Born in Georgetown, Guyana, Carl Hooper, 58, played 102 Test matches for the West Indies between 1987 and 2003, scoring nearly 6,000 runs, taking 114 wickets with his wily off-spin and captaining the side in 22 of those appearances. Known as one of the most stylish, if not necessarily most consistent, batters of the era, he also played 227 ODIs and had five prolific seasons with Kent, making 22 first-class centuries in 85 matches for the club.
Hooper returned to the county game with Lancashire in 2003 and is one of only three players to have scored a first-class century against all 18 first-class counties. “He was so talented, yet he didn’t understand just how good he was,” wrote Brian Lara of his former teammate. “People would ask why he didn’t do full justice to his brilliance, and you know what, there is no clear reason for it.”
Homespun technique
Guyana is below sea level, so we regularly get floods and there’s a lot of rain. Because of that my home was built on stilts, big concrete columns, and we had an area below the house where I would play cricket with my mates. The area would have been maybe 16 yards, much shorter than the normal 22 yards for a cricket pitch, and that’s where I honed my skill.
It was a very short distance to pick up line, length, to decide if I was going to come forward or back. When we played matches on the full 22 yards, I thought I was in a hurry just as much as the next batsman, but the messages conveyed to me said that it looked like I had so much more time to play the ball, this languid, easy way of playing. I don’t think it was an effort to be stylish or look a certain way; it just came from playing underneath the house with my mates and having to make decisions on short wickets.
Walking with giants
I remember getting the call to say I’d been selected to go to New Zealand with the West Indies team [in 1987]. I was freaking out. I travelled with Clyde Butts, a very dear friend of mine who recently passed away, and we arrived before the rest of the squad, who’d been touring Australia. I was sitting in the lobby when the West Indies team arrived, nervous as hell, and then you see all the big boys strut in. You’re talking about blokes I idolised as a kid: IVA Richards, Marshall, Holding. Big Bird [Joel Garner] looked so massive! You had to pinch yourself. They were like gods. To think these were my teammates. I was 20, the youngest in the team, and I was embraced. I felt 10-feet tall walking around and playing with those legends.
The first Test hundred
I wasn’t scheduled to play [at Eden Gardens on West Indies’ 1987-88 tour of India] but somebody pulled out sick on the morning of the game. Back in those days India wasn’t a good place to tour. You had guys going back and forth to the toilet, back and forth, Delhi bellies. I think it was Viv who came up to me on the morning and said: “Hoops, you’re in.”
In scoring my first Test hundred, I don’t think I realised what I’d actually achieved. Sometimes things happen so easily, you lose the significance of the moment. In India you’re talking about turning wickets, local umpires, 100,000 people in the stands shouting and screaming. That’s the environment I went into and peeled off a hundred. Sometimes you sit back and think: “Jesus Christ, that was some knock.” Test hundreds don’t happen often. It’s a special, special feeling.
Team in transition
The bar was set so high when I came into the West Indies team. Clive Lloyd had managed to put together a fantastic bunch of cricketers and that continued from 1976 right up until 1993 when we lost the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy to Australia in the Caribbean. You knew there was going to be a period of decline, but I honestly thought that the pieces were in place for us to come back up, because we had good young players coming through. I think the cricketers that we lost to South Africa [following the rebel tours] hurt us, when the board put a life ban on them.
Looking back, some decisions were made that probably weren’t the right decisions. When Viv Richards stepped down as captain [in 1991], I think he wanted to go on a tour before the World Cup and he wasn’t selected, which was crazy. He was still hitting the ball really well. There was a lot of debate about who should be named captain before Richie Richardson was appointed, whether it could have been Desmond Haynes, but maybe the board were thinking long term, and Richie was fairly young. Sometimes I sit and I wonder what really happened – how after 1993 we went down and still remain down today.
Left behind
When you look how the game has changed, at the facilities around the world, the money being pumped into cricket … we weren’t doing that [in the Caribbean]. The sort of money being generated from the commercial side of things, television and so on, we got left behind, and that really hurt us, and will probably continue to hurt us, because you need to pump money back into the sport to get young people playing. When T20 came about I think that pushed us back even further.
I love T20 but we’ve got a lot of good cricketers now just interested in playing franchise cricket. They’re honing their skills playing for Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, and then they’re probably being picked up by one of the franchises in the Caribbean, and then if they have a good CPL season franchises from overseas come calling. Players like [Shimron] Hetmyer and [Nicholas] Pooran should be playing Test cricket, but I don’t blame them. The amount of money being thrown at them is significant. So that hasn’t helped. But the decline started way before that. You could see there was a shift in the wind and we were caught napping. They are trying to do some stuff now to make it a bit more professional but it’s going to be a tough uphill climb.
Unfulfilled talent
I would have loved to have scored a few more Test hundreds. I should have got maybe 8,000 to 10,000 Test runs. I’d always bowled some off-spin but then I started to take it more seriously and spent time trying to develop it. My batting probably went off a little bit and wasn’t as sharp as it could have been. I got into a rut where I would get a hundred and rather than making sure I built on that; three, four, five, six innings would pass without making a score. Then you might hear murmurings that you should be left out and then you get another score. It was like that until I got the captaincy.
Taking responsibility
When I was made captain, my mindset was completely different. I was newly married and I had some really solid support. Technically I didn’t change my game, but I had the hunger and drive to score hundreds. The next game I wanted more and I think that was reflected in the latter half of my career. We had a very young side. When I got given the captaincy Roger Harper was the coach, and I think that was his first major assignment.
We had a young Chris Gayle coming into the team when he was 19, [Ramnaresh] Sarwan was probably 18. The bowlers we had – Cameron Cuffy, Pedro Collins, Corey Collymore – they were kids. The only senior guys around were myself, [Shiv] Chanderpaul, and I had [Courtney] Walsh for one series against South Africa and then he retired. As captain it’s important you set the tone, especially when you’re the leader of a group of young men. I enjoyed the captaincy. I like creating an environment where people can flourish and grow.
The Master Blaster
Viv [Richards] was another level. I can remember we were playing a Test match in Nottingham, one of our batters got out, and the slip cordon, it was like a fish market. The English were chatting: “Come on Gladstone, come on Gladstone.” Then who strolls to the crease? The Master Blaster. And from the moment that he got out there, you could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet. He just had the presence. He never played for records, or else he would have been right up there. When Viv played, he was an entertainer, and he played to win.
Slow death
When it came to the seamers, there’s one guy I hated playing against. Oh Jesus Christ, Terry Alderman was so slow. You were standing there waiting for the ball to come and you didn’t know what to do with yourself. He had these outswingers that he used to bowl: outswing, outswing, outswing, and then he’d nip the ball back. Oh man, he was a nightmare to face. Whenever he came on I used to be grinding my teeth, because he wasn’t quick enough.
Swing king
The bowler I always admired, probably the best that I played against, was Wasim Akram. He was next level, able to swing the ball late at pace, from either side of the wicket. Other bowlers would bowl a good spell, they’d hit the deck, the ball would seam and miss the bat or miss the stumps. But Wasim, because of the fuller length that he bowled, nine times out of 10 it would hit the stumps or your foot if you missed it. Standing at the non-striker’s end, I would just admire him at work. You’re dreading it – I was thinking “pull a hamstring and get off the bloody pitch!” – but you want to see him bowl because you realise that you’re witnessing something great.
Home away from home
My dream was always to play cricket in England and so being offered the chance to play for Kent in 1992 was a no-brainer. I’d toured England with West Indies in 1991 and had a good series – I got a hundred at Lord’s. We were playing at The Oval and Kent’s captain Mark Benson and coach Daryl Foster spoke to me and asked if I wanted to join them the next season. As a young player, this is what you wanted to do. There was no Division One or Division Two; you’d play all the counties and you’d go from a lovely day down in Kent to playing on a green seamer on a cold day at Old Trafford or Headingley. You had to figure it out as a batter, and that’s what I enjoyed.
Kent was a fantastic club, man. They made me feel welcome and I made a lot of good friends there. We had a very good side. One thing I must mention though – during Covid there was a roundtable with some ex-teammates of mine and they were trying to insinuate that I turned it on when I wanted to; meaning that if played against Curtly Ambrose I’d turn up for that game and be looking to score runs, and if I was playing somebody else then I couldn’t be bothered. That was disappointing to hear because every game that I played for Kent, I tried my best. I suppose you’ve got just to look at my record. It speaks for itself.
Life in Australia
I live in Adelaide now and I’ve just finished my third year in the BBL [as assistant coach at Adelaide Strikers]. Last year I took up a role as a specialist pathway coach in the South Australia setup, coaching the state under-19s up to second XI. Coaching is different. One of the hardest things I’ve found with coaching is having to look at the game, you know. With the shorter version of the game I’m fine, but I just struggle a bit with the longer version – in a four-day game around tea time I start to really struggle. But I love the nets. I’m very good with the dog stick – I go in the nets and I’ll just wang forever. I love engaging with players, giving them feedback and having a bit of competition. But when the game starts there’s nothing you can do.
This article is from the latest issue of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Click here to get a six-month digital subscription for just £8 – perfect for the upcoming summer of cricket.