A brooding presence, some would say.He has been strict in keeping his own counsel. His outburst a couple of weeks ago to his former opening partner Ian Bishop, now almost as perceptive a television commentator as he was a bowler, was the more compelling for its rarity. Ambrose merely made the point that some of the younger bowlers might be doing more to ease his burden.His career has been as seamless as it has been long Most players have peaks and troughs Ambrose has always seemed to be on top of his game. The accuracy was there from the start, the wickets started immediately, the action was simple and easy.He was not a prodigy.

When he was first capped, against Pakistan in Guyana, he was six months past his 24th birthday. But he had been allowed to mature, so that when he was selected he was ready. That was in early 1988, and that summer he came to England for the first time He made an immediate impression. It was Malcolm Marshall’s series with 35 wickets, but Ambrose had 22 in West Indies’ 4-0 victory and never looked back. A sure indication of his effect was that he was already known to a wider public as, simply, Curtly.

No further explanation was necessary.Curtly saved his very best for Australia, when it was needed, and England, when sometimes something less might have done. Not this time, not at The Oval when he gangles on to the field for the final time.He has taken 128 wickets against the Aussies at 21.23, 161 against England at 18.68. For West Indies to retain their magnificent record against England, unbeaten for 31 years, a record which Ambrose has helped sustain in seven series, he will have to roll back the years, and the eyes, one more time.. So, Curtly Ambrose is intent on going out at the top.

Sensible fellow, say some; you’re a long time retired, opine others. It must always be difficult for a great fast bowler to know when, as the Australians put it, to give it away, a case of balancing diminishing talent with aching limbs

So, Curtly Ambrose is intent on going out at the top. Sensible fellow, say some; you’re a long time retired, opine others. It must always be difficult for a great fast bowler to know when, as the Australians put it, to give it away, a case of balancing diminishing talent with aching limbs.
What we know of Ambrose is that, at 36, he has gone on longer than most and still has it in him to embarrass England in his final match. What could lie in store for him at The Oval? How have the other great bowlers paraded in their last hurrah?Perhaps the best swansong of them all was by the man who was perhaps the best fast bowler of them all. In his last Test match, in March 1914, Sydney Barnes had figures of 7 for 56 and 7 for 88, as England drew with South Africa.

It brought his tally of wickets in the rubber to 49 at 10.93.Barnes, then 40, was not to know that it was his last match. He withdrew from the Fifth Test of the series after a difference of opinion with management, and the First World War then intervened. By the time it ended Barnes was too old to resume international cricket, but what a way to bring down the curtain.Dennis Lillee finished his career by taking eight wickets in the Fifth Test against Pakistan at Sydney in 1984 to make him the first bowler past 350 That was some valedictory match. It was also the finale for Rodney Marsh, who became the first wicketkeeper to make 350 dismissals, and Greg Chappell, whose 181st and last Test innings, like his first, yielded a century.In addition Wasim Bari, whose final match it was, too, became the first Pakistani wicketkeeper (and third in all) to reach 200 victims.Lillee’s contemporary Bob Willis, on the other hand, took 2 for 123 from 18 overs and 0 for 40 from eight against West Indies in 1984. Illness kept him out of the next match and he retired, never to play again.Sir Richard Hadlee, fam-ously, took a wicket with his last ball in Test cricket (Devon Malcolm, lbw) in an eight-over spell of 5 for 17.