With age comes experience and few know it better than West Indies Test captain Denesh Ramdin, who still regrets an unsavoury act of flashing a note towards Vivian Richards after scoring a century against England in Birmingham back in 2012.
Ramdin, after receiving flak from the legend for his poor show with the bat came back to score 107 in the third Test at Edgbaston and on completion of century, took a note out of his pocket and flashed it which read, "Yeh Viv Talk Na".
"It's been a few years since that incident. What I did then happened at the heat of moment. When I look back, today perhaps with age, I have become wiser and would not have taken that piece of paper out of my trousers’ pocket," Ramdin said.
"I have put the past behind and now myself and Viv are good friends. He in fact last week invited me for a round of golf but unfortunately, I could not make it," said Ramdin who has played 69 Tests, 127 ODIs and 51 T20 Internationals for the West Indies.
While most of his colleagues are more intent on making their careers out of lucrative T20 leagues across the world, for Ramdin the longest format remains his preferred choice even though he has strike-rate in excess of 120 in the shortest format and has had a good Caribbean Premier League (CPL) so far for the Guyana Amazon Warriors.
Ramdin said the likes of Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo are always welcome into the Test squad, should they choose to end their retirement.
"The experience that players like Chris and Dwayne have is enormous. I would always welcome them in West Indies Test side," said Ramdin.
Asked about Sunil Narine's problems with his action that has made him half the bowler he used to be earlier, Ramdin defended the mystery spinner.
"Sunil is a world class bowler and this is not a big problem. He is still a class act as you can see his performances in the past few matches of CPL," Ramdin praised the bowler, who has taken 7 wickets in 5 CPL matches.
For Ramdin, batting is important but not at the cost of ignoring his glovework.
"In a Test match, my aim is always to score around 45 to 65 runs coming in at No 7. One of the major task is to built partnerships with the lower-order which is important," Ramdin said.
Image: Denesh Ramdin
Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images
