West Indies vs India: Under-19 World Cup hero Alzarri Joseph a folk hero back home

It fuelled his motivation and steeled his determination further. “Alzarri just kept nodding his head. Didn’t speak a single word. Ambrose just told him to be patient and keep working on his bowling. He’ll be in the West Indies squad soon. I had never seen my son so excited ever and when he came home he told me he had forgotten to ask for an autograph. I told him ‘son you will meet him again’,” he recounts.

When they reached his village All Saints, dotted with sugarcane plantations and mills, there was already a bunch of teens and kids waiting for Alzarri’s autograph. He has suddenly become a folk hero of sorts. “Every one wanted to take a selfie with him, including his brothers,” chuckles Alva, who himself was a decent club-level cricketer of “modest talent”.

When his son showed signs of interest in cricket, he took him to Taddy Arindell, the most famous yet unsung grassroots coach in Antigua, from whose stable emerged Ambrose as well. Alzarri began as a leg-spinner, before he couldn’t stop growing. “He was 10 when I took to Taddy and he was quite short, but once he turned 12-13, he started getting taller by the day. So Taddy thought he can be a fast bowler. He had a strong body also. I was also really happy, because fast bowling is our biggest tradition,” says Alva.

The happiest of them was his grandmother Eileen. “You know what, when Alzarri grew up, cricket wasn’t big in Antigua, There weren’t too many from our island in the game after Ridley (Jacobs), but every day she used to tell him stories about (Andy) Roberts doing that or Ambrose doing that. It was more like bed-time stories. He always wanted me to become one like them. I couldn’t. So the next was him,” reflects Alva.

From spinner to pacer

Transitioning from leg spin to fast bowling was smooth. “He was very young at that time. So it wasn’t very difficult to make the change. I thought he was a natural and even his leg-spin was quite fast. He was also very strong for his age and it was mainly a matter of teaching him the right technique. The focus, from the young age was to bowl as fast as he could,” recalls Arindell.

By 15, he acquired the reputation of the fastest bowler in school circuit. “I have heard boys of his age or even sometime elder boys complaining that they couldn’t see him at all. He was getting a lot of wickets but I told him more than pace it was where you land that matters in club and first-class cricket. And the boy was always willing to learn,” he says.

If Arundel imbued him the basics, former West Indies pacer Winston Benjamin applied the finishing touches. His action was fine-tuned, made smoother, and the focus moved from rattling batsmen with sheer pace to becoming a smarter bowler in four-day matches. “Right from a young age, his ambition was to play Test cricket, and Winston’s tips were valuable. He advised him not to get impatient when he was not getting wickets even if he was bowling well. He made him understand the importance of temperament. Bowling-wise, they worked a lot on his out-swingers and he made his run-up smoother,” Alva explains.

Benjamin also told him not to feel dismayed by setbacks in life. The erstwhile fast bowler, with first-hand experience of petty politics within the board, was just forewarning him. His advice pulled him through the disappointment of not getting picked for the U-19 series in Bangladesh in 2013. “He’d done pretty well when Bangladesh had come here. He was expecting to retain his place and suddenly came this shock. He thought he will be overlooked for the U-19 World Cup as well. So he was naturally depressed for a few days, but he got over it in a couple of days,” narrates Alva.

A year later, he was rewarded for consistent performances in regional cricket. He made his first-class debut against Windward Islands in Grenada. Though he went wickets and conceded more than six runs an over in the second innings, selectors saw enough in him to be persisted with for the next season. He made an impression straightaway, picking five wickets including those of Rajendra Chandrika and Leon Chase, against a strong Guyanese side. “After the match, Shivnarine Chanderpaul came and congratulated him,” he adds.

Later that year, he ran through Winward Island, taking seven wickets for 46 runs, his best first-class figures. This was enough for him to be recalled to the U-19 side that toured Bangladesh in 2016, just before the World Cup. He was immediately picked by CPL side St Kitts and Nevis (there is Youtube snatch of him banging AB de Villiers’s helmet grille with a blood-curdling bouncer). Less than six months later, he’s in line to make his Test debut against India.

If Alzarri makes the cut, and if he makes it big, he would not only be keeping a grant Caribbean legacy alive but also be reducing Antigua’s grouse that their players are overlooked by the national selectors. And receiving him at the airport will be that certain loose-limbed man in his early 50s.