of the late Malcolm Marshall, who at one point in the early years of Ambrose's international career compared him unfavourably to Joel Garner. The Antiguan took his maiden 10-wicket haul in that Test – his 19th for West Indies – and at that stage had 74 wickets at 24.95 as he strove to keep his place alongside Marshall, and ahead of the likes of Courtney Walsh, Patrick Patterson, Ian Bishop and his compatriot and school friend Winston Benjamin.

Ironically, by the end of his career, his remarkable Test average of 20.99 would be within 0.05 of Marshall (20.94) and Garner's (20.97) – the three best averages among bowlers with 200-plus Test wickets – though he claimed more victims than both.

Statistically, it is difficult to find a true weakness. He was as effective against right-handers as left, boasts a strikingly similar record abroad as at home, and accounted for more than 47 per cent of his 405 Test wickets with top four batters. During his peak period of 1990-95, he took 198 wickets in 42 Tests at 19.45, striking every 51.4 deliveries and conceding just 2.27 runs per over.

And while 61 of his 98 Tests were played against Australia (27) and England (34), the only surprising omission on his CV is the fact he didn't play a single match in India, whose fans would also point out that, in five Tests in the Caribbean, he did not dismiss Sachin Tendulkar (nor did he dismiss Pakistan legend Inzamam-ul-Haq in eight Tests).

Yet against the preeminent side of his time, Australia, he was magnificent, striking every 52.3 balls and averaging 21.23. Bishop recalled for cricket.com.au watching Ambrose in full flight during the 1996-97 Test series Down Under.

"It was almost a surreal feeling. I remember standing down at fine leg in Perth … I looked up and Curtly was bowling, and I just thought: My God," he says.

"Just watching him run in, the rhythm and the control, ball after ball after ball. It took my mind back to the 7-1 he got there the tour before, and I said to him afterward, 'Watching you run in, it looks like you're doing it in slow motion – it looks like a dream to me'.

"I was envious of it, just in the sense of thinking, Jesus, I wish that was something that I could do, because that was the highest level of bowling as far as I was concerned."

Some of the matches, and the moments, Ambrose remembers. Some of it has been lost in his mind to the passage of time. Unless prompted, he isn't one to trawl YouTube for highlights of his own performances. He would much rather pull out his bass guitar and work on his music, an undying passion that has ignited his need for a challenge ever since he put the spikes away for the final time in 2000.

"We're still together, still doing well," Ambrose says of Spirited, the band in which he plays that also includes Sir Richie Richardson. "We've known each other for so long that we're not just band mates, we're like family.

"We are in talks of getting our own music, because at the moment we do covers. We want to see how far we can go."

And the inevitable comparison between fast bowling and bass playing – and which is the more difficult art – brings with it a couple of surprising revelations.

"The pressure that comes with being one of the leading fast bowlers in the team, it's tough," he says. "Some people say I made it look easy, but believe me, it was not as easy as it looked.

"In terms of music, it isn't physically draining but it can be sometimes mentally, because you have to practice, to learn songs, and sometimes I'm not the most patient person in the world – it might have appeared so when I was playing, but believe me, I'm not.

"Sometimes, when I'm not getting my bass lines in a timely manner, I do get frustrated and I start to curse, and the guys in the band keep telling me I have to exercise patience, (they say), 'Music is a patience thing, you're not going to always get it'.

"So I've learned over the years to show patience, and I'm much better at it now.

"It's a fantastic instrument … without the bass, the music sounds hollow, like something is missing."

* * *

Ambrose was set to spend his birthday in Guyana, owing to the schedule of the Caribbean Premier League finals. It was the same last year, he remembers, though this time around he will have Bridget beside him.

"She already told me that no matter where in the world I am, she got to be there for my 60th," he smiles. "We'll maybe go to dinner or something.

"Last year my teammates, the Jamaica Tallawahs, they had this big cake and we celebrated in the team room. It could be a similar thing this time. Probably dinner with my wife first, and then the team after."

Bridget has been his partner for 35 years, and the pair were married in 2001 after his retirement from cricket. He suspects she might actually like cricket more than he does; famously, Ambrose – who always enjoyed basketball and soccer more than cricket – only came into the sport at the encouragement of his mother after people spotted his talent on the beaches of Antigua and pushed him to take it seriously.

The couple live a quiet life nowadays, with just one of their daughters still under their roof and the rest residing in the United States or Canada. A plane flight to New Jersey from Antigua is only four hours, and it is a trip they know well. But their kids are pushing them to go beyond what the familiar.

"They keep telling us it's time to enjoy our lives," Ambrose says. "Travel when you want. We've sacrificed so much for them, but they're all grown now. People tell me that I'm a blessed person to have so many girls around … that when they get older, girls always take care of their fathers, unlike boys, who tend to just go away. So if that is true, we're in good hands.

"But we are cool. We live a very quiet life. Don't do much."

Ambrose likes it that way. His down days are spent mainly at home, with his guitar in his arms or one of his favourite types of movies – Chinese Kung Fu or American Westerns – on the television.

"I'll watch one almost every day – I'm still old school," he laughs. "My children curse me. They say, 'Daddy, you're too old fashioned'.

"I watch other movies as well, don't get me wrong, but those two (genres), I grew up watching them and I'm still into them.

"I was just watching a Clint Eastwood one two days ago – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which I've seen a million times. I just can't help it. They're my favourites."

And we all have those.