Victor Pascall in 1926 (Image: Wally Hammond: The Reasons Why (1996) by David Foot)
For a once-famous cricketer to be relegated to a supporting character in someone else’s story could have been frustrating; but it is unlikely that Victor Pascall minded too much because he was that kind of man. Particularly when the other person was, in this case, his nephew Learie Constantine. Pascall was once the best spin bowler in the Caribbean and his reputation as one of the greatest endured long after his premature death in 1930; his peak came too soon, just before the West Indies attained Test status. Although long since forgotten, traces of him survive through the connection with his nephew Constantine, not least in two famous books: Cricket and I (1933) by Constantine, and Beyond a Boundary (1963) by C. L. R. James. Even so, as with many West Indian cricketers from before the Second World War, there are huge gaps in our knowledge. Although we know he was born on 30 July 1886 in Diego Martin, we do not even know his full name: he was called Victor S. Pascall, but that middle name is otherwise a mystery. Fortunately, we know a little about Pascall’s family thanks to his nephew.
According to Learie Constantine, Pascall’s paternal grandparents were from the Niger Delta but had been captured by slavers and transported to South America, where they worked on the plantations of a Spanish-speaking landowner. It was there that Ali Pascall — Victor’s father and Learie’s grandfather — was born around 1809 (although as this would have made him 77 when Victor was born, this might be dubious). One day, Ali and a girl called Malvina escaped and — according to the story — stole a canoe which they used to travel to Trinidad. As they arrived, their canoe overturned and they lost what little they had brought with them. They walked until they arrived at a village called Maraval, where the Pascall family remained long after Victor’s birth. Constantine had few other details, and recalled that his mother and his grandparents were reluctant to discuss slavery, but he knew Ali and Malvina were extremely poor as they set up their new lives. Yet they tried to retain the traditions of their families, which were those of the Yoruba people, from what is today Nigeria, Toga and Benin. One example of that came from Constantine’s main memory of Ali Pascall — his open-casket funeral which took place around 1909 when he died at the age of approximately one hundred. His grandchildren (including Constantine) were sent in to see him and each one was lifted three times over the coffin before being told to go outside until after the burial. Constantine recalled asking why, to be told: “Because it was an African custom of the tribe grandpa came from.”
Unfortunately, it is not possible to pin down when or to whom Constantine told this story. The information comes from Gerald Howat’s 1975 biography of Constantine but does not seem to have been mentioned in any of Constantine’s numerous books. However Howat accessed many broadcasts by his subject, in some of which he discussed his upbringing; he also spoke to Constantine’s daughter Gloria and his brother Elias about family matters. Even if we cannot be completely sure where the story comes from, there is no reason to doubt that it is essentially true.
Maraval in 2009; Pascall was born in Diego Martin but it is likely he lived most of his life in Maraval (Image: Paul Lowry, Maraval Port of Spain, CC BY 2.0)
Constantine also wrote specifically about his uncle. In Cricket and I (1933), the first of his books, Learie Constantine fills in some details about how Pascall, of whom he was clearly very fond, came to play for Trinidad. The key figure was Learie’s father, Lebrun Constantine — a fine player in his own right, he was hugely influential in Trinidad cricket. More importantly, he had married Pascall’s sister, Anaise.
“In Maraval my father used to practise twice a week in a field near the house; his brother, St. Croix, another fine player, came often; and some of the labourers on the [cocoa] estate [where Lebrun was an overseer] were glad to have the pleasure of bowling at him. On Saturday afternoon as many as possible used to accompany him to town to see their team play in the competition. Among these practice bowlers was my mother’s brother, Victor Pascall, who bowled so well that my father carried him to town to play and brought him to the notice of the authorities, so that in 1905 [actually 1906] he and my father played for Trinidad against Barbados in the Intercolonial Tournament.”
But this is not quite the complete story because there was a whole other layer of cricket in Trinidad. Countless matches were played at a local level on pitches of matting laid over clay or soil: scratch games, trial matches, various local competitions under impressive sounding names like Pereira’s Cup or Davidson and Todd’s Cup (two examples from 1905). Pascall, like other Trinidad cricketers, emerged from this complicated picture. The most important competition — described by the press and participants as “first-class cricket” but not officially recognised as such — was the Bonanza Cup (named after The Bonanza, a huge department store in Port-of-Spain which played a role in its organisation and presumably provided sponsorship). One of the teams, Victoria Cricket Club, was captained by Lebrun Constantine and Pascall’s obituary in the Trinidad Guardian said that Lebrun “brought [Pascall] into the City to play for Victoria. He quickly jumped into fame and was responsible for the very fine performance of Victoria two years later.” We can date this quite precisely as the Mirror newspaper of Trinidad and Tobago first listed Pascall as part of the Victoria team in December 1904 and so presumably they won the Bonanza Cup in the 1906–07 season. The obituary in the Trinidad Guardian also revealed one early starring performance for Pascall: figures of five wickets for one run against Shamrock Cricket Club.
The Bonanza in an undated photograph (Image: Pinterest)
Pascall was a slow left-arm spinner whose chief attributes were flight and accuracy; from surviving photographs, his height may also have been an advantage. Learie Constantine was never too sure how Pascall had learned to bowl; the only left-arm spinner in Trinidad in Pascall’s youth was Sydney Smith, who later settled in England then New Zealand, and Constantine recalled that Smith’s style was completely different to Pascall’s. At a time when few quality teams toured the West Indies, it seems the most likely explanation is that Pascall was largely self-taught.
Pascall’s success for Victoria brought him to the attention of the Trinidad selectors and he was given an opportunity in the 1905–06 Intercolonial Tournament, the competition held each season between Trinidad, Barbados and British Guiana. That year, Trinidad were the hosts and Pascall made his first-class debut in the final at the Queen’s Park Oval in January 1906, when he played alongside Lebrun. Pascall had a quiet time — 25 runs for once out and one wicket for 26 runs from five overs — and did not represent Trinidad again until 1909, when he played twice against W. C. Shepherd’s XI. In the first match, he took three for 16 and two for 15; in the second he took four for 40 and one for 16. Later that season, he was part of the Trinidad team which won the Intercolonial Tournament, once again held in Trinidad; on the matting pitches he was a handful. He bowled little in the qualifying match against British Guiana to decide who would face the holders Barbados, but in the final he had match figures of four for 62 from 51 overs. After this, he held his place in the Trinidad team until 1927.
Although he had few spectacular performances, his steadiness with the ball (and occasional success with the bat) brought him selection in a representative West Indies team against a touring MCC side in 1913, when he took four for 83. By the time cricket ended owing to the war, he had scored 186 runs at 10.33 and taken 42 wickets at 17.50 (conceding 2.09 runs per over) in 13 first-class matches. We don’t know what he did during the First World War; he certainly continued to play for Victoria until 1916 (when the copies of the Trinidad Mirror available on the British Newspaper Archive cease) and resumed after the war.
Throughout this time, Pascall remained close to the Constantine family. In Cricket and I, Learie Constantine recalled how Pascall and Lebrun helped him to practise as a boy: “Sunday was a field day. Uncle Victor, now a full-fledged intercolonial and a great man (though not as great as my father), would come over sometimes and we played after breakfast (the mid-day meal in Trinidad) till dark. Often my mother kept the wicket, and in those days my sister was as hard to get out as any of the younger group.” As Constantine junior emerged into Trinidad cricket after the war, he began to play alongside his father and uncle, first for Victoria then for Trinidad. He recalled how Pascall was known to his team-mates — for reasons Constantine did not explain — as “Toy”, but Constantine usually referred to him by his other nickname: “Old Pa”. But the two Constantines and Pascall formed a key part of what became the fiercest team in Trinidad, one made famous in the pages of Beyond a Boundary when C. L. R. James wrote of his own experiences playing against the side renamed Shannon Cricket Club in the 1920s.
According to James, Victoria/Shannon was “the club of the black lower-middle class: the teacher, the law clerk, the worker in the printing office and here and there a clerk in a department store.” It was a formidable combination: Lebrun and Learie Constantine; the brothers Wilton, Edwin and Cyl St Hill; Ben Sealey. All of these played Test cricket except Lebrun Constantine (who would have done had it been possible during his career) and Cyl St Hill. There was also a leg-spinner Cyril Fraser (better known as an athlete). And, according to James, in the 1920s “they played as if they knew that their club represented the great mass of black people in the island”. At a time when ordinary Trinidadians faced enormous racial discrimination from the European elites who ruled what was then a British colony, Shannon stood up for something more. James wrote: “As clearly as if it were written across the sky, their play said: Here, on the cricket field if nowhere else, all men in the island are equal, and we are the best men on the island.” James wrote of the team’s intense competitiveness:
“They had sting without the venom. No Australian team could teach them anything in relentless concentration. They missed few catches, and looked upon one of their number who committed such a crime as a potential Fifth Columnist. Wilton St hill chased a ball from slip to third-man as if he were saving the match and not a possible single. Except for the Constantine family, the patriarch, Old Cons [Lebrun], the always genial Learie and his benign uncle, Pascall, Shannon were not given to smiling on the field, and he was an utter nincompoop who was deceived into believing that the Constantine clan was not of the true Shannon toughness.”
We don’t know Pascall’s job outside of cricket; there were exceptions made for the background of those who played in the Bonanza Cup, and the influence of Lebrun Constantine would have been enough, so Pascall may well not have been “lower-middle class”. At the time, Trinidad cricket reflected its wider society: dominated by a white European minority, riven with racism, prejudice and discrimination. James related how in cricket and life, anyone with a dark skin had severely restricted opportunities. Beyond a Boundary is filled with stories of men fighting against the system and burning with anger: George John, Wilton St Hill, Learie Constantine and a man called Telemaque. And then there was Pascall, whose attitude — at least on the surface — seemed far removed from theirs. The all-pervading racism of Trinidad during his lifetime must have affected him, but we know little of it except that he struggled financially; Constantine wrote: “He was always a poor man and on the whole, though cricket gave him a trip to England and to various parts of the West Indies, it probably took from him as much as it gave.” Pascall’s views, like much of his life, remain a mystery to us. But he seems to have simply loved cricket; Constantine recalled: “He was a great walker, walking many miles to play cricket. On Sunday, to play a friendly match, he would walk from one part of the country to another, ‘over a hill and through a valley,’ as we used to tease him.”
Victor Pascall and Learie Constantine during the 1923 tour of England
When the Intercolonial Tournament returned in 1921–22, played that season on his home pitches of Trinidad, Pascall reassumed his place in the Trinidad team and took five for 45 and three for 16 in a play-off against British Guiana (to decide who would face the champions Barbados). In the final, he was joined by his nephew. Constantine had been on the verge of selection for Trinidad for some time, and earlier in the season had played in some trial matches between scratch teams. One of his opponents in these was his uncle. He recalled in Cricket and I: “I had a great time with Pascall. He troubled all the batsmen except me. But through my familiarity with his bowling Pascall had no terrors for me and I hit him very hard whenever I met him … [He] had never been treated for years as I treated him, but it did not worry him a bit. He would bowl his best at me, and when I hit him he would stand with his arms akimbo, looking at me and admiring the stroke. One day after an over in which I had hit him for some fifteen runs he came up to me and said: ‘Boy, I do not see why if you practise and study your game you shouldn’t become the greatest batsman in the world.'”
Pascall took three for 33 in Barbados’ only innings in the final; rain ruined the match, which was drawn when Barbados had to sail home — in later seasons, the intercolonial matches were extended to be timeless. Trinidad were well on top and Pascall troubled all the batters on the matting of the Queen’s Park Oval; his performance inspired C. L. R. James to write a poem praising Pascall, printed in the Trinidad Sporting Chronicle and mentioned in Beyond a Boundary: each verse named a succession of the world’s best batters coming to Trinidad, listed their virtues and concluded “But — Pascall bowled”. Learie had a quiet time but held one spectacular catch from Pascall’s bowling — the vital wicket of Tim Tarilton — which he believed helped to make his name.
Twelve months later, Pascall attained new heights. In the play-off game against British Guiana, the home team, he took five for 36 and six for 26 on a rain-affected pitch. He opened the batting on the first day in a vain attempt to protect the later batters from the effects of the sticky wicket. In the final, he scored 92 to help Trinidad to 359 but on a flat pitch, the extremely strong Barbados batting line-up scored 673; Pascall had three for 146 from 53 overs. Trinidad collapsed — Pascall scored 0 opening the batting again — and lost by an innings.
Constantine was impressed by that innings but viewed his uncle as a stubborn rather than a brilliant batter:
“As a batsman he was a curiosity. He batted left hand, and no more awkward batsman ever played first-class cricket. But Pa had made his fifty in intercolonial cricket before and in this match made 92. He was the despair of a bowler like George John [in local Trinidad cricket]. John would fix four slips and a gully and bowl his fastest at Pa. It would be nothing strange for him to beat him four times in eight balls, shaving the wickets every time while Pa played forward and back with equal unsuccess. Pa would remain unshaken, and perhaps hit him for two fours in the next over, a clean cut through the slips and a glance to leg. A little later second slip would drop one coming nicely to his stomach. Pascall would continue serenely and end with forty odd.”
Constantine continued: “One thing he had as a batsman — courage. However bad the wicket, however dangerous the bowling, Pascall stood his ground and would not flinch.” He was also a safe fielder in the gully — if not an especially mobile one — whom Constantine said caught better with his left hand than with both together: “Whenever possible he used the left hand alone, especially for hot drives back at him (the hotter the better), and held returns from fieldsmen which he used to grab and scramble into the wickets in a primitive manner peculiar to himself but very effective.”
The West Indies team to England in 1923. Standing: J. A. Small, V. S. Pascall, J. K. Holt, R. H. Mallett (Manager), R. L. Phillips, M. P. Fernandes, C. V. Hunter, G. John. Sitting: G. A. R. Dewhurst, C. R. Browne, G. Challenor, H. B. G. Austin (Captain), R. K. Nunes (Vice captain), P. H. Tarilton. On ground: G. Francis, L. N. Constantine, H. W. Ince (Image: The Cricketer Annual 1923–24)
Whatever his limitations as a batter and fielder, Pascall was one of the leading bowlers in the Caribbean and comfortably the best spinner. Therefore, when the West Indies were invited to tour England during the 1923 season, for the first time since 1906, Pascall was an unquestioned selection, one of five Trinidadians in the team; Constantine was another. The tour was an overall success; a record of six wins and seven losses in first-class was respectable and the team palpably improved as the weeks went on. Critics began to take West Indian cricket seriously, and the 1923 tour was instrumental in the decision to award the team Test status later that decade.
In first-class matches during the tour, Pascall took 54 at 24.28 and Wisden said he “bowled well without rising to any special distinction when opposed to the best batting.” And it is true that his best performances — five for 67 against Cambridge University (albeit quite a strong one), match figures of seven for 70 against Sussex, and innings figures of six for 77 against a weak MCC team — came against lesser sides. But as the number of games mounted, and the team grew fatigued at the unaccustomed amount of cricket they were playing, Pascall remained steady despite his heavy workload. The manager of the team R. H. Mallett, in a review of the tour for the Cricketer Annual 1923–24, suggested that Pascall had been “a most useful change bowler” until even he tired in the final weeks, when he lost his length and bowled too quickly. Constantine recalled a game against Middlesex when the West Indies were captained, none too well, by the vice-captain Karl Nunes, who chronically over-bowled Pascall: “Poor Pa, very successful up to now, bowled thirty-seven overs that day, nearly all in one spell … By this time [he] was merely swinging his arm over.”
Pascall made a good impression on several leading English cricketers. Pascall’s Trinidad Guardian obituary said that Patsy Hendren had called him a “wily old fox”, and Constantine recalled that Pascall’s bowling had sorely troubled the irascible Essex captain Johnny Douglas, a man with a poor opinion of West Indies cricketers: “[Douglas] was never at his best against tricky flighty bowlers, and speaking of Pascall’s bowling he said: ‘Pascall is either a darned fool or a darned clever bowler.'” And Pascall also stood up to Douglas’ fast bowling with a crucial 15 not out when the West Indies beat Essex by three wickets, having been 67 for seven when they needed 93 to win. Because of Pascall’s success on the tour, the West Indies captain Harold Austin asked him to choose a present. According to Constantine, he chose a bicycle as “he was getting on in life” and found walking more of a struggle than in his younger days. It is the only hint that Constantine gives that Pascall’s health may not have been the best.
The Trinidad team that won the Intercolonial Tournament in 1925. Standing: V. S. Pascall, R. A. Boyack, F. G. Grant, A. V. Waddell. Seated: C. Fraser, C. A. Wiles, G. A. R. Dewhurst, J. A. Small, W. H. St Hill. On ground: L. N. Constantine, E. L. St Hill.
Pascall continued to enjoy success with Trinidad, taking ten wickets in the 1923–24 Intercolonial Tournament (won again by Barbados). And he played a key role in their success at home in the 1924–25 competition, taking 12 wickets at 15.91 in the two games. In the final, he was a key part in keeping the dangerous Barbados batting under control, taking one for 49 from 33 overs in the first innings and three for 56 from 34.5 overs in the second innings, while Joe Small took wickets from the other end in both innings. Trinidad’s win by 13 runs meant that they were the champions for the first time since 1910 and ended a sequence of five consecutive victories by Barbados. Pascall was also at the forefront when Trinidad retained the title against British Guiana the following season, taking five for 76 from 55.4 overs in the first innings of the final and scoring a crucial 33 batting up the order as his team successfully chased 183 to win by two wickets.
Later that season, Pascall faced a touring MCC side which played three games in early 1926 against a fully representative West Indies team. He played twice for Trinidad (taking six wickets in the second game) but managed only three wickets at 46.66 in the representative games, a high-scoring series won 1–0 by the MCC. He was similarly unsuccessful in 1926–27 when Barbados regained their title at home. In an extraordinary game, Barbados were bowled out on a rain-affected pitch for 175 (Pascall two for 31), and Trinidad replied with 559. Barbados, 384 runs behind on first innings, compiled 736 for seven declared. Pascall was never collared, but took one for 132 from 89 overs. Barbados eventually won by 125 runs. That game seems to have marked the final turning point for Pascall, who was 40 at the time.
The West Indies team for the first “Test” of the 1926 MCC tour, played at Barbados. Back Row: George Francis, Cecil Nascimento, Victor Pascall, Teddy Hoad, Joe Small, James Parris. Front Row: Wilton St Hill, Tim Tarilton, George Challenor, Harold Austin (captain), Cyril Browne, George John (Image: The Cricketer, 1 May 1926).
By then, the West Indies team had been awarded Test status and planning had begun for the first Test-playing tour of England in 1928. An article in Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle in 1927, while arguing for Pascall’s selection, conceded that many thought he “is not fit enough to make another trip”. There are also hints — such as in his Trinidad Guardian obituary — that his batting had declined, and that his rivals were more effective with the bat. Nevertheless, he was one of nine Trinidad players asked if he was available for the tour in mid-1927, and he was chosen to play in a series of trial games played in January 1928 aimed at assisting the selectors. Across the three matches, he had impressive figures — ten wickets at 17.50 — but the spinner’s berth went to James Neblett of British Guiana, and these were Pascall’s final first-class matches.
When the Intercolonial Tournament resumed in Trinidad during January and February 1929, the home team won the competition without fielding a specialist spinner. This strategy was repeated for the 1929–30 tournament but Ellis Achong took up the role when an MCC team toured the Caribbean in 1930; he was also selected for the West Indies team in the Trinidad Test. We do not know why Pascall did not play, but he was not too old by contemporary cricketing standards. CricketArchive records his last appearance as a Beaumont Cup match for North Trinidad against South Trinidad in mid-February 1929. Perhaps the explanation for the omission lies in Constantine’s comment that Pascall could not walk as well as he once could; if his health had collapsed it would account for the loss of his place and what happened next.
On 9 July 1930, the Trinidad Guardian reported that Victor Pascall “died in the Colonial Hospital, Port-of-Spain, on Monday night [7 July] after a brief illness.” He was only 43 years old. No explanation was given, and unless someone locates his death certificate, the illness shall remain a mystery. That obituary, and others, gave some details of his success as a cricketer. The Port-of-Spain Gazette said: “By his death Trinidad has lost a fine sportsman one whose name even though he seemed to have passed the zenith of his fame was always on the lips of cricket fans as the absent genius who would have done the trick … Long after the signs which mark his resting place shall have become effaced his brilliant deeds on the cricket field with bat and ball will be spoken of with admiration by succeeding generations of West Indian cricketers.”
Because Pascall’s poor financial situation left him without a grave marker, the Bonanza Cricket Committee launched an appeal which had raised $125.61 by late 1932, enough money to pay for a memorial and leave something for Pascall’s family: his wife and young son (about whom we know nothing). The Trinidad Guardian described the ceremony to unveil the memorial on 19 February 1933, in “the village churchyard at Maraval”. The inscription said: “In Memory of Victor Pascall, Trinidad and West Indies cricketer: Died July 7, 1930. Erected by his admirers”. Around 200 people attended, including several cricketers such as members of the Grant family (including Jackie, who was by then the West Indies cricket captain) and Nelson Betancourt (a former Trinidad and West Indies captain), and proceedings were watched by “Mrs Pascall and her young son [who] stood silently near the memorial during the ceremony”. In a speech, Betancourt said: “As a cricketer it is sufficient for you to witness here today what we have erected to show his merit. As a man, apart from a cricketer he was a thorough gentleman for he knew how to win and how to lose.” And Mrs Pascall said that she “stood with sorrow and with joy” to see the tribute, and expressed her gratitude, and hoped that her son, who was too young to fully understand the honour of the memorial, would come to do so in time. The article in the Trinidad Mirror concluded: “After the ceremony, many people went to the home of Mrs Pascall and to the house where Victor Pascall was born. Several lingered in the back yard lot where the great cricketer played ‘bat and ball’ in his childhood days”.
The ceremony probably took place at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Maraval; no signs of the memorial (nor many pre-war burials, although there were several Pascalls buried) could be found in 2022. In the end, Pascall’s death is as mysterious as most of his life. All we are left with is his cricket. He is forgotten today, nearly a century after he played for the West Indies. Scorecards can only tell us so much, but fortunately we have the memories of Learie Constantine, writing in Cricket and I only three years after Pascall’s death.
Constantine wrote of his uncle’s bowling: “He bowled a perfect length and the ordinary left hander’s leg-break. He had a well-directed fast ball that came with the arm. He bowled a finger spin off-break as well, and on rare occasions a genuine left hander’s googly, the only one I have seen. Yet against a good batsman it was flight more than anything else that got him his wickets. On any wicket that helped him at all he was a dangerous bowler, and few batsmen ever mastered him on the matting wicket at the [Queen’s Park] Oval.” This view was supported by Pascall’s Trinidad Guardian obituary, which stated: “He was able to disguise his pace very cleverly and secured many victims with a fast off-break which caught his victims napping.”
Constantine also favourably noted Pascall’s insistence on always bowling “a good length or between the good length and half volley, on or outside the off-stump”. To prepare for the intercolonial matches, he spent hours bowling at a single stump. When they were in the same team, Constantine recalled: “At slip I used to watch him, always trying something, never just bowling, but — and this is the important thing — always on the basis of a good length. He never gave away a run if he could help it.” He called his uncle “a model for any aspiring young cricketer”. He told Constantine that he took great pleasure bowling on a flat pitch to a good batter, and having to use his brain to dismiss him, than taking cheap wickets on difficult pitches: “There is no fun in that.” The Trinidad Guardian added that “no work in the field was ever too long for him, and he was never more happy than when batsmen tried to hit his bowling out of the ground.”
As a team-mate, his calm and equable temperament helped to offset the more fiery nature of his colleagues in the Trinidad and Victoria/Shannon team. The Trinidad Guardian noted his “genial disposition”, and Constantine said: “He had an immense patience and a golden temper, two of the greatest secrets of his success. When a catch was missed he might say, ‘Tst, tst.’ But at the end of the over if he met the fieldsman in crossing, especially a young player, he would say, ‘Do not mind that, you know, do not mind that. We’ll get him later.'” Constantine wrote: “I played cricket with him from the time I was five, in the yard at home, club cricket, intercolonial cricket in the West Indies and all over England, but I never knew Pa to do an unsportsmanlike action, or utter an unsportsmanlike word. Always pleasant, always persevering, always willing to have another try, always willing to give way to someone else.” Perhaps it is revealing that, in a book on the 1923 tour by the editor of Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle L. S. Smith, the modest Pascall was the only one of the five Trinidadians who did not offer an opinion on England.
Perhaps then it was not just his cricket which accounted for his reputation. In Beyond a Boundary, James said of Pascall that he was “a most charming person and a great popular favourite with all the classes.” Elsewhere in the book, he said that he was “loved” by cricket followers. Constantine’s final words on his uncle were simple but heartfelt: “The game has had no more faithful servant than he. He is dead now, he died rather suddenly in 1930, but his prowess with the ball and his happy disposition made him one of the best loved of all our cricketers, and it will be many years before his name dies out of West Indies Cricket.” Even in 1984, when Pascall was inaugurated in the Trinidad and Tobago Sports Hall of Fame, and at a time that men like Sonny Ramadhin, Alf Valentine and Lance Gibbs had all played Test cricket, the citation said: “Some old timers still believe he was the greatest spin bowler West Indies ever produced.”
Old Ebor 
