[2] One of his childhood memories is of sitting in a tree outside the ground overlooking the sightscreen watching Garry Sobers score two centuries for West Indies v Pakistan.

He captained the West Indies between 1974 and 1985 and oversaw their rise to become among the greatest Test and One Day International teams of the 20th century.

Lloyd was a 6' 5" powerful middle-order batsman with stooping shoulders, and occasional medium-pace bowler.

He played for his home nation of Guyana in West Indies domestic cricket, and for Lancashire (he was made captain in 1981) in England.

Since retiring as a player, Lloyd has remained heavily involved in cricket, managing the West Indies in the late 1990s, and coaching and commentating.

[5][6] Lloyd grew up in Georgetown, British Guiana, where his father worked as a chauffeur for a local doctor.

His father died in 1958, and Lloyd left school to work in the administrative section of the Georgetown hospital to help support the family at age 16.

[11] In 1971–72, Lloyd suffered a back injury while playing for a Rest of the World team at the Adelaide Oval.

Lloyd had to go to the radio commentary team and broadcast an appeal for calm which allowed the game to be restarted 20 minutes later.

[14] Lloyd said of the innings: "I went past 200 and really felt that I could have got to 300 that day had not a crowd riot halted play.

What happened was that a lone spectator, a young lad in his teens, jumped the fence and came on to shake my hand after I got 200.

In front of everyone they used their long bamboo sticks, the lathis, with a vengeance on the poor boy and incensed the crowd to such an extent that, by tea, there was a full-scale riot which left the place looking like a battlefield.

[15] In the 1975 Cricket World Cup Final against Australia, the West Indies were deep in trouble at 3/50 when Lloyd strode to the crease.

[18] The humiliation of the defeat in Australia coupled with the incessant racism encountered during the matches documented in Fire in Babylon, served as an impetus for Lloyd to nurture fast bowling talent and remake the existing image of West Indian cricket from "Caribbean crowd pleasers" to fierce competitors and winners.

Subsequently, the quartet of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft heralded an era of unprecedented success for West Indian cricket, in which they avenged all their humiliating losses to Australia and England.

His son, Jason Clive Lloyd, was a goalkeeper for the Guyana national football team.