Biography

Sir Frank Worrell was a very straight forward, straight talking gentleman, who epitomized this attitude in his cricket. So, his batting was very much in the V – he disliked playing across the line – and never ever tried to hook the ball. Instead he kept driving in the whole area in front of the wicket. On the other hand, he never liked to question any umpire’s decision, and immediately walked on getting a decision against him.

But his biggest achievement came when he became the first black to captain the West Indian cricket team in a full series. It was under his captaincy that cricket saw its first tied Test match – against Australia at Brisbane. His average was almost 50 in Tests, but he scored less than 4000 runs in his career. His first class record is much better, where he scored more than 15k runs at an average of almost 55, and is the first batsman to have been involved in two 500 run partnerships. He picked up one short of 350 first class wickets with his left arm variety of bowling – he could bowl both spin and medium pace bowling.

Sir Frank Worrell was knighted in the year 1964 for his services to cricket, and the Australia-West Indies series was named after this great, with the teams vying for the Sir Frank Worrell trophy. Unfortunately, Sir Frank Worrell died of leukaemia in 1967 at a relatively young age of 42.