Once Every 76 Years
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Before there was Viv Richards, Clyde Walcott existed. He was built like a boxer and played his shots as if he was delivering a knockout punch. During his time, Walcott was the last batter bowlers wanted to face on a long afternoon. Writers who watched him play described his strokeplay as beating attacks into submission.
When Clyde Walcott hit a six, the echoes of the shot reverberated halfway across the earth. The West Indies star-packed so much power into a stroke that bowlers felt as if he was delivering a punch into their gut with each drive. Walcott had the body to match, he was built like his namesake, American boxer Jersey Joe Walcott.
He was the prototype of the batter Viv Richards became.
From 1948 to 1960, Walcott, along with Everton Weekes and Frank Worrell, was part of the Bajan triptych famously known as the Three Ws. If Walcott beat the bowlers to submission, Weekes dominated them with his powerful driving along the ground, and Worrell simply waved them away with style and elegance.
Of the three, Walcott was the last one to register a Test century. His maiden ton came in November 1948, a year in which 48 batters reached the 100-run mark. 10 of those tons came off the bats of Don Bradman and Everton Weekes, who scored five each.
Fittingly, Walcott reached his maiden ton with a huge six that lived on in the minds of those who witnessed it. However, that is not what made it special. Walcott chalked his first century in a match where two other batters, Gerry Gomez and Robert Christiani, also scored their maiden 100s. It was the first time this had happened and the cricket world would wait 76 years for a repeat of the occurrence.
There are two different types of bats, tight and wide-grained. Some batters prefer tight-grained bats because they need less time knocking in and are ready to go almost immediately, while wide-grained ones take a little need a little longer.
Tony de Zorzi isn’t too fussed about the grains. His primary concern is whether the bat is well-balanced and has a solid response. What he likes to do, though, follow a tradition popularised by Jacques Kallis during his playing days, De Zorzi puts a few cutout grips at the top of the handle to act as a counterbalance.
He also wraps his bats in fibreglass tape. The tape gives bats a longer shelf life; this is important for a batter like De Zorzi. The opener is cricket’s David Goggins. He has incredible endurance and bats for long periods in the nets.
“My bats always have cherries and look a little bit dirty, I like them to look a little bit worn otherwise, it's like, a bat is clean because you haven't got runs,” De Zorzi once shared.
Goggins has made a career as a writer and speaker, sharing insight into how he overcame his circumstances to rise to the rank of Chief Petty Officer in the US Navy Seals. In his book, Can’t Hurt Me, Goggins shares a quote from Heraclitus, a 5th-century BC philosopher born into the Persian Empire.
Speaking of soldiers on the battlefield, Heraclitus wrote, ‘Out of every 100 men, 10 shouldn’t be there, 80 are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior…’
De Zorzi enjoys Goggins’ content and subscribes to Heraclitus’ quote. Each time he walks out to bat, he strives to be the warrior.
On 29 October 2024, De Zorzi put his endurance to the test in Chittagong’s hot and humid conditions. Shortly after lunch, his body was cramping due to the heat. In true Goggins style, De Zorzi found a way to keep going, and the 27-year-old reached his ton with a four, resulting from a well-played sweep shot. Being a lifelong football fan, he marked the moment with a Cold Palmer (Cole Palmer) celebration.
The saying goes: everyone loves a good busker because their music creates a wonderful ambience. However, for the busker to keep busking, someone needs to put some money into the hat.
I am a busker and this is my hat:
Tristan Stubbs loves to bat. He loves it so much that he was playing club cricket a couple of days after he made his international debut. Where formats are concerned, the longer he can bat, the better. That’s why he identified his Test hundred as his best one yet.
As a youngster, indoors was the most unlikely place you could find him. He was on the patio 95% of the time. His father hung three balls at different levels from the rafters, and every day he was out there, hitting the ball as many times as he could without making a mistake.
His goal-setting started at 50. Every day, Stubbs would be on the patio of their Knysna home with an assortment of bats. He had quite a few of them, ranging from middling bats to the small size three bats. His preference was almost always the thinnest bat at hand. The thinner the bat, the bigger the challenge for him to middle the stringed balls.
He was so set on this challenge that his father could have lived with a planner permanently stuck to his hand. Stubbs constantly asked his father to modify his bats and cut them thinner.
So, he would be on the patio, with his Blue Bulls shirt on, challenging himself to hit 50 in a row, then 100, then 150, 200, 300 and so on, without messing up. About 17 years later, he made a hundred in the sub-continent. Stubbs faced 191 deliveries to get to 99 runs in Test cricket.
The 192nd and 193rd balls yielded no runs and the 194th ball was a touch on the shorter side. Stubbs rocked back and cut it towards the deep point region. The 24-year-old knew as he crossed for a single that he had reached the score he had dreamed about when he set the targets for himself.
De Zorzi was on 120 when Stubbs reached his ton.
When Rassie van der Dussen left the North West Dragons, he had cemented himself as one of their most prolific openers. The fact that he had done that in only five seasons made it incredible. However, when he got to the Lions, the province had a bloated top order with Reeza Hendricks, Stephen Cook, Dominic Hendricks and Devon Conway vying for two opening slots.
To guarantee himself playing time, Van der Dussen had to reinvent himself as a number three and four batter.
Wiaan Mulder barely bowled for the first 15 years of his life. In that period, he sent down more deliveries in backyard cricket, duelling with his brother, than he did for St Stithians or when he featured for the Gauteng Lions’ representative teams. He was an opening batter, sometimes coming in at three, for most of his career. His secondary skill was wicketkeeping.
Mulder only started bowling because Wim Jansen asked him to send down a few deliveries at the nets. When the Lions heard of his bowling and success with the ball for St Stithians, they asked Gordon Parsons to help the teen tighten his action.
Like Van der Dussen, Mulder was batting out of position when he debuted for the Lions. He came in at number seven. That was the only available batting position. He was barely 17 at the time. Mulder bowled well enough to be a fifth bowling option and contributed some lower-order runs. Unintentionally, he carved a space in the side as a number seven.
However, after he negotiated Merchant de Lange’s pace-filled spell in his second first-class match for the Lions, Mulder wasn’t dreaming about having a similar impact on the international scene. He wasn’t looking to be the next great seamer from South Africa. He was dreaming about scoring 50s and 100s in Test cricket.
However, it would take him eight years before he realised that dream. In the interim, he had highs as a seamer and fielder. His batting took a back seat during Ottis Gibson’s time with the Proteas. The coach took a liking to Mulder’s potential as a bowler and helped him hone his skills. In 2021, he won the Delivery of the Year Award for his dismissal of Kusal Mendis. A few months later he executed an outstanding catch to help Keshav Maharaj bag a Test hat-trick.
In October 2024, Mulder finally realised his childhood dream when he pounded the ball back over Taijul Islam’s head for a massive six to bring up his maiden Test hundred. It was a fitting blow. In 1948, Clyde Walcott marked the first of three maiden centuries in an innings with a booming six, and 76 years later, Mulder underlined the last of three centuries in an innings with a six.
Walcott's century marked the arrival of the third and youngest member of the three Ws. Many Proteas fans hope that Mulder's century marks the arrival of the batting all-rounder they believed he could be.