By CMC.
GALLE, Sri Lanka – Legendary former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd used what would have been Steve Camacho’s 70th birthday on Thursday, to praise the late former West Indies Cricket Board chief executive for his sterling contribution to Caribbean cricket.
Camacho, who spent 18 years as the first CEO of the WICB, died earlier this month in Antigua following a battle with cancer.
Describing him as a “friend”, Lloyd recalled Camacho as someone “who loved and lived cricket”.
“I knew Steve for many, many years. We played for Guyana together and he always stood for what is good about the game. He lived and loved cricket,” Lloyd said.
“On the tour of England in 1968 we were roommates and we spent a lot of time talking cricket and we got along very well. He was a solid, determined batsman who was technically sound. He was a good team man and could ‘read’ the game very well. He had a terrific memory and an intelligent cricket brain.”
Camacho played 76 first-class matches as a right-handed top order batsman, scoring 4,079 runs including seven centuries and 24 half centuries.
In an 11-Test career between 1968 and 1971, Camacho scored 640 runs, and played in several outstanding West Indies teams alongside Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Wes Hall, Lance Gibbs, Roy Fredericks, Rohan Kanhai and Lloyd.
However, it was in the area of administration which Camacho made his mark, also serving as a Test selector and West Indies team manager
“Over the years he would make a fantastic contribution to the West Indies Cricket Board and to the game in the region. During my time as captain he was the manager at various stages and he was very organized and well respected,” Lloyd added.
“After that, he did a marvelous job as chief executive. He didn’t have much staff and had limited resources in the early days but made things work. He was very thorough, very efficient and demonstrated the highest levels of management.
“He never craved the limelight, but simply did his job well and led from the front.”
West Indies players wore black armbands on the first day of the opening Test here Wednesday, as a mark of respect for Camacho.
Lloyd, who currently serves as convenor of selectors, was the mastermind of West Indies’ world dominance in the 1970s and 1980s.
He led the Caribbean side to back-to-back triumphs in the 1975 and 1979 World Cup, and set in train one of the greatest periods of dominance by a single team in the history of sports
By CMC.