He was even suspended from playing cricket a punishment that was, as he wrote in Cricket Punch , like a death sentence. Worrell s mother had moved to New York when he was young. His father was often away on sea. Not quite happy with the idea of staying alone, he moved to Jamaica at an early age.
For some reasons a chunk of Bajans never forgave him for this: it was nothing short of betrayal in their eyes. They added an unbroken in a mere minutes.
It remains the only other run and obviously the highest First-Class partnership on West Indian soil. Worrell also became the first player to be involved in two First-Class run partnerships Ravindra Jadeja is the only other one to have achieved this till date.
Worrell and Walcott were also the youngest to put up a stand they were 20 and 21 respectively , but Jadeja 19 and Cheteshwar Pujara 20 did it when they were a year younger.
Worrell was extremely popular in the islands because of his stature as well as his batsmanship and they often went ballistic when he reached a milestone. On one occasion, Worrell raised his bat when he reached a double-hundred, when he saw a spectator running on the ground to congratulate him with a live chicken as a gift! Avoiding rum is not the easiest option for a man born in Barbados and settled in Jamaica.
Worrell was a connoisseur, and by all sources of information preferred Barbadian rum over its Jamaican counterpart despite the popularity of the latter. By the time England arrived in the West Indies in early under an ageing Gubby Allen, Worrell was all set to make his debut. Walcott and Weekes made theirs in the first Test at Bridgetown, and Worrell had to wait for the second match at Trinidad. He batted at number four, between Weekes and Walcott in the order, and hit 97 with nine fours and a six before being caught at the wicket off Ken Cranston.
But, he did not have to wait long for his hundred. In the following Test he amassed and ended the series with runs at Test cricket was a rare affair for the West Indians in the late 40s. Worrell filled up the time with astute accumulation of experience.
A season was spent as a professional with Radcliffe, the Central Lancashire League club, ending with a record tally of 1, runs and 66 wickets. By now, he was using the English conditions thoroughly, having switched his style to incisive left arm fast-medium.
In , he toured India with the Commonwealth team, amassing at Kanpur, scoring runs at And at Nottingham, Worrell hit and Weekes as the spinners performed their magic once again. Yet another hundred followed at The Oval. By scoring in the series, at Called upon to bowl rather less with his growing stature as one of the best batsmen of the world, Worrell used his fast-medium style to capture some vital wickets at Nottingham.
And against Yorkshire, he bowled leg-theory — of a rather more benign variety than the English team of the early s, and tilted the scales in the favour of West Indies in a tense, close struggle. And as soon as the series ended, he was back in India again with the Commonwealth team, this time as vice-captain. The supreme streak with the bat did not last forever. On the hard wickets of Australia, facing the fastest of balls from Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, Worrell managed just one hundred in Melbourne and a six wicket haul at Adelaide in an otherwise unimpressive tour.
And the Tests that followed down the years seldom recaptured those phenomenal phases of run making of his first two series. But, there were plenty of memorable innings.
He caressed a magnificent against India at Kingston , one of the two occasions all the Three Ws scored hundreds in the same innings. The next year he hit against England in Trinidad, and the three repeated the feat of scoring hundreds together.
Weekes was ahead in terms of average and both Worrell and Weekes in terms of runs. But Worrell was without doubt the most delightful to watch among the three. Weekes was the most compact of the troika, possessing the best technique.
He mastered the bowlers thoroughly with his solid attractive stroke-play. Walcott was the most thrilling to watch, a mighty hitter with unlimited aggression who demoralised the best of attacks. No one could drive more powerfully, both off the front and back-foot.
But among the three Walcott was an artist, a joy to behold when in full flow. He never played across the line, which meant he never hooked. But he evaded bouncers as serenely as he went about every other task on and off the field, without haste or any semblance of panic. And when he executed the late cut, his grace reached the level of the sublime. However, the series against England was the peak of his batting career, after which his numbers deteriorated steadily till the end of his Test career.
It started when the Australians visited in and his elegant bat had a terrible time, a string of single digits marking an unimpressive sequence of innings.
The West Indians were pulverised by Lindwall and Miller and only Walcott stood amongst the ruins to fight back. When Worrell went back to his favourite fields of England in , he started with 81 in the opening Test at Birmingham and followed it up with not out at Nottingham.
And apart from the two knocks Worrell was not able to recapture the sparkle of supremacy of his earlier tour. England won comprehensively. However, at Headingley, Worrell did produce the best spell of bowling in his career, capturing seven for 70 in the English innings. Worrell stayed back in England after the tour, pursuing his degree in Economics at the University of Manchester.
He played very little First Class cricket during the next couple of years, but the hiatus was important in the events that followed and the final analysis of his cricket career. By this time, the Marxist cricket columnist CLR James, editor of The Nation and a major force behind the movement for the emancipation of the blacks , was already lobbying for Worrell as captain of West Indies.
Queensland vs Western Australia 10th Match. Northern Knights vs Canterbury 7th Match. Wellington vs Central Districts 8th Match. Eastern Cape vs Mpumalanga Rhinos Division 2. Victoria vs New South Wales 6th Match. Queensland vs Western Australia 7th Match. Zimbabwe Women v Bangladesh Women, Pakistan Women v West Indies women, He was a happy man, a good man and a great man.
The really tragic thing about his death at the age of 42 was that it cut him off from life when he still had plenty to offer the islands he loved. Most runs in a day Ninety on debut Pair by a captain.
Vaneisa Baksh celebrates a cricketing life lived to its fullest. Frank Worrell came to the West Indies captaincy late and died young but left an indelible mark on the game. Matches New Zealand. Schedule Points Table Videos. Schedule Points Table. Frank Worrell. Frank Worrell West Indies.
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Shardul Thakur. Died March 13, , Mona, Kingston, Jamaica, aged 42y d. Batting Style Right hand bat. Bowling Style Left arm fast medium, Left arm slow. Other Journalist. West Indies.
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