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(Part 23.) All-round excellence.
This series started with a clear plan of articles counting down to the 50th anniversary of the final of the 1975 Cricket World Cup on June 21.
However, in doing a bit of web browsing—you can’t really call it research because the information is sitting right there, just waiting for someone to use it—so much information came cascading down about the forerunners to Clive Lloyd and company.
Photo: CWI.
And it would be criminal negligence not to at least acknowledge what one of two of these men achieved in raising awareness of West Indies cricket.
More specifically, these cricketers helped to show black people as human beings—not only capable of feats of great athleticism but who could excel in academia and other so-called prestigious fields, even while always faced with potentially debilitating racial prejudice.
Charles Ollivierre of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was such a man, highlighted in the previous contribution to this series.
So now, with 28 days to go to the culmination of our countdown, we put the focus on someone who was not only an outstanding all-round cricketer (fearsome fast bowler, spectacular ball-striker and brilliant fielder anywhere).
He also excelled in the legal realm, in advocacy for justice, in advocacy for West Indian self-determination, in politics and diplomacy, in both the United Kingdom and Trinidad and Tobago: Learie Constantine.
Here’s what Giles Wilcox, writing on the website Caribbean Cricket News in 2020, had to say about the man who played for Nelson in the Lancashire League from the year after he toured England with the first official West Indies Test team in 1928:
(via ESPN.)
“His achievements almost defy belief: in nine seasons he scored 6,363 runs at an average of 37.65 and took 776 wickets at an average of 9.50. His best performances were 192 with the bat (scored out of a total of 284 for nine in 53 overs) and, with the ball, figures of 10 for 10 (the opposition were bowled out for 12 in 12.1 overs).
“Constantine’s consistency was astonishing. Largely thanks to his performances, Nelson won the league in seven of his nine seasons and never finished lower than second.
“Additionally, their attendances skyrocketed as crowds flocked to see Constantine. Other clubs also benefited from his presence and the financial windfall made Nelson a wealthy club.
(via The Times.)
“As a result, Constantine was paid more than any cricketer in England—including Test and county players—and probably more than any other professional sportsman.”
And, of course, he followed that up after his playing days by becoming a barrister, a member of the House of Lords, a senator and government minister in his native Trinidad and Tobago and, finally, the country’s first High Commissioner based in London.
Just step back mentally and imagine a black man with such a stature in England at a time when people of colour, especially the descendants of slaves, were considered sub-human.
(via ESPN.)
And, as the Windrush generation discovered when doing all the menial tasks that white people avoided in post-World War II Britain, black people were placed lower than the white line on the road in the social structure there.
Constantine did not escape that grinding prejudice. For as Wilcox explains, he could have been the first to graduate from the minor league to county cricket, except that Lancashire refused to have a black man in their side.
In her tribute entitled A Look At Learie Constantine, Undine Giuseppi repeated the final paragraphs of his autobiography Cricket in the Sun:
(via Madras Courier.)
“One day I shall be old, and shall sit in the sun in Trinidad and tell stories of cricket, and watch their eyes grow rounder and rounder as they listen, as well as they may. And when I finish up, and stretch, and make ready to go indoors, I shall always end on the same note.
“If I had my time over again, I shall say impressively as I hobble slowly away, I would be a professional cricketer again. I would do it all again. I would live over my happy life of cricket in the sun.”
Constantine died in London of a heart attack on 1 July 1971, seven weeks short of what would have been his 70th birthday.
In Lloyd’s scything blade at Lord’s and, more recently, Dwayne Bravo’s expansive extravagant strokeplay, we get flashbacks of the style and joyous flair of a great cricketer and even greater man.
Next: How the World Cup came about.
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Fazeer Mohammed is a journalist/broadcaster with almost 40 years’ experience across a range of media.
His interest in cricket, and particularly its history, started at home via his father’s small collection of autobiographies and magazines, offering perspectives and context which have informed his commentary and analysis on contemporary issues in the game.
