"He's definitely one of the players I most enjoy watching. I was chuffed when he came and said thank you so much for the inspiration and said you were one of my heroes," Richards was quoted as saying by The Age.
"What more can you say when someone in the present game still believes that someone in the past can still be a mentor, because there's a lot of folks who think that what went by, is dead," he added.
The Australia all-rounder presented his childhood cricketing hero with a signed shirt during Australia's one-day matches in Grenada last weekend, with Richards saying the admiration was very much mutual.