IT’S been 40 years, but I still recall with reasonable clarity the first time I took note of Richard Austin, the batsman.

It was also the first time it dawned on me that Michael Holding, who was then no more than a couple of months away from making his Test debut in Australia, had evolved from lively and very promising into a genuinely quick bowler. Indeed, a bowler capable of frightening pace.

The scene was Kensington Park in east Kingston, with the home side up against Melbourne CC in the Senior Cup, some time in the latter months of 1975. As was usual, at any venue graced by the incomparably stylish Lawrence Rowe, a large crowd had gathered.

Now, I have no recollection of how the Melbourne innings went. What I do recall is that in late afternoon with the sun sinking fast, the youthful Holding and company swept away the vaunted Kensington top-order, including Rowe, Basil Williams and the dynamic left-hander Herbert Chang.

Of the top-order batsmen, only the young Austin — not the prettiest you will ever see but always courageous — remained when the umpires pulled stumps in fading light. On a pitch covered in green grass providing steep bounce and to my youthful eyes lightning fast, Holding was ferocious.

I remember Austin, as wickets fell around him, grimly ducking, weaving and defending his body from viciously rising thunderbolts from Holding — the latter operating from the north with the Lucas Cricket Club behind him. It was the first time I can recall feeling consciously fearful for the life and limb of batsmen.

The second occasion would come the following year, when Holding and company overwhelmed India on a dangerously up-and-down Sabina Park pitch.

Through it all, that afternoon at Kensington, the right-handed Austin, tall and wiry, never took a backward step. With each delivery, his crouch at the crease seemed to get lower and lower as if to signal his determination to remain unmoved.

That determination came to the fore three years later in 1978, when word had come that ‘money cricket’ was in the offing. Australian television magnate Kerry Packer had made it clear he would be taking on the cricket establishment. As it turned out, Packer’s World Series Cricket changed the game forever.

But as news spread of the coming of “money cricket”, my understanding is that Austin made it absolutely clear to those who would listen that ‘if is egg he would be in the red’.

Sure enough, that season Austin made 313 runs in six innings of the regional first-class season. He would play his two Tests for the West Indies against a second-string Australian side — first-choice players having been contracted by World Series Cricket.

As it turned out, it was the decision of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control to omit Austin after he signed up with World Series Cricket which triggered a split between the top players led by Clive Lloyd and the WICB.

It was a separation which lasted until late 1979 when full-strength teams representing hosts Australia and West Indies again met under the auspices of the traditional rulers of cricket, the ICC.

But to get back to Austin, my other major recollection of him was as a footballer. Austin was an attacker of quality on the football field. He was one of those who came at defenders at top pace, giving angles as he came and very difficult to stop.

Not long after the bitter and bloody 1980 general elections, a surprisingly large number of football fans, including a close ‘bredren’ and myself decided we had to go to the National Stadium to watch the big game between Boys’ Town and Arnett Gardens. Thinking back, it is obvious that the game played between teams from such politically tribalised and opposed communities so soon after the election, should have been played at the military headquarters, Up Park Camp.

For whatever reason, the game was played at the National Stadium with heavy police presence. It turned out to be a colossal error.

I remember the tension being so great I could hardly focus. You could almost hear a pin drop. But there was Austin of Arnett Gardens running hard and fearlessly at defenders in that semi drunken-master style of his.

Just a few minutes into the game an uproar began at the top of the grandstand and the first shots — followed by many more — rang out. With the smell of gunpowder overhwelming the senses, my friend and I raced out of the National Stadium just like everyone else — notwithstanding our pre-match pledge that if shooting started we would simply “get low”.

To this day, I can still smell the gunpowder and remember the awful fear. But, equally, I remember Richard Austin running determinedly at opponents. It was always his way. Let us all honour his memory.