Charlie Griffith interview (1 min)

Wayne Daniel interview (2 mins)

With the Indian Cricketer of the Century Awards coming up on July 23, Wisden Online have asked some former greats their opinions and memories about Indian cricketers who are in contention, along with a few others who aren't. In part two of this sequence, former West Indian pacemen Wayne Daniel and Charlie Griffith share their thoughts on some of the Indian greats.

Of the Indian batsmen he bowled to, Daniel, unsurprisingly, rates Sunil Gavaskar as the best: "He was a super player, a tough one to crack." Daniel recalled his first Test in India, at Delhi in 1983-84, when Gavaskar smashed a century off 94 balls and "hardly put a foot wrong". He also picked out Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohinder Amarnath as difficult to dislodge, while Kapil Dev was a quality batsman who could take any bowling attack apart.

Charlie Griffith played in an earlier era, and remembered fine Indian batsmen like Chandu Borde, Ajit Wadekar and Hanumant Singh. He also praised the great spin trio: Erapalli Prasanna, "mystery man" Chandra and Bishan Bedi. To Griffith, Bedi's bowling could look "fairly simple and unassuming". But appearances could be deceptive - Griffith said that Bedi "had the ability to destroy you".

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