Deryck Murray delivers his response from the players at Monday night's function at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel.

Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport

IN CRICKET parlance, a mini collapse loomed on Monday night at the Pegasus hotel.

Dubbed 'A Toast to Cricket', the Jamaica Trade and Invest-inspired, black-tie affair was being held to honour the members of the 1975 and 1979 World Cup winning teams.

It was expected to be one of Cricket World Cup 2007's night of nights, but the gremlins which had left alone the Cup's opening ceremony the night before, turned up in New Kingston.The non-attendance of the guest speaker, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, and the captain off both victorious sides, Clive Lloyd, knocked the programme off its line early and with it the schedule.

Audio/video presentation falls

Next to fall was the audio/video presentation which was supposed to accompany each World Cup winner to the podium as the former players collected their commemorative decanters and a bottle of special Appleton rum blended from the 1975 and 1979 vintages.It took the efforts of Deryck Murray, a rock of those two history-making West Indian sides, to steady the evening as he "stepped in for the boss" to deliver the players' response.

The diminutive, silver-haired Trinidadian picked up the slack pace of the night with his self-deprecating humour in the stead of Lloyd, who had developed laryngitis "talking to this West Indies squad".

Noting that the audience was getting a "small, grey man" rather than a "tall, dark" one, he said he had also seen an evolution in the game of cricket.

"When I was playing, the bowlers were tall and the batsmen short," he said. "Now, I think I would be fastest bowler going around," the pocket-sized gloveman said.

Following on a theme from an earlier speaker, cricket commentator Tony Cozier, Murray said the West Indies cricket team and the University of the West Indies (UWI) were the only true regional bodies but that shouldn't be so.

"I was thrilled when Jamaica qualified for the soccer World Cup because I saw it as a West Indian team. I applaud whenever Caribbean athletes win gold medals at games. I don't care which island they are from," he said. "I truly long for the day when we (the Caribbean) will have a football team or a West Indies relay squad. We would be unbeatable."

Thanked sponsors

The West Indian World Cup winners plus Courtney Walsh, Sir Garfield Sobers, David Rudder and Lawrence Rowe pose at the end of Monday night's proceedings. - photos by Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

He thanked the sponsors for recognising the efforts of his teams of more than a quarter of a century ago and said on the eve of the first game of the World Cup: "I hope this will be a catalyst for the rejuvenation of West Indies cricket."

Murray was preceded in the speech order by Cozier and Minister for Information and Development, Donald Buchanan, who was standing in for "his boss", Simpson Miller, whose heavy schedule over the past few days forced her to skip the event.

One of her many tasks was meeting Venezuelan president Hugo Ch?vez in Montego Bay on Monday.

Buchanan revealed a chance encounter between Ch?vez, Simpson Miller and "the greatest cricketer of all time", Sir Garfield Sobers, at the Half Moon Hotel, had led to Ch?vez inviting Sir Gary to start a cricket nursery in his country.

Following Murray to the podium was final act, David Rudder, who kept the momentum going with yet another version of Rally 'Round the West Indies.

The Honourees

Andy Roberts, Alvin Kallicharran, Bernard Julien, Clive Lloyd (absent), Colin Croft, Deryck Murray, Desmond Haynes (absent), Gordon Greenidge, Joel Garner, Lance Gibbs, Maurice Foster, Rohan Kanhai, Sir Vivian Richards, Collis King, Larry Gomes, Faoud Bacchus, Vanburn Holder, Michael Holding (absent).