Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards (born: March 7, 1952) also known as Viv Richards is considered to be one of the greatest batsmen of all time who represented West Indies at international level.
He made his Test debut on November 22, 1974 for West Indies versus India and his ODI debut on June 7, 1975 versus Sri Lanka and distinguished himself as one of the most feared and productive batsmen of his generation.
- Richards scored 8,540 runs in 121 Test matches at an average of 50.23, including 24 centuries. As a captain, he won 27 of 50 Test matches and lost only 8. He also scored nearly 7,000 runs in ODI and more than 36,000 in first-class cricket.
- Besides being a terrific batsman, he was also a successful captain (1984 - 1991) and never lost a Test series, something which even Clive Lloyd could not achieve.
- He played 4 cricket World Cup’s and in 1975, he led the West Indies to victory in the inaugural World Cup and in the 1979 World Cup, Richards scored a century as the West Indies won their second consecutive title.
- 1976 was Richards’ finest year, when he scored 1,710 runs in just 11 Tests at an average of 90. He also held a number of batting records; including the one for the highest score in an ODI with 189 not out against England and also the fastest Test century in the history of Test Cricket, taking just 56 balls to reach the milestone against England at Antigua. The record was later equalled by Misbah-ul Haq and recently broken by Brendon McCullum .
He has earned many laurels during his career. He was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of The British Emipre) for services to cricket in 1994. In 1999, he was made a Knight of the Order for the National Hero (KNH) by Antigua and Barbuda.
In the year 2000, a 100-member panel of experts named him as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century. In December 2002, Wisden named him as the greatest ODI batsman of all time as well as the third greatest Test batsman of all time, after Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar .
