Denis Atkinson, the former West Indies captain, has died at the age of 75. This interview with him, by Tony Vinter, appeared in the February 1986 edition of Wisden Cricket Monthly

Denis Atkinson was a very sound batsman and medium-pace bowler of offcutters and offbreaks. He was one of the last white men to captain West Indies, in New Zealand in 1955–56, winning the rubber 3–1. He toured India in 1948–49, Australasia in 1951–52 and 1955–56, and England in 1957. At home he played against England in 1953-54 and Australia the following season, when he captained the side three times in place of the injured Jeff Stollmeyer.

His greatest moment came in the fourth Test against Australia at Bridgetown in 1954–55. Facing a total of 668, West Indies had collapsed to 147 for 6 when Atkinson and Clairmonte Depeiaza came together, and in more than a day they added 347, which is still the Test seventh-wicket record. Atkinson scored 219, his career-highest. He also took 7 for 164 in the match, which was eventually drawn. Tony Vinter spoke to him at his Barbados home:

How did your cricket career begin? And did you stand out as a schoolboy player?

Well, actually I should be grateful to JED Sealy. He went to Australia as an 18-year-old schoolboy for the 1930–31 series. He was my form-master at school and coached me. As you know, cricket is a religion in the West Indies, and we used to play an awful lot of cricket on the beaches with a tennis ball or a sponge ball. But when I was young I was a fisherman. I loved fishing and never really bothered too much about cricket until I left school and was working for a cable office. The Wanderers Cricket Club couldn't raise a team, and they asked me to play, although I wasn't a member. I did quite well and within 18 months I was in the Island XI, and within another 18 months I went to India with the West Indies team. That was back in 1948.

You seemed to have a habit of getting involved in record partnerships. You hold the seventh-wicket West Indian record of 143 with John Goddard against New Zealand – that was in 1955–56 – the ninth-wicket record with Bob Christiani of 106 against India in 1948–49, and of course your most famous one, a world record not only in Tests but in all first-class cricket at the time, the 347 for the seventh wicket with Clairmonte Depeiaza against Australia in 1954-55. Can you tell me about it – the excitement and so on?

I suppose it must be the eighth wonder of the world, because it just happened. In that series the Australians made over 500 on four occasions. They were very strong in batting, and at that stage we didn't really have any fast bowlers around. Not like today. It was a very hard game for me. I was in the field when they made the 600-odd. I think I got three or four wickets in about 40 overs. And then that same afternoon we were batting, and, well, we just wondered how long it would be before they wound it up. Depeiaza and I came together. I think he was about 18 and I was 22, and we batted out the entire following day – how I don't know – it was just one of those things. And then in the second innings I bowled 50-something overs and I think I got five wickets. Then, within two hours, we were back scrambling to save the game. We only just held on. Very exciting – which makes cricket so wonderfully unpredictable.

Who were the bowlers you had to face?

Well, they had a very, very good attack. There were Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, Bill Johnston, Ian Johnson, Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson. Between them they finished up with over 1100 wickets in Tests. Although the Aussies are very competitive, they are lovely people. I remember when I was on 99, Johnson put all the men on the off side when Miller was bowling. He had only one man at mid-on, and Miller said "Don't mind him. I'll give you a half-volley on the leg peg and let you get your hundred." I said "You can't trick me," but when he bowled the next ball, true, it was a half-volley for me to get my hundred. My first and only hundred in Test cricket. However, the next ball he bowled was a bouncer and nearly killed me. That's the kind of man Miller is. He was one of the great personalities and characters of the game, there's no doubt about that.

Anybody that knows anything about cricket has always admired the famous Three Ws. They dominated the 1950s and 1960s. Their careers ran parallel with yours. How would you assess them? p>They were different types of players. Frank Worrell was very artistic. Whatever he did it looked wonderful, beautiful; and he was a very correct player. Everton Weekes, he was more like a butcher. I was out in India when he got his five consecutive centuries. He cut and pulled, and he would go outside the leg stump and cut past point. When Everton got a hundred you felt as though somebody had beaten you with a stick; he was that kind of player. I've always had the highest regard for Clyde Walcott. He was one of the best wicketkeepers I've ever played with. When you edged the ball, he was there. He didn't make many mistakes. His batting speaks for itself. He would have been in the West Indies side for his batting even if he had not kept wicket. I remember in 1954-55 against Australia he scored a century in each innings of a Test twice in the series, plus another century, making five in all, and with an aggregate of 827 runs – great stuff.

It was a very sad blow to West Indies and indeed to the whole cricket world when Frank Worrell died at the early age of 42.

Yes, that's very true. We all mourned him, and when touring sides visit Barbados they invariably visit his grave at the University. He knew a lot about the game and was a great influence on the younger players.

West Indian cricket from the early 1920s has come a long way, with the emergence of players like Hall, Griffith, Gibbs, Butcher, Lloyd, Kanhai and now Greenidge, Richards, Garner. But the great Garry Sobers must be rated the greatest cricketer of all time. What impact do you think he's had on West Indian cricket?

West Indies are now probably the strongest side in the world, and it may have started with the Sobers era. Garry was always a perfect gentleman, and the spirit in which he played his cricket is an example. His outlook on the game was that he was there to win, and he would take chances to win, which sometimes got him into trouble. He was criticised in Trinidad when he declared generously and England won. But Garry was always an aggressive and positive captain, and you need more people like him in the game today.

What of the foreign players you played against?

Well, this could take hours to answer. I've played against men like Len Hutton, Lindsay Hassett; they had the widest bats that I've ever bowled at. You never felt you would get them out. In England there were lovely players like Ted Dexter and Peter May; such a great pity that these chaps retired early. Denis Compton – what a fine player he was – but he was really before my time. I played against him a few times in West Indies but he was then past his best, but still I had glimpses of his great, unique art. Bowlers like Lock, Laker, Trueman and Statham – they were the best England bowlers I saw.

Who were the best fast bowlers you played against?

I played against Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith in our local cricket, but personally I found the most awkward fast bowler was Keith Miller. Now Lindwall was a very great bowler, as were Trueman and Statham, but you could pick up the ball so much earlier than you could a ball from Miller. He came in with his rocking-horse action, and the ball was halfway down the wicket before your picked it up. What do you feel about the game today? You've seen the changes.

Well, there's much more money now, which I think is right, because I always felt that men who give pleasure to millions of people should be paid for it, in cricket as in other forms of entertainment. I was an amateur. I was never paid anything, but I doubt that anyone who played the game had more pleasure and fun out of it than I did. I loved every minute of it. But today what worries me is that money is more important than fun and enjoyment. Kerry Packer did a lot of good for the game, because the cricketer was the most underpaid sportsman in the world. Packer started putting cricketers on the same footing as golfers, tennis players, etc, and that must be right. A sportsman's career is very limited, but what does worry me is the attitude of sportsmen today. They give the umpires a hard time, they argue over decisions, etc.

The phrase "It isn't cricket" doesn't really apply any more, does it? Once it used to mean that cricket was above anything else as far as discipline and honesty were concerned.

Well, when I used to play, if you got a bad decision, you couldn't even show disapproval, or they threatened to send you home. Today, I don't know what is happening. One of the happiest tours I ever had was out in New Zealand when I captained the team [1955-56], and those New Zealanders were lively lovely, lovely people – like the Englishman 60 years ago – lovely, lovely people. And that was the happiest tour I've ever had. So when I hear that certain cricketers were cursing umpires and kicking down the stumps and remaining at teatime 20 minutes extra and wouldn't come out, I just don't understand it. I think they have to discipline them in some way.

One of the most talked-about subjects in cricket is South Africa. Anyone who loves cricket wants to see South Africa back on the international scene. One of the great spectacles in life would have been to see the South African side in the 1970s playing against the best West Indian sides. All the players I know in the South African side are certainly not racialist. I think it's the one sport in South Africa that's tried to be multiracial, and yet they are condemned more than in any other game.

I agree. I've been to India, Ceylon, Pakistan, New Zealand twice, Australia and England. I've never been to South Africa and I really don't know what takes place out there, because when we hear that coloured people travel in one bus and white people in another, that's something we don't understand out here. We all live peacefully together, and as long as you behave yourself you're allowed to go anywhere, and this is what life should be. On the other hand, if I were playing Test cricket today and I was offered a lot of money to go to South Africa, I would go and play, and I see absolutely no reason why not. We should send a multiracial team to South Africa and we should invite the South Africans here. I'm not a politician, but I believe if we could send teams to South Africa or entertain them here, the racialist die-hards would see that people of all races can play cricket together, laugh and have fun together.

What frightens me is that the world of cricket could be split into the white countries and the coloured countries, and that would be total tragedy.

Yes, I agree with this, and to my way of thinking it would be racialism in reverse. The rebel sides that have toured South Africa are a good thing, as it could be the beginning of the breakdown of the barriers that we all detest. As far as I know the coloured teams which played in South Africa, the West Indians and Sri Lankans, were treated very well indeed. Perhaps the breakthrough is just starting, although to ban these players from Test cricket for a lifetime in their own countries was ludicrous. Do they ban white businessmen who earn money in South Africa?

The success of the West Indies side is largely based on their battery of fast bowlers. I don't blame them for this. It seems now you just whistle on the beach and up comes a great West Indian fast bowler. But one of the tragedies of the game seems to be that spin, one of the arts of cricket, is on the decline. You've had great spinners, like Lance Gibbs, Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine. Do you not find that bowlers of their calibre are getting scarcer?

Yes. But if you look back over the years you will see that there has never been a successful international team unless they had real good fast bowlers. Go back to Gregory and McDonald, Larwood and Voce, Allen and Bowes, Hall and Griffith, Trueman and Statham, Tyson and Loader. The Aussies have had Lillee and Thomson and so on. Throughout the history of cricket, sides with unrelenting fast bowling invariably win, and with the amount of money in the game today winning is all important. Therefore, I cannot see a change of attitude in the future. Another point is that the one-day game has bred a boring spate of very ordinary, short-of-length, medium-pace bowlers. I am not sure what the answer is.

Finally, I am intrigued by your middle name, St Eval. Can you tell me the origin of this?

My whole family, every one of my children, girls as well, are called St Eval. My people came here from Britain in 1630. There was a Roman Catholic connection from Charles I so I suppose originally there was a French-Scottish tie. The family went to Virginia for a short time and then came to Barbados. There was only one boy in the family for about six generations. There are other Atkinsons but if they do not have the St Eval they are not of out generation. All my brothers and brothers' children are called St Eval. Which reminds me that my brother Eric, who is 18 months younger than me, played with me against Pakistan here in Bridgetown. There we were, bowling against the Mohammad brothers. I wonder if that is some kind of record – two brothers bowling in a Test against two brothers? I think I should tell you that my last Test wicket was Hanif Mohammad - caught Alexander bowled Atkinson 337. I was very tired.

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