Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

130 Rapid hundreds, remarkable debuts and great run outs None of the bowlers could contain the left-handed batsman from Guyana with viewers of the match, being broadcast on BBC Wales TV, left unsure whether they were watching the highlights or viewing live footage, such was the frequency of balls being struck to, or over, the boundary ropes by the West Indian maestro. “Never before has there been such a display of brutal, yet graceful stroke- play,” was the verdict of Ron Griffiths, the long-serving correspondent of the South Wales Evening Post . “Hurricane hitting” and “a whirlwind of brutal stroke-play” were the other descriptions coined by Fleet Street journalists from the confines of the small but homely press-box situated at the top of the enclosures at the Pavilion End as Lloyd’s remarkable double hundred unfolded with as the tourists rattling up 554-4 in just 83.3 overs before the Lancashire batsman declared in mid-afternoon. It also proved to be the final game when Majid Khan, the graceful and gifted Pakistani batsman, appeared for the Welsh county. 1976 was far from being one of Glamorgan’s finest seasons, with the Club finishing at the bottom of the Championship table, losing 10 of their 20 matches, in addition to finishing in 16 th place of the Sunday League table, with just five wins from sixteen games. Having already handed over the captaincy to Alan Jones, Majid made 21 in the first innings before opening the batting when Glamorgan batted again, making 22 before being bowled by Michael Holding Majid’s elevation up the order in the second innings stemmed from the incapacitation of Tyrone Powell, who was making his first-class debut for the Welsh county. He had been dismissed by the fearsome pace of Wayne Daniel from the third ball he faced in the first innings, before being laid low by a stomach upset. But he duly registered a pair in perhaps the most The luckless, and runless, Tyrone Powell.