West Indies’ sensational impact on their 1950 England tour meant that four of them were Wisden Cricketers of the Year the following spring. Frank Worrell was one of them.
Frank Worrell continued to be one of the leading batsmen in world cricket in the 1950s. In 51 Tests, he hit 3,860 runs at 49.48 with nine hundreds. But his greatest impact came as West Indies’ first black captain.
Few, if any, eminent cricketers can view the game with such a detached attitude as the slim, lithely built Frank Maglinne Worrell, one of the most prominent members of the 1950 West Indies touring team. To him, a match, be it Test or club fixture, is just another game of cricket to be enjoyed. Furthermore, he never reads the sports columns in the newspapers, so that he is unaffected by the opinions, favourable or adverse, of the critics.
Born on August 1, 1924, in Barbados, he comes of a non-cricketing family. His father took no more than a passing interest in cricket, and the only relative to achieve even minor distinction at the game was his elder brother, who was in the second XI at school. Frank Worrell proved the exception. He cannot recall when he first handled a bat or ball, but certainly it was at a very early age.
Never coached, he at no time engaged in arduous practice. Nor, as one to whom cricketing ability was a gift of nature, was this ever necessary; but he modelled himself upon the youngest of all Test debutants – JED Sealy, a master at his school, who played 11 times for the West Indies. Worrell’s maxim is that if he makes a mistake in one innings he endeavours to rectify it in the next.
With his advance as a batsman, Worrell was called upon rather less as a bowler, but by varying his style to fast-medium he accomplished some valuable performances last season. Notable among these was his feat in taking two of the first four England wickets at Nottingham and precipitating a collapse; and in the second meeting with Yorkshire his employment of leg-theory did much to turn the scale in a close struggle in favour of his side.
No sooner had the tour of England ended than this seemingly tireless, non-smoking cricketer was away to India again with the Commonwealth team as vice-captain.
