Sir Everton Weekes RIP

As a child I would often peruse the delicate pages of Dad’s battered cloth-covered 1951 edition of the Wisden almanac. Obviously a statistical anorak before even leaving junior school I would be mesmerised by scorecards, tables of batting and bowling averages and contemporary cricket records of all kinds.

I wasn’t interested in the articles or even the brief reviews of the matches; it was all about the names, the runs, wickets and so on. No matter that it all related to an era more than a decade before I’d been born. Perhaps that was part of its appeal, an historical work of reference encapsulating a cricketing summer from the mists of time when even Dad was a mere undergraduate at Southampton University.

Besides the County Championship (no professional one-day cricket in those days) - which resulted in a tie between Surrey and Lancashire – there was an extensive series of games involving the touring West Indies side played against counties, in addition to four Test matches. As a big fan of Caribbean cricketers in my own time, I would wonder what it would be like to witness them play, to bring back to life the contests between the spinners Ramadhin and Valentine and England’s Hutton, Washbrook, Compton and co.

The name at the top of most batting tables that year was ED (Everton De Courcey) Weekes, who this week died at the age of 95. Apart from a few flashes of black-and-white newsreel, his performances will live only in the minds of spectators and contemporary newspaper reports which is a shame. Dad would tell me about the legendary Three ‘W’s, Walcott, Worrell and Weekes, who comprised a formidable Windies middle-order as devastating as anything before or since.

Back then, the West Indies were not a notable cricketing force. Constantine and Headley had made names for themselves pre-war but relied on contracts with Yorkshire and Lancashire leagues to earn a living for at least part of the year. It was also an era when black players were not allowed to captain the West Indies, nor could professionals lead England. Strictly for amateurs, dear boy, think of the old school tie. When the 1950 side recovered from an early reverse at Old Trafford to crush England 3-1, attitudes had to change and they did.

Weekes wasn’t a big bloke, but by all accounts a powerful right-handed stroke-maker. The 1951 Wisden noted his four double-hundreds and a triple in that single summer although he was less dominant in the Tests, despite averaging 56. Throughout the 1950 tour he racked up an incredible 2,310 runs at almost 80 plus a shedload of catches. If there could be a leading man in a reference book, ED Weekes was the undoubted star of that Wisden.

He set other records in his relatively short career. Nobody has bettered his run of seven successive Test 50s, nor has anyone matched his sequence of five consecutive centuries, which would have been extended had he not been controversially run out for 90 when in sight of the sixth! Playing for Bacup in Lancashire he ended the 1954 season with a batting average of 158 and more than fifty wickets to his name. He’d probably have made a great wicketkeeper, too.

The globalisation of professional cricket in recent years makes Weekes’ run aggregates look rather puny but to this day only seven men have retired with a superior Test average than his 58.61. Not Tendulkar, not Lara, not Ponting. As with Bradman, Sobers, Richards, Lloyd and Lara, I wonder what Sir Everton, belatedly knighted in 1995, would have achieved in the age of Twenty20.

His prowess in the sporting arena also enabled political and social change beyond the boundary rope, both in his native Barbados and in the wider Caribbean. He was also not afraid to speak out against the disgusting racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa in the ‘60s. Amazingly, his was a natural talent, self-taught in poverty-stricken Saint Michael, but after retirement he would be a successful coach, match referee and commentator, besides a resected public servant in Barbados.

I admit I hadn’t realised he was still alive but it’s reassuring to know that aft the time of his deathhis name still means something in these days of million-dollar auctions, and doesn’t simply reside in a crumbling seventy year-old Wisden volume in my attic.

An Inspirational Almanac for All Seasons

I’m proud to say that I grew up in a book-loving household. I recall loving Mum reading to me children’s classics like the Beatrix Potter series and AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. However, while I could physically read at a very young age, it was a while before I took an interest in tackling stories myself.

Until I succumbed to the lure of Enid Blyton’s Five Go to Kirrin Island or Malcolm Saville’s Wings Over Witchend I would often be found with my head buried in an atlas or junior encyclopaedia. However, perhaps the most influential book of all was, oddly enough, Dad’s 

battered cloth-covered 1951 edition of the Wisden almanac, the cricket-lover’s bible.

Well, I’ve never attempted to conceal my ‘anorak’ credentials, but this obsession with a statistical book published ten years before my birth predated even my first forays into trainspotting. I don’t think there was any significance attached to the 1950 cricket season; perhaps it had been given as a twenty-first birthday gift. Nevertheless, once Dad first dusted off the book and showed it to me, I was hooked.

Firstly, I was amazed how a volume with such small dimensions could contain more than a thousand pages. Wow! Admittedly I paid little attention to the sizeable chunk devoted to cricket’s holy laws, but those black-and-white photos of smartly-blazered gents with huge white collars, together with scorecards for every match played in the 1950 English summer, winter tours and global domestic competitions, seemed more enthralling than anything Dickens or RL Stevenson ever wrote.

It wasn’t the prose, the short summary introducing each game, but the facts and figures which proved so absorbing. It’s hard to put my finger on the reason. It’s not as if cricket was hitherto an enigma. I would have been well aware of contemporary stars such as Garfield Sobers, John Snow and Colin Milburn. Nevertheless I devoured all the facts and figures therein. Without consulting the internet I couldn’t tell you much about, say, the 1970 season but I can happily reel off unaided long-remembered stats from two decades previously: John Dewes’ nine centuries, Roy Tattersall’s 193 wickets, Everton Weekes’ 304 not out against Cambridge University and the fact that Lancashire and Surrey finished as joint county champions.

Perhaps in retrospect, this yellow-covered publication represented not merely a random snapshot of a single year’s sport but the entire history of the game. Those fragile, wafer-thin pages contained a myriad of first-class cricket records (no one-dayers then, of course), many of which remain, and always will be, unbroken. The Wisden introduced me to names such as AP Freeman (304 wickets in a single summer), Jack Hobbs (197 career centuries) and of course the incomparable Don Bradman, whose retirement with a Test average of 99.94 would still have been fresh at the time of publication.

My youthful brain was filled with a whole new vocabulary of names and initials: DVP Wright, RN Harvey, RT Simpson, Essex spinners Peter and Ray Smith (Dad’s namesake!), Wardle, Washbrook, Fagg, Fishlock, John and James Langridge, Laker, Lindwall, Knott, Nourse, etc, etc. It was almost as if I knew all these mysterious figures from long ago, permanently attached to their 1950 tally of runs or wickets.

Except, of course, that I didn’t know them at all. It was only by talking to Dad that these old cricketers were brought to life. For example, Hampshire’s Charlie Knott had been educated at Dad’s alma mater, Taunton’s School, Doug Wright had bowled fast leg-breaks (huh? Even now, I’ve never seen anyone do that on a regular basis), the West Indian ‘Three Ws’ were so thrilling and Essex’s Trevor Bailey had been stultifyingly boring. Even Mum, too, had anecdotes of collecting autographs of Essex players when accompanying her younger, cricket-loving brothers to Valentine’s Park.

Dad could also furnish me with context to apparent oddities such as why NWD Yardley captained England when he seemed to score few runs and take no wickets (he was amateur in an era when professionals were frowned upon) and John Goddard skippered the West Indies touring side, purely because he was white. These weren’t just dusty tales of cricket, they were social history.

For many years I would revisit this venerable edition of Wisden whether to research something or simply for pleasure. I was fascinated to discover that one or two players I had watched perform in the mid-Seventies (notably Somerset’s captain Brian Close and Middlesex spinner Fred Titmus) also had bit parts in the book.

Yet it didn’t propel me into the rarified world of Wisden collectors. The only other edition I bought (I think it was in a sale!) was that of 1985 featuring the unforgettable exploits of Viv Richards et al the previous summer. More recently, a friend bought me a limited-edition focussing on the famous 2005 Ashes season, a splendid souvenir of that series. However I could not lose myself in the wealth of contemporary stats in the way I'd done with those concerning 1950. Perhaps it was because I had scribbled down some scores and notable performances in my own diary, or that TV and the Guardian sports pages had rendered Wisden redundant. 

Yet despite many of its pages becoming loose, possibly even mislaid, it’s Dad’s old possession which I most cherish. It’s not just because, since his death in 2015, that it reminds me of him. It’s also a souvenir of a time in my pre-teens when I was developing an interest in a sport which would entertain, intrigue and engross me for five decades and counting. It’s not my sole source of inspiration – there’s no substitute for playing – but the dusty, musty 1951 Wisden was undoubtedly a factor.

Five Cricketers of the Year 2014

It's always interesting to find out who Wisden decides worthy to be one of their prestigious Five Cricketers of the Year. By tradition, players cannot be picked more than once, so some years it must be frustrating. What about Dale Steyn? No, he was picked last year. Michael Clarke? No, 2010. Stuart Broad? Same. Graham Onions? Ditto. Ho-hum.

Actually, there were some deserving candidates fulfilling the criteria. Moeen Ali would have walked it in a less busy year, while Ben Stokes, Michael Hogan, Brad Haddin and Jim Allenby must have been considered. Ashes participants occupied four of the places, two from England, two Aussies. Joe Root's name owes more to that 180 at Lord's than anything else. At that point, I was hailing him as the genuine article, an England Test player with the talent and temperament to be a star for a decade or more. Once he puts the winter debacle behind him, I'm sure he'll bounce back.

England skipper Alastair Cook was selected in 2012 but his female counterpart Charlotte Edwards finally makes the list. Aged 34, she has led the England Women to success in all formats, and claimed the multi-format Ashes trophy last summer. Claire Taylor beat her to the title of first female to be one of the famous Five, but Edwards is as worthy as any male cricketer in the 2014 edition.

Chris Rogers was plucked from Middlesex to fill one of the problemmatic Australian opener slots for the tour here. Playing the anchor to the more ebullient Warner or Watson, the then 35 year-old justified the decision with three centuries between August and January. Just two years his junior, Ryan Harris also enjoyed a superb year, bustling in on his dodgy legs to take plenty of wickets while conceding few runs. Injury has restricted him to only 24 Tests, yet he has amassed 103 victims at under 23 apiece. That's world class. His current absence from the game may yet become permanent but Harris is surely guaranteed legend status!

The quintet is completed by Shikhar Dhawan. The bejewelled Delhi opener made a sensational debut with his 187 in 174 balls against Australia last March, and proceeded to be one of the stars of the Champions Trophy in the summer. I won't forget being at Cardiff to witness his exquisite hundred against South Africa. It's great to see an Indian who hasn't made the big time on the back of IPL success, and I hope he continues to delight audiences with his strokeplay for years to come.

2013 was also the year of Kevin Pietersen (one of the Five in 2006), Michael Clarke (2010) and the retiring Sachin Tendulkar (1997, but could have been almost any of the past 25 years!). Jacques Kallis had to wait until 2012 before his recognition and of course he has also now departed the arena.

As for 2014, who will make the grade? Virat Kohli is in the box seat, and the likes of Kane Williamson, Angelo Mathews and Sunil Narine are in the frame. IN the end, success in Test cricket should be the prime driver for inclusion so that's an open competition....

Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year

It may seem odd for everyone to want their say on the musings of one book but Wisden is an annual above all others. 150 not out says it all. Cricket's annual yellow bible traditionally selects five stars of the sport in the past year but differs from most other lists in that it excludes players who haven't previously been chosen.

The 2013 quintet are all deserving but the shock is that Jacques Kallis hadn't appeared before. Is it because of his previous failures in England? Is it because the selections tend to focus on the English domestic season? I suspect there is a bit of both but also the Saffer all-rounder's consistency over the years. He has career statistics few can match - ever - but while he has enjoyed many good years, there may often have been two or three other batsmen who have had a great one, and that is all that's needed to win the vote.

His partner in crime on the 2012 tour of these shores, Hashim Amla, certainly could be ignored no longer. He is a colossus of cricket across all formats, with only Michael Clarke (a 2010 choice) rivalling him on the international stage. The third South African on the list, Dale Steyn also somehow evaded Wisden's panel over the past decade but as the undisputed king of fast bowling, his achievements last year made him a shoo-in. Maybe Saeed Ajmal can count himself unlucky for a second year in succession, but the next time Pakistan come to England, a big haul of wickets will surely earn him a place amongst the five.

Marlon Samuels also benefited from a consistent run of high scores against England, along with a 260 against Bangladesh in November, and became the fourth overseas player in the list. Since 1997, the Wisden Five has featured a West Indian only once, when Ottis Gibson and Shiv Chanderpaul broke the drought in 2008, so congratulations to Marlon for flying the Caribbean flag.

The only English-qualified man this time is Nick Compton, whose prolific start to the 2012 summer also earned him an England call-up and Somerset fans like me a headache for the coming county campaign. The top bowler in the Championship, Graeme Onions didn't qualify because he was included three years ago, and the superb Alastair Cook appeared in 2012, his 'annus memorabilis'.

Are there any genuine world stars never to have been amongst Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year? Well, there is no Ganguly, no Sehwag and
neither Hussey brother (despite some prolific summers in the county game). On the other hand there have been some solid county pros whose runs and wickets in a particular season have delivered the Wisden vote if not a lengthy international career. Last year's Alan Richardson, Ian Austin (1999), Nigel Briers (1993) and Tim Munton (1995) spring to mind.

Three months into 2013, are there any obvious candidates for the 2014 Wisden? The Champions Trophy and Ashes will probably produce the leading candidates but Messrs Ashwin, De Villiers and Pujara must be in with a shout. On the basis of two days of the County Championship, maybe James Vince and Chris Jordan should also be dusting off their suits ready for next Spring!