Curtly Ambrose the driving factor in West Indies' two wins. Ambrose also played in an ODI tournament during the tour of Australia, taking nine wickets at 27.33. Later in the season, between March and May 1997, India toured West Indies; Ambrose took ten wickets at 30.10 in the Test series, including five for 87 in the second Test, but was no longer the home team's most effective bowler. Then in June, Sri Lanka played a two-Test series, won 1–0 by West Indies. In the first, Ambrose took five for 37 in the first innings, and eight wickets in the game, to be
Curtly Ambrose following year. A Viv Richards scholarship provided funding for him to play club cricket in England for Chester Boughton Hall Cricket Club in the highly rated Liverpool Competition during 1986 where he took 84 wickets at an average of 9.80. The following year, he returned to England to play for Heywood Cricket Club in the Central Lancashire League, for whom he took 115 wickets in the season; these experiences helped to improve his bowling technique. Upon his return to Antigua, Ambrose practised intensely, regained his place in the Leeward Islands team and, in the absence of leading bowlers Winston Benjamin