PROFILESir Everton DeCourcy Weekes, KCMG, GCM, OBE was a cricketer from Barbados. A right-handed batsman, he was known as one of the hardest hitters in world cricket. Along with Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott, he formed what was known as "The Three Ws" of the West Indies cricket team. Weekes played in 48 Test matches for the West Indies cricket team from 1948 to 1958. He continued to play first-class cricket until 1964, surpassing 12,000 first-class runs in his final innings. As a coach he was in charge of the Canadian team at the 1979 Cricket World Cup, and he was also a commentator and international match referee.
Born in a wooden shack on Pickwick Gap in Westbury, Saint Michael, Barbados, near Kensington Oval, Weekes was named by his father after English football team Everton (when Weekes told English cricketer Jim Laker this, Laker reportedly replied "It was a good thing your father wasn't a West Bromwich Albion fan.")Weekes was unaware of the source of DeCourcy, his middle name, although he believed there was a French influence in his family.
Weekes's family was poor and his father was forced to leave his family to work in the Trinidad oilfields when Weekes was eight. He did not return to Barbados for eleven years.In the absence of his father, Weekes and his sister were raised by his mother Lenore and an aunt, whom Weekes credits with his successful upbringing.Weekes attended St Leonard's Boys' School, where he later bragged that he never passed an exam (although he would later successfully study Hotel Management)and preferred to concentrate on sport.In addition to cricket, Weekes was also a keen football player, representing Barbados.As a boy Weekes assisted the groundsmen at Kensington Oval and often acted as a substitute fielder in exchange for free entry to the cricket, giving himself the opportunity to watch leading international cricketers at close range. At age 13 Weekes began playing for Westshire Cricket Club in the Barbados Cricket League (BCL). He would have preferred to have played for his local club, Pickwick, but the club only catered to white players.
Weekes left school in 1939, aged 14, and, not having a job, spent his days playing cricket and football. He later attributed much of his cricketing success to this time spent practising.In 1943 Weekes enlisted in the Barbados Regiment and served as a lance corporal until his discharge in 1947 and while he never saw active service,the fact he was in the military meant he was eligible to play cricket for Garrison Sports Club in the higher standard Barbados Cricket Association in addition to Westshire in the BCL.
Weekes's performances in Barbados club cricket led to his selection in a 1945 trial match to select a first-class side to represent Barbados on a Goodwill tour of Trinidad and Tobago. Weekes scored 88 and 117 retired and was selected for the tour, making his first-class debut on 24 February 1945, aged 19 years, 364 days, for Barbados against Trinidad and Tobago at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain. Batting at number six, he scored 0 and eight as Barbados lost by ten wickets.
Weekes scored his maiden first-class half century in his next match, making 53 as an opener against Trinidad in March 1945 (where he also bowled for the first time in a first class match, conceding 15 runs in four wicketless overs).In his first two first-class seasons Weekes was only a moderate success with the bat, averaging 16.62 by the end of the 1945/46 season but began to find form in 1946/47, when, batting at number four, his maiden first-class century, 126 against British Guiana at Bourda, Georgetown, and averaged 67.57 for the season. The 1947/48 season included a tour by MCC and Weekes impressed West Indian selectors with an unbeaten 118 against the tourists prior to the first Test in Bridgetown.
Weekes was one of the "Three Ws", along with Clyde Walcott and Frank Worrell, noted as outstanding batsmen from Barbados who all made their Test debut in 1948 against England. The three were all born within seventeen months of each other and within a mile of Kensington Oval in Barbados[15] and Walcott believed that the same midwife delivered each of them. Weekes first met Walcott in 1941, aged 16, when they were team mates in a trial match.They shared a room together when on tour and, along with Worrell, would go dancing together on Saturday nights after playing cricket.
The name "Three Ws" was coined by an English journalist during the 1950 West Indian tour of England. Walcott believed that Weekes was the best all-round batsman of the three, while Worrell was the best all-rounder and modestly referred to himself as the best wicket keeper of the trio.After their retirement from cricket, the three remained close and, following the death of Worrell in 1967, Weekes acted as one of the pallbearers at his funeral.The 3Ws Oval, situated on the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies was named in their honour, and a monument to the three Ws is opposite the oval.Worrell and Walcott are buried on ground overlooking the oval.
Weekes made his Test debut for the West Indies against England at Kensington Oval on 21 January 1948, aged 22 years and 329 days. He was one of 12 debutants; seven from the West Indies (the others were Walcott, Robert Christiani, Wilfred Ferguson, Berkeley Gaskin, John Goddard and Prior Jones) and five for England; Jim Laker, Maurice Tremlett, Dennis Brookes, Winston Place and Gerald Smithson. Batting at number three, Weekes made 35 and 25 as the match ended in a draw.
Weekes's performance in his next two Tests, in the words of Wisden, "did little to indicate the remarkable feats which lay ahead"and was initially dropped from the Fourth and final Test of the series against England before an injury to George Headley allowed Weekes to return to the side.[26] After being dropped on 0, Weekes scored 141, his maiden Test century and was subsequently chosen for the West Indies tour of India, Pakistan and Ceylon.
In his next Test, the First against India, at Delhi, in November 1948 (the first by West Indies in India),Weekes scored 128, followed by 194 in the Second Test in Bombay and 162 and 101 in the Third Test in Calcutta. Weekes then made 90 in the Fourth Test in Madras, being controversially run out and 56 and 48 in the Fifth Test at Bombay. Weekes's five Test centuries in consecutive innings is a Test record, passing the record previously held by Jack Fingleton and Alan Melville as was his achievement of seven Test half-centuries in consecutive innings, passing the record previously jointly held by Jack Ryder, Patsy Hendren, George Headley and Melville.(Andy Flower and Shivnarine Chanderpaul have since equaled Weekes' record of seven half centuries).
By the end of the series, which also included a century against Ceylon, at that time a non-Test cricketing nation, and a half-century against Pakistan in a match not classed as a Test match, Weekes had a Test batting average of 82.46 and had passed 1,000 Test runs in his twelfth innings, one fewer than Donald Bradman.Early in the tour the West Indian team's cricket kit disappeared and Weekes was surprised to see Indian fishermen wearing flannels and West Indian cricket jumpers.As a result of his series, Weekes was named one of the 1949 Indian Cricket "Cricketers of the Year". The next season saw no Test cricket played by West Indies but Weekes scored 236* against British Guiana at Bridgetown, averaged 219.50 for the season and raised his career first-class average to 72.64.
Test Debut:West Indies vs England at Bridgetown - January 20 - 25, 1948
Last:West Indies vs Pakistan at Port of Spain - March 25 - 30, 1958
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The three Ws
The year was 1950, and West Indies were in England on one of the most celebrated tours in cricket history. I was 13 when it started, and would leave home at seven in the morning to try to catch snatches of commentary on my way to Bay Street Boys' School in Bridgetown.
My father had died at sea during the war when I was five - he was a merchant seaman, and his ship was torpedoed - and my mother did not have a radio, so I used to stop outside people's houses and press my ear to their doors or windows to listen in until they shooed me away.
I remember that famous victory at Lord's - West Indies' first in England - when Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine were immortalised in calypso. And I can still hear the voice of the English commentator describing the batting of my boyhood heroes, Frank Worrell, Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes, as we went on to win the series.
Worrell, said the voice, batted so delicately that when he stroked the ball to the boundary, it got there just before the fielder, who tired himself out chasing it. Walcott was the Bully Beef of the West Indies batting, because he hit the ball with such power that the fielder took his hands out of the way. And Weekes was so quick-footed and graceful, so neat and tidy, that the fielders could only stand and admire his strokeplay.
That voice, I later discovered, belonged to John Arlott, and his words made a lasting impression. It was not long before I had the opportunity to tell him so.
The Three Ws were all born in the parish of St Michael in the south-west of Barbados. So was I, but I did not really get to know them until I was selected to play for West Indies less than four years later.
As a boy, I used to put the numbers up on the scoreboard at Bay Pasture, the Wanderers ground, so I had the perfect vantage point to watch and study them when they were playing for their clubs. I did not get the chance to play against them, though, because by the time Denis Atkinson, later to become one of my Test captains, got me into the Police team, they were spending most of their time off the island, touring with West Indies or playing in the Lancashire Leagues.
I had made a bit of a name for myself when I was 13 or 14 playing against much older fellows, and I first appeared for Barbados against the Indian touring team at 16. But, little over a year later, I was still playing cricket in the street with my friends, as I did most evenings, when a message came to my home summoning me to Jamaica for the Fifth Test against England. I was amazed.
Two or three days later, I got to Sabina Park, where the players were practising, and saw Worrell, Walcott and Weekes in the dressing-room, as well as the great George Headley. I said to myself: "Oh boy, you have really arrived."
Because Valentine was sick, I had been selected as a left-arm spinner batting at No. 9, and I picked up four wickets in England's first innings. Len Hutton got a double-hundred, and they won easily. But everybody was kind and complimentary, although I don't think they realised I had some ability as a batsman until I was asked to open in the Third Test against Australia the following year. Jeff Stollmeyer, the captain, had apparently trodden on a ball and twisted his ankle, though I was led to believe he had other reasons for not facing Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller.
I went in thinking I wasn't really an opening batsman, so I wasn't going to try and play like one. I took guard and looked around the field: no one in front of me except Miller, the bowler. I said to myself: "Don't look behind and, if you see red, just throw the bat." I hit him for four fours in his first over. Then Ian Johnson came on to bowl his off-breaks: I had a sweep, and was caught at backward square leg for 43. I never batted at No. 9 again, but I knew I still had a lot to learn.
I will always say that it was Atkinson who did most to set me on my path, because he spotted me as a little boy, and would send the groundsman to take me on his bicycle and bowl to him at the Wanderers. But Frank, Clyde and Everton helped me in so many ways.
There are some places where the senior players don't want to see the youngsters - they want them out of the room - but those fellows were nothing like that. Forget about their standing as three of the greatest players the game had seen: they always had time for you.
I used to see a lot of Frank when I went to England to play for Radcliffe in the Central Lancashire League. He lived near me, and I used to go to his house and ask for information and advice about the pitches I would play on, and the players I would face. One of them was Cec Pepper, the great Australian all-rounder, and the only player around who bowled a flipper.
The first time I faced him, I was batting reasonably well, but got a bit carried away when he sent down a short one. I was halfway through my pull shot when I suddenly remembered what Frank had said about his flipper, and dropped the bat quickly. The ball hit it, and fell safely to the ground. Cec, who was renowned for his salty language, came marching down the pitch: "You've been talking to that so-and-so Worrell, haven't you!" Or words to that effect.
Frank also taught me how to supplement my income. I got £500 for the entire league season, and out of that I had to pay for my digs and keep myself tidy. The professional could make extra cash by scoring 50, at which point a collection box would go round the ground. The pennies, shillings and sometimes pounds would stop going in if you were out, and Frank drummed it into me: "Don't get out until the last penny drops." He had a lasting influence on West Indies cricket when he became captain, and I was honoured to succeed him.
I was lucky to have Clyde at the other end when I was scoring the world record 365 not out against Pakistan at Sabina Park in 1958. He came down the wicket, and said just what I wanted to hear: "You get the runs, and I'll keep you going." He was as good as his word, finishing unbeaten on 88.
Everton became a lifelong friend. We had played a bit of dominoes and bridge together before we started travelling the world, and we did so regularly when we were back in Barbados. I enjoyed sitting on top of the pavilion at Kensington watching cricket with him. He was always such a cheerful person, and a very nice man.
They have all gone now: Frank from leukaemia at the age of 42 in 1967, Clyde aged 80 in 2006, and Everton last year at 95. Yet they will never be forgotten, not just in the Caribbean, but all round the world. They were great players and great ambassadors for West Indies cricket. They were also great people.(Sir Garfield Sobers was talking to Pat Gibson.)
In one respect Andy Ganteaume, a diminutive wicketkeeper-batsman, eclipsed even Don Bradman. Whereas Bradman ended his career with a Test average of 99.94, Gunteaume's was 112. On his Test debut, against England at Port-of-Spain in 1947-48, he scored 112 and yet he never played for West Indies again. West Indies had a formidable batting line-up around this time - it was the era of Walcott, Worrell, Weekes, Sobers, Kanhai, Rae, Stollmeyer and Gomez - and there were suggestions that he slowed down when nearing his hundred, possibly costing West Indies the chance of victory. Jeff Stollmeyer later wrote: "Andy's innings in its later stages was not in keeping with the state of the game and his captain [Gerry Gomez] was forced to send a message out to him to 'get on with it'." Stollmeyer did concede that Ganteaume was unlucky to miss out on selection for the tour of India the following year. Ganteaume continued to play for Trinidad, and in fact toured England as late as 1957 without getting into the Test side.
