Things catch us unawares sometimes, with no hint or warning as to what’s coming. Horse racing fans, for instance, and even many who are not, were recently stunned by Rich Strike striding out of nowhere to win the Kentucky Derby at the long odds of 80/1. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it coming.

In historian and film-maker Ken Burns’ documentary on baseball, we hear a story about a scout for the Washington Senators in 1907 informing his manager about a new pitcher he discovered: “This boy throws so fast that you can’t see him,” the scout said, “and he knows where he is throwing because if he didn’t there’d be dead bodies all over Idaho.” The pitcher was Walter Johnson, one of the greatest in the history of baseball. He went on to dominate baseball for years and has records that stand to this day. “One batter,” the narrator tells us, “left the box after two swings,” when the umpire told him he had a third swing coming. ‘I know,’ the batter said, ‘and you can have the next one. It won’t do me any good.’ ” He was spooked.

West Indies fast bowler Curtly Ambrose spooked many a batter in his time. By the end of his career, he was mostly known for his metronomic accuracy, but in his early days, especially, he was full of pace and venom. The tall Antiguan came out of nowhere. He bolted on to the scene and forced you to stop whatever you were doing and take notice.

Wayne Lewis was an attacking and attractive opening batsman for Jamaica in 1988 when Ambrose was embarking on his first full season. When Jamaica travelled to St Kitts to meet the Leewards, the story goes that Lewis somehow managed to convince his less-experienced partner, Nigel Kennedy, that his left-handedness made him less vulnerable to Ambrose’s missiles, and so Kennedy should take the tall pacer, while he would content himself with Winston Benjamin. The result was that Kennedy, making his first-class debut, suffered a broken arm and was ruled out of the rest of the season.

After an impressive first outing for the Leeward Islands against Guyana in 1986, captain and countryman Viv Richards was moved to ask, “Where have you been hiding?” He missed all of the 1987 season because The Leewards’ fast bowling department was staffed by the likes of Winston Benjamin, Eldine Baptiste, Anthony Merrick, and George Ferris, players who were either already playing for the West Indies or were considered among those next in line. He only started the 1988 season because Baptiste and Benjamin were in India on West Indies duties. He made good of the opportunity.

Like one of the devastating hurricanes that plague the islands from time to time, he mowed down everything in his path. Word of his ferocity quickly spread, and many were loath to face him. On a typically docile Antigua Recreation Ground surface, Ambrose totally routed Guyana, taking 12 wickets in the match with nine of them bowled. In all, the 6’7” Antiguan took a season high of 35 wickets at an average of 15.48, with Malcolm Marshall next in line with 27 wickets.

By competitions’ end, everyone knew that his next stop would be the then all-conquering West Indies team. There was just no way his claims could have been ignored, and the fans were confident he would add his name to the long line of fast bowling legends from the Caribbean. No one was surprised, then, when he was named in the team to face the visiting Pakistanis.

Ambrose’s was an unbelievable rise. He had played his first meaningful cricket match for Swetes, his village, in 1984 at the age of 21, and within four years he became a West Indies player, bowling alongside Malcolm Marshall and Courtney Walsh.

It’s not like he lived for cricket. Unlike many Caribbean boys, Ambrose did not dream of playing for the West Indies. Most athletes who make it to the highest level dedicate hours of youthful energy to improving their craft. We know that Donald Bradman spent hours throwing a golf ball against a tank and hitting it with a stump. Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest basketball player ever, practised every morning before school with his high school coach. Success normally requires a love for the sport that borders on obsession, and a work ethic that only a few possess.

It was not so with Ambrose. He never really played much cricket as a young man, he said; he never really cared much for the game. Instead, he played football and basketball. Cricket was too hard, required too much energy, so he only played tennis ball cricket on the beach with his friends to have a good time. Occasionally, because his friends thought he could bowl, he could be persuaded to have a game in the village.

Had an acquaintance from his village left for space when Ambrose was a teenager and returned, say in 1994 while he was putting England to the sword at the Queens Park Oval, dismissing them for 46, they would have been flabbergasted to find that the beanpole kid who was so indifferent to the sport could have risen to its very top. They’d have found it remarkable that such a reluctant cricketer would have gone on to take 610 international wickets.

Ambrose played his last game for the West Indies at the Foster’s Oval in Kennington on the 2000 England tour. As far as fast bowlers go, he was one of the very best in the entire history of the game. Since his retirement, he has played bass in a band which also featured former West Indies Captain Richie Richardson on rhythm guitar. Ambrose is now a high-level cricket coach.

I know Nigel Kennedy (he of the broken arm) by sight. One weekend there was an inter-parish game at Kirkvine in Manchester, which he attended with some of his friends. At one point, as I eavesdropped on their conversation, I heard him recounting his encounter with Ambrose. They all laughed; he was laughing hardest of all. There were no hard feelings it seemed. He had played an unwitting part in crafting a legend that linked him with a great man. And, despite the fact he had suffered some harm, he was far from upset about it.

Garfield Robinson is a Jamaican living in the US who writes on cricket for a few Indian and English publications. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or garfield.v.robinson@gmail.com.