Biography

Notoriously remembered as 'Padams' for his defensive style of cricket, Jimmy Adams is one of the most versatile cricketers to have ever played for the West Indies. He batted left-handed, bowled slow left-arm orthodox and also kept wickets occasionally. A veteran of 54 Test matches for the Windies was a potent middle order batsman.

Adams burst on to the international cricket scene as he scored 1132 runs in only 12 Test matches at an average of 87, which included two massive hundreds. Only Sir Donald Bradman bettered this record in the history of cricket. He scored big hundreds easily because of his painstaking and slow style of accumulating runs. Adams' cautious approach to batting provided a foil to Brian Lara's fluid style. In 1995 on a tour to England Jimmy's got hit on the face by Somerset bowler Andre Van Troost, which shattered his cheekbone. After that hit he could not recapture his run-scoring prowess. Later, Jimmy took over captaincy from Brian Lara. He got off to a flying start by winning four and drawing two of the first six games as skipper, but thereafter the Windies lost seven of their eight matches including a 5-0 whitewash at the hands of Australia. Subsequently he was replaced by Carl Hooper. Adams was a spectacular gully fielder. He mustered 2204 runs in 127 ODIs, at an average of 28.62. His strike rate in ODIs was a rather pedestrian 60.98. His slow left arm bowling reaped 43 ODI wickets and 27 Test wickets as well.

Adams hung his boots in 2001, his career may have ended in failure as captain and batsman but his contribution to West Indies cricket cannot be quantified. In 2006, he took up the role of manager of the U-19 West Indies cricket team. He works as a cricket commentator and assists in the development of cricket in the Caribbean though his native Jamaica.