SIR Viv Richards has a message for those who are shocked by former Pakistan batsman Qasim Umar's claims that cricket's original master blaster took performance-enhancing drugs when he was flaying international attacks in the 1970s and 1980s.
SIR Viv Richards has a message for those who are shocked by former Pakistan batsman Qasim Umar's claims that cricket's original master blaster took performance-enhancing drugs when he was flaying international attacks in the 1970s and 1980s.
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"Viv thinks this is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard and will not comment on it," younger brother Mervyn told MiD DAY on Thursday night.
The reaction was just as Mervyn had predicted when we had called him an hour before. He sure knows his brother well.
According to a PTI report, Umar said that Richards, "himself confessed to him that he used to take drugs to release tension and improve his stamina and endurance levels."u00a0
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| Qasim Umar |
The Kenya-born player made his Test debut against India in 1983. Later that year, he scored a hundred against Australia at the Adelaide Oval.
In his short career which spanned 26 Tests, he scored two double hundreds and a hundred. Apart from being one of the first to indicate that the game was afflicted by match-fixing, he also accused Imran Khan of taking drugs.
Mervyn was pretty clear as to what drove his cricket legend brother to be the best player in the world.
"Viv's cricketing passion was his drug. Viv used to sleep with his bat and the only thing he used was something for his eyes.
"Firstly, I don't think cricket is a sport where performance can be enhanced by consuming something. It is played between the ears. Viv never needed to do something like that (take performance-enhancing drugs)," he said.
He also put it down to jealousy. "This has come up at a time when Usain Bolt is breaking records. It's funny how allegations are made against extraordinary players."
Mervyn and Viv share an extraordinary relationship. They created a buzz while playing together on the local scene in Antigua.
In his autobiography, the great Antiguan wrote: "Mervyn wasn't just my brother. He was the closest person to me on earth, my best friend."
Their mother believed that he was more talented than Viv. But in an interview, Mervyn once said: "Nah. I was probably more wristy and stylish but Viv was something else."
Now, a football administrator, Mervyn was delighted when told that Viv, at the height of the match-fixing controversy, felt an act like that was "tantamount to treason".
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| Mervyn Richards |
And financial gains earned by players through the rebel tours to South Africa before the nation got re-admitted to international cricket in 1991, was called 'blood money' by the man whom the best of bowlers feared.
"There you go... that's the kind of regard Viv has for this game. He would never do anything which went against the spirit of cricket," said Mervyn.
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