Reon King: Fast, hungry and promising, but restricted to glimpses of brilliance

Reon King born on October 6, 1975, was one of the fastest bowlers from the West Indies at the start of his career. He was looked up as the torch-bearer of the West Indian fast bowling department after the retirement of Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose. However, after a promising start, King lost the plot due to injuries and indifferent form. Sarang Bhalerao profiles the cricketing career of King who failed to be one of the Kings of West Indian fast bowling pantheons.

Reon King © Getty Images

Reon King born on October 6, 1975, was one of the fastest bowlers from the West Indies at the start of his career. He was looked up as the torch-bearer of the West Indian fast bowling department after the retirement of Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose. However, after a promising start, King lost the plot due to injuries and indifferent form. Sarang Bhalerao profiles the cricketing career of King who failed to be one of the Kings of West Indian fast bowling pantheons.
Figure this out: glimpses of brilliance, tremendous hope for the future, injuries and getting lost in wilderness. History is replete with such instances of players showing remarkable potential which makes the writers go in comparison mode. Statisticians are busy extrapolating the numbers and announcing that the person has the ability to reach a particular landmark in n number of years.

In 2000, Colin Croft wrote an article on ESPNcricinfo where he said one particular fast bowler from Guyana challenged him that he will surpass his tally of Test dismissals. The then 24-year-old Reon King told Croft that, “I am going to beat your record you know.” Croft said that would be nice but difficult. Croft politely asked King, “I averaged about five wickets per Test and got my 100th Test wicket in about 19 Tests. Can you match that?” And there came a terse reply from King, “Of course, I can.”

As a matter of fact or as fate would have it, King played in 19 Test matches for West Indies but fell 47 wickets shy of his promise to Croft. At the start of his career people looked up to him and Franklyn Rose to carry on the legacy of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. The emergence of King and Rose at the twilight of Ambrose and Walsh’s career seemed to be a perfect setup. The script seemed to lose the plot and in the end it is abounding with speculations as to why King could not be the King of West Indian fast bowling?

For starters, according to Croft, King has a smooth run-up. It resembled Michael Holding’s action: upright, loose and relaxed approach while delivering the ball. King had the propensity to ball unplayable balls. In the second Test match of the series against Zimbabwe, where he picked up his first five-for, the ball to dismiss Murray Goodwin in the second innings was special. The ball pitched around middle stump completely squared-up Goodwin, who was looking to work the ball towards on-side. The ball straightened and dislodged the middle-stump.

The year 2000 provided West Indies with much optimism about King as the torch-bearer of the attack. Having picked up 28 wickets in 11 Test matches, which included the series-winning 12 wickets in three Tests, King, it seemed, was ready to take the mantle of the lead fast bowler. The tour of England was a litmus test for the fast bowler. King managed to pick up eight scalps in four Test matches at an average of 30.50. King didn’t look menacing in the series and was reported to be troubled by a heel injury. In an interview to cricketweb.in King admitted that he had a poor tour of England. He told the website: “When I do figure it started to have an effect on me, was when the coach, after hearing things from the commentators and suchlike, would come back and relate the unflattering stuff to me. This created a great degree of discomfort, but I’m not sure it was evident to him at the time. It’s probably because I’m not one to show too much emotion. As a result of the many observations by the experts and critics, the coach and I decided to work on a few things. Personally, I figured we weren’t working on the right things. In the end, sadly, we just lost the plot.”

The injury slowed down his progress as a fast bowler. He played only two Tests in 2001, against Zimbabwe, and was then ignored by the selectors. Croft has an interesting observation about the injuries of the Caribbean fast bowlers. He said: “My biggest problem with the younger fast bowlers in the West Indies, especially Reon King and Trinidad & Tobago’s Mervyn Dillon, is that they always seem to be injured. I have my theory on that aspect of Caribbean fast bowling. Most of these new guys never played cricket at primary school, due to that lack of organised sport in most schools around the Caribbean. Many only played when they were already 14 or 15 years old. Therefore, their bodies never ‘grew’ sports-wise as their ages advanced. In other words, while the young fast bowlers were say 14, their sporting bodies, the muscles and sinews used for the sport, are only maybe two-three years old. By the time they are 24, when they should start maturing; their bodies are only 10-12 years old. That nurturing at primary school is often missing, and therefore, while men, the body structure is so weak that it rebels and injuries occur.”

Reon King played 50 ODI games and picked up 76 wickets at an average of 23.77 © Getty Images

King was part of provisional 30-member squad for the 2003 World Cup. At that time he told cricketweb.in in a no non-sense way: “I am hungry for wickets and no one is going to stand in my way.” He did not make the cut in the 15-man squad.

In 2004, Durham signed King as a cover for Shoaib Akhtar who had Test commitments. Steve Harmison too was expected to be busy playing international cricket. By that time King had played 48 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) for West Indies with moderate success. In 2005 he made a comeback in the ODI scheme of things as most of the West Indies players had contractual issues with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). During the same time King was a beneficiary of Smasher Sports (a UK-based company) sponsorship. He was one of the 15 recipients for the endowment. According to the sponsorship, the players would receive an appearance fee for each international appearance and a job guarantee at the end of their playing careers.

King made a Test appearance after a hiatus of four years and picked up only six wickets in three Test matches against South Africa. He was included in the two-Test series against Pakistan. King was struggling to find rhythm. He was bowling far too short trying for too many things at a time. He was lucky to dismiss Kamran Akmal off a short delivery which was toe-ended to point in the first Test at Bridgetown. In the second innings Shahid Afridi attacked him and King went wicket-less, conceding 70 runs in 11.4 overs. He managed to pick up only one wicket at Kingston which turned out to be his final Test of his career.

King made his ODI debut against India in 1998. He played 50 games and picked up 76 wickets at an average of 23.77. His best bowling figures came against Pakistan at the Port of Spain in 2000. King played his final two ODIs in 2005 and managed to pick up only three wickets at 37 runs per wicket. In 19 Tests he averaged 32.69.

King played First-Class cricket for Guyana till 2007. He then embraced the role as a coach. He is the Technical Development Officer in Guyana. In 2009 he headed the Guyana Cricket Board’s selection panel. In 2011 he eulogised Digicel’s Grassroot cricket programme and told NCN Sports Magazine that it is extremely beneficial to the development of young cricketers in Guyana.

(Sarang Bhalerao hails from a family of doctors, but did his engineering. He then dumped a career in IT with Infosys to follow his heart and passion and became a writer with CricketCountry. A voracious reader, Sarang aspires to beat Google with his knowledge of the game! You can follow him on Twitter here)