Conrad Cleophas Hunte is a dedicated man and a dedicated cricketer. West Indies have reason to be thankful for this. In recent years he had devoted his life to the cause of Moral Re-Armament (MRA), an important item of which teaches a person to be unselfish. Hunte has carried this into cricket.
Like many players from West Indies, Hunte began his cricket in a modest way, using fronds, the dried leaves of coconut palms shaped into a bat, a piece of cork covered with rags and bound with twine as the ball, and twigs snapped from trees for stumps. The playing surfaces were rough, mostly scrub in open fields. But if equipment and conditions were far from ideal, the enjoyment was high and Hunte, from the age of six, spent every possible moment playing the game.
Conrad Hunte was a key figure in the West Indies series victory in England in 1963 and was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year the following spring.
By inclination, he is an aggressive type of batsman and, like most of his countrymen, loves to let his natural talents flow. Hunte realised that with men like Sobers, Kanhai and Butcher in the team, it was more important for West Indies to be given a sound, solid start in order that the abilities of the others could be used to the full. So Hunte disciplined himself for the needs of his side and did it so successfully that it is no exaggeration to say that without him West Indies might never have won the series with England in 1963.
He made two centuries, each of them vitally important. In the first Test at Old Trafford he scored 182 and paved the way for a total of 501 for six declared. This gave West Indies all the confidence they needed and they went on to win by ten wickets.
In the final match at The Oval, West Indies had to avoid defeat to win the rubber and up to a point an extremely close fight left the position doubtful until the last innings. West Indies wanted 248, a target which had seldom been achieved in the fourth innings of a Test in England. Again Hunte played for his side and his extremely sound 108 not out steered West Indies to a comfortable success by eight wickets.
Looking back he saw Kanhai standing dejected with his head down and thought he had better cheer him up. Hunte went over and said a few comforting words before going off, as he thought, to the pavilion. Not until he heard bursts of laughter all round him did he realise that instead he had walked through a gate into the crowd, a long way from the pavilion. He had lost himself in thought. Kanhai went on to his second century.
Hunte began as an aggressive player, but changed his style in 1962 against India when he became more restrained in his strokeplay in order to ensure West Indies getting good starts. His strength has always been off his legs. He glides superbly, hooks with power and times his on-drives perfectly. He eliminated, to a large extent, the square cut and square cover drive, in other words the shots played with a cross bat, although he returns to them when he finds himself restricted by a bowler, such as Shackleton. He seldom bowls, although he can send down useful slow-medium cutters, either way, but he is a great fieldsman, usually close to the bat.
His interest in MRA began in Australia where he saw the film, The Crowning Experience in Melbourne. This depicted the life of Dr Mary McLeod Bethune, the black educator and he decided to take an active part in the movement. “I had always seen my aim in life was to devote my cricket talent to bringing nations closer together,” he says. Hunte devoted part of his tour money last season to the work of the MRA in the Caribbean and intends to return to the West Indies to coach and further the cause.
Hunte’s family played little cricket although they always encouraged him. He has three brothers and four sisters. One brother was a good club cricketer and the youngest won his way into his grammar school eleven as an opening batsmen, showing promise of becoming a good player. Two of his sisters played cricket at school, one of them now being a nurse in Leicester.
Conrad Hunte played in 44 Tests, making 3,245 runs at 45.06 with eight centuries. In 1998, he was knighted in Barbados. He died in 1999
