The third instalment in a series giving snippets of life in Jamaica 50 years ago.

BEFORE the era of heavy bats, cricket had the stroke player. Those batsmen caressed the ball to the boundary with such effortless timing it inspired poetic writing from journalists, some of whom covered the 1974 Test match between the West Indies and England at Kensington Oval in Barbados.

So enchanted was Lawrence Rowe’s epic 302,
Wisden, the bible of cricket, called it a “master performance”. Former England fast-bowler Mike Selvey described the 610-minute innings as “unruffled technical excellence”.

In January this year Rowe, 75, celebrated the 50th anniversary of arguably his finest moment with a series of events over three days in South Florida, starting January 19. In attendance at a January 20 gala were several West Indian legends including former captains Vivian Richards, Courtney Walsh, and Chris Gayle; Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Collis King and Faud Bacchus.

Responding to England’s 395 all out, the West Indies scored 596 for eight declared. Opening the batting with Guyana’s Roy Fredericks, Rowe scored his runs off 430 deliveries with 36 fours and one six. England reached 277 for seven in their second innings in the drawn match.

Rowe, who is from Whitfield Town in St Andrew, became the second West Indian batsman, after Garfield Sobers, to score a Test triple century. Brian Lara of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaican Chris Gayle are the only other West Indians to score triple-centuries.

Two years earlier, Rowe scored 214 and 100 not out on his Test début against New Zealand at Sabina Park in 1972. He is the only batsman in Test cricket to achieve that feat.

Rowe played 30 Tests, scoring 2,047 runs — including seven centuries — at an average of 43.55. He has lived in South Florida for 40 years.

The folk hero status Rowe earned during the 1970s turned to scorn after he led rebel West Indies teams on tours of apartheid-era South Africa in 1983 and 1984. Those players were banned for life by West Indies Cricket Board of Control, though this was eventually lifted.

The gala in January took place at Westin Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. That event was part of a three-day series organised by Lawrence Rowe Legendary Cricket Foundation.

Guests included Broward County commissioners Hazelle Rogers and Denise Grant of Jamaica, and former Jamaica youth cricketer and West Indies Cricket Board marketing officer Chris Dehring.

Dehring, the keynote speaker, recalled his hero worship of Rowe as a youngster who listened by radio to every ball he faced during his mammoth knock against England.

He believes it is disgraceful that Rowe is absent from the Sabina Park mural honouring Jamaica’s greatest cricketers, and called for the malice against him at home to end.

“To put it in perspective, Jamaicans still sing, dance and celebrate to Vybz Kartel and Ninjaman music. There is no protest or public outcry when those songs play on the radio or at parties… Yet 40 years later, we are trying to erase from history the body of work of a man whose only real crime, if any, was to continue to earn an honest living in his profession, after his employers had let him go, in the only place willing to pay the value his services were worth,” Dehring said. “Other West Indian ‘rebels’ went on to play again for the West Indies, even at Sabina Park, cheered on by my fellow Jamaicans. If Yagga had chosen to rob a bank he would long have been out of jail. It’s time to let him go. Free Yagga!”

In its editorial headlined ‘Dehring wrong on Rowe’ published January 23, the Jamaica Observer disagreed with the businessman.

“Presumably, the view that Mr Rowe — resident in the United States for decades — has been persecuted here arises from such issues as the badly flawed decision to omit his image from a mural outside Jamaica’s headquarters of cricket, Sabina Park.

“More so, we suspect, was the decision of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) to rescind the naming of the players’ pavilion at Sabina Park for Mr Rowe in 2011.

“Furious objectors insisted that there were other great Jamaican cricketers of impeccable character, far more suitable — Mr Rowe having betrayed his people,” the newspaper said.