All Time XIs – Barbados Born

I have mentioned in some of my previous all time XIs posts the remarkable number of amazing cricketers produced by the tiny coral island of Barbados. Now I select an XI specifically to showcase the extent of the talent produced by this island with a population of under 300,000.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

1. Gordon Greenidge (right handed opening batter). One half of the greatest opening pair the West Indies have ever had, and both hail from this island.
2. Desmond Haynes (right handed opening batter). The other half of that legendary opening pair.
3. *Frank Worrell (right handed batter, left arm medium fast bowler, captain). The total number of West Indies captains to truly overcome inter island rivalries totals two – this man and Clive Lloyd of Guyana. Worrell was a classy batter who scored his test runs at an average of 49, and his appointment as skipper ended one of cricket’s nastier shibboleths – the view that a mainly black team needed a white man to lead them.
4. Everton Weekes (right handed batter). One of the most powerful stroke makers ever seen, but a firm believer in keeping the ball on the ground – he rarely hit sixes. He averaged 58.61 in test cricket, including a sequence at that level of five centuries in successive innings.
5. Clyde Walcott (right handed batter, occasional wicket keeper, occasional medium pacer). Like Weekes a ferocious hitter of a cricket ball, and a colossal scorer even at test level (average 56). Additionally he once shared fourth wicket stand of 574 for Barbados with Frank Worrell, at the time an FC record for any wicket, though it was beaten only a few years later when Gul Mahomed and Vijay Hazare got to work for Baroda against Holkar, also for the fourth wicket, and that in turn was beaten by Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara for Sri Lanka against South Africa, when they put on 624 for the third wicket.
6. Garry Sobers (left handed batter, left arm bowler of every type known to cricket). The most multi-skilled player ever to play the game.
7. +David Murray (wicket keeper, right handed batter). Barbados’s finest ever keeper, and good enough to play for the West Indies.
8. Malcolm Marshall (right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). One of the greatest fast bowlers ever to play the game and a more than useful lower order batter.
9. Wes Hall (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). A legendary fast bowler of the late 1950s and early 1960s and a good enough lower order batter to score a first class century.
10. Joel Garner (right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter). An awkward proposition because of the immense height from which he released the ball (above the height of many sightscreens), and capable of useful runs at need.
11. Manny Martindale (right arm fast bowler, right handed tail end batter). Not many test appearances, as he belonged to the early days of West Indies test history, but he took his wickets at that level at 21 each, and over a larger sample size at FC level paid 25 each for his wickets.

This side has a stellar top six, a keeper who could bat and four great fast bowlers, most of whom had at least some capability with the bat as well. The spin bowling is weak, with Sobers the only front line option in that department, but that reflects the fact that conditions in Barbados have generally favoured fast bowlers and not spinners. Still not many places with similar populations could offer up an XI that would come close to challenging this one.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Some my chosen XI moved away from Barbados, but all played for the West Indies. Four Barbadian born cricketers moved to England and have played for their new country: Roland Butcher (right handed batter), Gladstone Small (right arm fast medium bowler), Chris Jordan (right arm fast medium bowler, right handed batter and ace fielder) and Jofra Archer (right arm fast bowler). Of these four the only one who might challenge for a place is Archer, and his injury history counts against him. Having covered that I now deal with a player who I regard as deserving a paragraph to himself in this section…

CONRAD CLEOPHAS HUNTE

The third of the three unequivocally top of the range test openers to come out of Barbados. I left him out, because although I have little doubt that considered in isolation he outranks Haynes, and maybe even Greenidge I felt that proven effectiveness of Greenidge and Haynes as an opening combination meant that I had to pick them, which meant that I could not accommodate Hunte.

The spin bowling issue is problematic – leg spinning all rounder David Holford is not worth a place in either department, and the best specialist spinner that Barbados has produced, Sulieman Benn, has a very ordinary test record. One possible solution to getting a second front line spinner into the XI is to drop Martindale, drop Murray and the three remaining quicks a place each down the order and select Hayley Matthews, an off spinning all rounder with a great record for Barbados and West Indies women’s teams at number seven.

There are a stack of fast bowlers who could not be accommodated who would be instant selections in many another team: Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke Herman Griffith and Charlie Griffith the four most obvious specialists plus a trio of all rounders – Jason Holder, Franklyn Stephenson and Ottis Gibson.

Some of you will have ideas of your own about players who could have been mentioned or selected – fire away with your comments.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…