Sir Anderson Montgomery Everton Roberts, KCN (born 29 January 1951) is a former Antiguan

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

er who is considered the father of modern

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

fast bowling Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. ...

. Roberts played

Test cricket Test cricket is a form of first-class cricket played at international level between teams representing full member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC). A match consists of four innings (two per team) and is scheduled to last f ...

for the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

, twice taking seven

wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

s in a Test

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is ...

. Arriving in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in 1972, he played first-class cricket for

Hampshire County Cricket Club Hampshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Hampshire. Hampshire teams formed by earlier organisations, princi ...

and then later for

Leicestershire County Cricket Club Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the count ...

. Roberts was the first Antiguan to play Test cricket for the West Indies, thus leading the way for many of his famous countrymen including

Viv Richards Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards (born 7 March 1952) is an Antiguan retired cricketer who represented the West Indies cricket team between 1974 and 1991. Batting generally at number three in a dominant West Indies side, Richards is widely ...

Richie Richardson Sir Richard Benjamin Richardson, KCN (born 12 January 1962) is a former West Indies international cricketer and a former captain of the West Indian cricket team. He was a flamboyant batsman and superb player of fast bowling. He was famous for ...

and

Curtly Ambrose Sir Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose KCN (born 21 September 1963) is an Antiguan former cricketer who played 98 Test matches for the West Indies. Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time, he took 405 Test wickets ...

. In 2009, Roberts was inducted into the

ICC Cricket Hall of Fame The ICC Cricket Hall of Fame recognises "the achievements of the legends of the game from cricket's long and illustrious history". It was launched by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Dubai on 2 January 2009, in association with the Fe ...

International career

Roberts formed part of the "quartet" of West Indian fast bowlers from the mid-Seventies to the early Eighties (the others being

Michael Holding Michael Anthony Holding (born 16 February 1954) is a Jamaican former cricketer and commentator who played for the West Indies cricket team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest pace bowlers in cricket history, he was nicknamed "Whispering Dea ...

Joel Garner Joel Garner (born 16 December 1952) is a former West Indian cricketer, and a member of the highly regarded late 1970s and early 1980s West Indies cricket teams. Garner is the highest ranked One Day International bowler according to the ICC bes ...

and

Colin Croft Colin Everton Hunte Croft (born 15 March 1953) is a former West Indian international cricketer. Cricket career Croft was (along with Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Joel Garner) part of the potent West Indian quartet of fast bowlers from ...

) that had such a devastating effect on opposition batsmen at both Test and One Day International level. He was also part of the West Indies team that won the first two Prudential World Cups in

in 1975 and 1979. By his own reckoning, the best spell Roberts ever delivered was during the

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley ...

Test of the West Indies' 1976 tour of England: "I only got three wickets, but in my mind there was a decision given against me. It was a leg-before decision against Peter Willey, where he played right back onto his stumps to a fuller delivery. I would've bowled England out that afternoon if the umpire had given me the decision." Despite an excellent record in Tests his international career was relatively short and ended in 1983.

Imran Khan Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi ( ur}; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Cricket captain who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to until April 2022, when he was ousted through a no-confiden ...

(former captain Pakistan national cricket team) once described a ball bowled to him by Andy Roberts as the fastest and most terrifying he had ever faced. One of his trademarks was the use of two different

bouncers A bouncer (also known as a doorman or door supervisor) is a type of security guard, employed at venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, stripclubs, casinos, hotels, billiard halls, restaurants, sporting events, schools, concerts, ...

. One was delivered at a slower pace and was often dealt with quite easily by the batsman. However, this was a ploy by Roberts to lull the batsman into a false sense of security. Roberts would then deliver the second bouncer, pitching in a similar spot to the first, but delivered at far greater pace. The batsman would attempt to play this delivery in the same fashion as the first slower bouncer only to be surprised by the extra pace and bounce of the ball. Many batsmen were dismissed, and many more struck painful blows, by Roberts using this ploy. Roberts was also the part of the

team which ended up as runners-up in the

1983 ICC Cricket World Cup The 1983 Cricket World Cup (officially the Prudential Cup '83) was the 3rd edition of the Cricket World Cup tournament. It was held from 9 to 25 June 1983 in England and Wales and was won by India. Eight countries participated in the event. ...

John Snow John Snow (15 March 1813 – 16 June 1858) was an English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology, in part because of his work in tracing the ...

believes that Roberts saw reduced effectiveness after being overbowled during 1974 by Hampshire and West Indies.

After cricket

Roberts' contribution to

cricket has continued since his retirement as a player. As an administrator overseeing the preparation of pitches, he helped prepare the pitches in

Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Bar ...

on which

Brian Lara Brian Charles Lara, (born 2 May 1969) is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and holds several cricketing rec ...

twice broke the world record for highest Test scores. Roberts worked with Bangladesh's fast bowlers in 2001 and again in 2005, and also helped coach India's seam bowling all-rounder

Irfan Pathan Irfan Pathan (; born 27 October 1984) is a former Indian cricketer turned Commentator, Cricket Analyst, Actor and Dancer. He was a bowling all rounder and a member of the Indian cricket team that won the inaugural 2007 ICC Twenty20 World Cup a ...

in 2006. He joined the

West Indies Cricket Board Cricket West Indies (CWI) is the governing body for cricket in the West Indies (a sporting confederation of over a dozen mainly Commonwealth Caribbean, English-speaking Caribbean countries and dependencies that once formed the British West Ind ...

selection panel in July 2006. In 2008 he was one of 12 former West Indies cricketers who made up the 'Stanford Legends' who promoted the

Stanford 20/20 The Stanford 20/20 was a short-lived cricket tournament in the Caribbean island of Antigua. It was held first in July and August 2006 in the West Indies at the Stanford Cricket Ground, St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda, and then again in the sam ...

. Roberts was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Nation (KCN) by the Antiguan Barbudan government on 28 February 2014.

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Andy 1951 births Living people Combined Islands cricketers Hampshire cricketers Leeward Islands cricketers Leicestershire cricketers New South Wales cricketers West Indies One Day International cricketers West Indies Test cricketers West Indian cricketers of 1970–71 to 1999–2000 World Series Cricket players Cricketers at the 1975 Cricket World Cup Recipients of the Order of the Nation (Antigua and Barbuda) Cricketers at the 1979 Cricket World Cup Cricketers at the 1983 Cricket World Cup Wisden Cricketers of the Year West Indies cricket team selectors Antigua and Barbuda cricketers Cricket players and officials awarded knighthoods Caribbean Premier League coaches Antigua and Barbuda cricket coaches People from Saint Mary Parish, Antigua