West Indies captain Richie Richardson pulls away fast bowler Curtly Ambrose (centre) after an altercation with Australian Steve Waugh (left) in 1995 Trinidad Test.
By Mike Hytner/The Guardian
West Indian fast bowling legend Curtly Ambrose has opened up for the first time about his infamous on-field spat with Steve Waugh in 1995, during which he says he came close to trying to “knock out” the Australia batsman.
Ambrose had to be physically restrained by his captain Richie Richardson after tempers flared on the first day of the third Test at Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad, with the hosts trailing 0-1 in the four-match series.
Ambrose, in his prime one of the most feared bowlers in the world but notoriously media shy both during his career and in retirement, lifts the lid on what became a defining moment in world cricket in his new autobiography, Curtly Ambrose – Time to Talk.
He reveals that trouble had been brewing after teammate Kenny Benjamin pricked his irritation with the players heading back to the dressing rooms at lunch, telling Ambrose that Waugh had earlier sworn at him. “When I finish my stare at a batsman I turn round pretty quickly and therefore I didn’t hear him.” Ambrose wrote. “But the more I thought about what Kenny had said, the more I became heated inside. I thought, ‘No, I can’t allow this to just slide’.
“We had our battles previously but nothing was ever said so I thought this was disrespectful. He had scored runs against me in the past and I had never said anything. And here in Trinidad I was controlling the situation, had the better of him and he said this, so I wasn’t happy. I had always respected him and figured he respected me as well.”
With his rage simmering, Ambrose finally boiled over when back out on the pitch he asked Waugh if he had sworn at him. “That’s when he snapped back, ‘I can say what I want to say’, which was as good as admitting he’d sworn at me,” Ambrose wrote.
“That was when I ripped into him and let him have it: ‘Man, don’t you effing swear at me again.’ And I don’t swear a lot so for me to use expletives it was clear that my anger was at boiling point. I lost it. If he had said nothing to what I had asked him, or even told me he didn’t swear, it would have ended right there, but when he came back at me again with all guns blazing, there was no holding back.
“I got seriously heated. I told him, ‘Man, I will knock you out – here and now. I don’t care if I have no career left’. That was when Richie intervened and told me to forget about it, and it was a good job he did because my ability to restrain myself was gone.”
Waugh went on to make an unbeaten 63 in Australia’s first innings total of 128; Ambrose took 5-45 off 16 overs in a man-of-the-match performance and West Indies won by nine wickets to level the series at 1-1.
Australia, however, went on to claim the series – and the Frank Worrell Trophy – with victory in the fourth Test in Kingston, where Waugh weighed in with a knock of 200 in the first innings. The result brought to an end a 15-year period of West Indian domination of world cricket – the last time they had lost a series was in 1980, in New Zealand. Australia have not lost to West Indies since.