Politics, Selection and Mistaken Identity: The Life of Errol Hunte

Errol Hunte in Australia in 1930 (Image: National Library of Australia)

Early West Indian Test cricketers are poorly served by historians; many are little more than a name on a scorecard. Such a fate is perhaps inevitable for almost anyone who played so long ago unless they were from England or Australia, but even so there are many cases from the Caribbean in the period before the Second World War. One of the more extreme is the Trinidadian wicket-keeper Errol Hunte. He played three Tests in 1930 and toured Australia in 1930–31, but his Wisden obituary was just a few bland lines. To measure it in a different way, his Wikipedia article is one sentence at the time of writing. His biggest claim to notability was that for many years, Wisden confused him with another player and split his Test appearances with the unrelated R. L. Hunte of British Guiana, a simple case of mis-transcribing “Errol” as “R. L.”, an error uncorrected until 1967. Gideon Haigh wrote about this mistake for ESPNcricinfo in 2006, but even he had little to say about the player himself. Perhaps it is time to redress the balance a little.

Errol Ashton Clairmonte Hunte was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on 3 October 1905. Almost nothing is known about his early life except that in the 1920s he played for Maple Cricket Club in Trinidad. In Beyond a Boundary (1963), C. L. R. James — who also played for Maple — C. L. R. James described it as the club of “the brown-skinned middle class”, which might give some clues about Hunte’s background. Hunte’s first appearance in the record books came when he played for North Trinidad against South Trinidad in 1925; two years later, he played for the North against the South once again, this time in the Beaumont Cup, when one of his team-mates was C. L. R. James, and then again in 1928. He did not distinguish himself with the bat in any of these matches, although he was playing alongside some of the biggest names in West Indian cricket (there is no indication of whether he kept wicket in these games, but it is most likely that he did). In May that year, when some of those names were taking part in a very undistinguished tour of England that incorporated the first Test matches played by the West Indies, Hunte and his fellow Trinidadians Edwin St Hill and Ben Sealey visited New York as part of a West Indian cricket team. The sailing record provides some of the only information we have about Hunte: that he was a teacher; that he was unmarried and lived with his father, T. W. Hunte, in Belmont; and that he was 5 feet 11 inches tall.

The following January, Hunte made his first-class debut for Trinidad, playing as the wicket-keeper against Barbados and British Guiana as his team easily won the Intercolonial Tournament at home. But Hunte’s highest score in three innings was 26, and his selection reflected the somewhat confused nature of Trinidad’s team in this period following the mysterious withdrawal of the team’s regular wicket-keeper George Dewhurst from first-class cricket. Hunte was one of several wicket-keepers tried in this period. If his batting made no impact, he must have impressed to some extent with the wicket-keeping gloves. He retained his place when the team defended their title later in the year in British Guiana (playing once more for North Trinidad in the meantime) but again achieved little of note (batting at number ten in both innings, having appeared in the middle order in his first two matches).

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The West Indies team for the first Test in 1930.  Back row: (Unknown), (Unknown), Edwin St Hill, Clifford Roach, Frank De Caires, Leslie Walcott, Errol Hunte, (Unknown). Front row: James Neblett, George Headley, Learie Constantine, Teddy Hoad (captain), Cyril Browne, Derek Sealey, Herman Griffith.

But either his wicket-keeping shone, or he had batting success in local Trinidad cricket because not only did the Trinidad selectors stick with him, he was chosen as the wicket-keeper for the West Indies in the opening Test match for England’s tour in 1930. Nor did his selection owe anything to regional politics because his debut was in Barbados, meaning that the Barbados selectors must have judged him to be the best wicket-keeper. In a drawn game, he batted at number eleven and scored 10 not out and 1. However, a gossipy article a few weeks later in Trinidad’s Sporting Chronicle suggested that he had not impressed the cricket authorities in Barbados, an opinion echoed in The Cricketer’s review of the tour published in England.

When the series moved to Trinidad, Hunte became (presumably inadvertently) caught up in a mysterious controversy involving the former Trinidad captain and wicket-keeper George Dewhurst, who had withdrawn from the West Indies team that toured England in 1928 over selection issues and not played for the island since. However, with the visit of the English team, there were moves afoot not only for Dewhurst to return to the Trinidad team, but also to captain the West Indies for the Trinidad Test. As was normal practice, the MCC team played two matches against Trinidad before the Test match. In the first, the home team were captained by Nelson Betancourt, a 42-year-old who had played intermittently for Trinidad since 1905 and had a very undistinguished playing record. The wicket-keeper for this match was Hunte, who batted at number eleven in the first innings, scoring 12 not out, and 20 not out (when he cannot have batted last, but his position is not known) in the second as Trinidad won by 102 runs. For the second game against the MCC, Hunte was replaced by Dewhurst, who also captained the team in what was regarded by some elements of the press as a trial to see who should captain the Test team. Several newspapers predicted that he would be named as captain, but when the team was announced, Betancourt was captain and Hunte had been retained as wicket-keeper.

Given his lack of batting form, it is remarkable that Hunte was asked to open he batting alongside Clifford Roach, and even more remarkable that he scored 58, his maiden first-class fifty. His half century came in 102 balls with eight fours, and he shared a second-wicket stand of 89 with Wilton St Hill (after Roach was dismissed without a run scored). Wisden noted that he and St Hill “played steadily”. He scored 30 in the second innings, sharing an opening partnership of 57 with St Hill. West Indies lost that game but Hunte, having impressed in the role and with his batting, was retained as wicket-keeper when the teams travelled to British Guiana. He once again opened the batting and this time shared an opening partnership of 144 with Roach; he scored a dogged 53, reaching his half century from 195 deliveries. Nevertheless, he had a great deal of luck; Wisden observed: “MCC’s [England’s] fielding was badly at fault when West Indies opened their first innings with a stand of 144, Hunte being missed four times.” Hunte was first out, and Roach went on to a double century. Hunte scored 14 in the second innings and West Indies won by 289 runs.

Hunte did not retain his place for the final Test, played in Jamaica, making way for the local wicket-keeper Ivan Barrow. But he had impressed some critics. The review of the tour in The Cricketer stated of Hunte: “An ungainly wicket-keeper, but active and effective. Kept very moderately in Barbados, but very well in Trinidad. Proved himself a most useful opening batsman, having a very stubborn defence. He can also hit the ball hard. Ugly and ungainly in this department too.” In Trinidad, the Sporting Chronicle viewed him as an “able” keeper who showed “high promise” with the bat. But Wisden became very confused; Hunte was listed in the averages as two separate people. His debut was listed as a cricketer called “E. Hunte” but the other two appearances were attributed to “R. L. Hunte”, and this mistake was perpetuated in later editions of the almanack, which recorded one Test appearance by E. Hunte and two by R. L. Hunte. The reasons are not hard to find: Wisden seemingly had no correspondent on hand and, compared to The Cricketer, displayed patch knowledge of West Indian cricket. As there was a cricketer in the Caribbean called R. L. Hunte (Ronald Hunte, who had a twenty-year career with British Guiana), the confusion of the initials with the name “Errol” is understandable but inexcusable in a publication concerned with statistical accuracy. The mistake was not corrected until the 1967 edition of Wisden.

Left to right: George Headley, Derek Sealy and Errol Hunte in Australia in November 1930 (Image: National Library of Australia)

Given his success with bat and gloves, it was inevitable that Hunte would be selected for a tour of Australia in 1930–31. He and Barrow were the main wicket-keepers (although Derek Sealy kept wicket later in his career and could have filled in), but the suspicion was that Hunte was chosen as much for his batting as wicket-keeping; for example, the Daily Gleaner in Jamaica suggested: “Anyhow Hunte as a good opening batsmen may be played more in that capacity than for his keeping qualities.” If so, he was picked based on a very limited record. Furthermore, there were some doubts about his health going into the tour; the Gleaner reported that he had been “a trifle seedy”. Yet he must have recovered because in later years, the doctor responsible for the health of the team on tour told Andy Ganteaume that Hunte was “the finest specimen of a man” he had seen.

The Australian press showed considerable interest in the team, particularly the black players. A tour preview in the Adelaide Advertiser, written by Thomas D. Lord of Trinidad, gave a brief summary of Hunte’s career and described him as an excellent wicket-keeper and worthy successor to Dewhurst. It also stated of his batting: “He is endowed with great patience and concentrates on a sound defence but when once he sees the ball well, he hits hard.” Another oddity about Hunte’s tour was that he was advertised in Sydney’s Daily Pictorial as an aspiring author: “Hunte has a remarkable flair for literature, and he has written a vivid human drama specially for the “Sunday Pictorial.” The story duly appeared on 30 November, called “The Soul’s Awakening”

Whatever the literary merits of the story, Hunte’s tour on the field was undistinguished. His highest score in five first-class matches was 29 and although he was given several chances to establish himself, Barrow was the favoured wicket-keeper throughout the tour and played all five Test matches. The Cricketer review of the tour noted that “wicketkeeping [was] a weak-point for some time with the West Indies” and that Barrow had been played in the Tests. However, during the tour an article in the Trinidad Sporting Chronicle suggested that Hunte had been left out following an incident in a match against Queensland. According to the article, Hunte “with great show and confidence appealed for a catch” at the wicket when Victor Goodwin was batting. The appeal was turned down and Hunte “proceeded to make demonstration in seeming disgust” and threw the ball away. The article suggested that “on account of this and other similar reasons”, Hunte was omitted from the Tests. The newspaper concluded that “Hunte should not have taken this sort of local Savannah Cricket habit to Australia” and felt “pretty sure that his inability to accept decisions against his appeals in the proper manner and his all too demonstrative yet not always safe methods when performing behind the wicket have been responsible for the small number of his appearances in the big matches.”

Hunte batting in the nets at Sydney in 1930 (Image: National Library of Australia)

This account was denied by the batter Frank Martin when he returned home to Jamaica. In a speech at a dinner to honour the Jamaican cricketers who played in Australia, Martin was critical of the Sporting Chronicle for printing the article and mildly rebuked the Gleaner for reprinting it. He said that he was sure “that the intelligent public, knowing the source from which that article came, would not, or did not place any credence to it.” He called Hunte “a fine fellow” and a “sportsman”, for whom such actions would be “quite foreign”. He said that no such incident took place and that the story was “only a crude way of excusing the exclusion of Mr Hunte [who] was excluded from the team because Mr Barrow proved himself a very good keeper.” The endorsement of Hunte received a warm reception from his Jamaican audience.

Even if there was no truth in the rumours, Hunte never played for the West Indies again. His name was discussed prior to the 1933 tour of England, but a writer for the Port of Spain Gazette said: “I understand that there is prejudice against Errol Hunte. In fact I know there is. The quicker the selectors put this behind their backs and think of nothing else but the success of the side the better for them. For Hunte is not only a proper wicket-keeper but a good batsman with a fair experience and where so much is uncertain it is best that the side should have as many batsmen as possible.” As was the case in 1930 and 1930–31, there is a definite sense that Hunte’s selection was tied up in matters beyond the field, even if we cannot be too sure what they were. But when he failed in a trial match for the tour, he was omitted from the team. An account in The Cricketer stated: “Hunte and De Caires both visited Australia and both failed as batsmen in the trials; indeed, C. L. C. Bourne kept wicket in the former’s place and he perhaps never had more than an outside chance.”

Hunte retained his place as Trinidad’s wicket-keeper for the 1932 and 1934 Intercolonial Tournaments (there was no tournament in 1933, with games instead arranged to inform selection for the 1933 tour of England). His highest score in these games was 56, and after scores of 2 and 2 opening the batting against Barbados in 1934, his first-class career was over (although he captained South Trinidad in the Beaumont Cup as late as 1937). His role as Trinidad’s wicket-keeper was taken by Allman Agard.

Nevertheless it is likely that Hunte had chosen to make himself unavailable for financial or career reasons. By 1930, he no longer worked as a teacher but was instead a clerical assistant at a magistrate’s court in Princes Town and Moruga, on an annual salary of £110. And it seems that some time in the early 1930s, Hunte married (only the first names of his wife are known — Olive Leona — and we know that she was born in 1906) and in 1934 he became the father to twin girls. A son (1940) and another daughter (1942) came later. Perhaps he chose to concentrate on his career in order to support his family.

He certainly remained a civil servant in later years, and travelled extensively. For example, he visited New York (with his wife) in 1949. But he and his family also spent some time in England. In 1954, he spent time in England working for the British Council in Liverpool, accompanied by his wife and four children; his eldest daughters were working as a civil servant and as a librarian. Hunte stayed for several months, living in London. In 1960, he spent six months in England, working as a civil servant at the Colonial Office in London. And in between these extended visits, he also spent time as a delegate at the conference on Local Government at the University College of the West Indies in 1957.

But he was not done with cricket and worked as a government coach in a scheme organised by the Ministry of Education and Culture. He became head of the Community Development Department and worked alongside several former West Indies cricketers included Ellis Achong and Andy Ganteaume. In his 2007 autobiography, the latter wrote: “Errol was one of the finest gentlemen one could ever meet. Errol was an exceptional individual. He had a very pleasant manner, a lovely sense of humour, was also a good billiards player and an outstanding card player who was always able to avoid any unpleasant exchange with any other player.”

Hunte died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1967, leaving an estate worth £1,565. His final address was D8 Empire Flats, St Vincent Street, Port of Spain. His probate was handled in England two years later. He had a brief obituary in Wisden, which even if it had corrected his misidentification as R. L. Hunte, made another mistake, saying that he played for British Guiana (again, probably a confusion with the real R. L Hunte). It called him a “good opening batsman”. Hunte’s obituary in The Cricketer went the other way, and called him (perhaps a little generously) “an outstanding wicket-keeper in intercolonial cricket”. But as was the case with so many of Hunte’s contemporaries in the West Indies teams, there was little interest in going any further. Yet in many ways, his cricketing career and his life in general are perfect illustrations of West Indies cricket in the early 1930s: a combination of good fortune, the effects of politics (through no fault of his own) and — despite the obstacles — some very good cricket before real life intruded.

George Dewhurst: The man who should have been captain?

The Trinidad team that won the Intercolonial Tournament in 1925. Standing: V. Pascall, RA Boyack, FG Grant, AV Waddell. Seated: C Fraser, CA Wiles, GAR Dewhurst, JA Small, WH St Hill. On ground: LN Constantine, EL St Hill.

From unpromising beginnings, when black cricketers were excluded from the sport and all-white teams played low-quality cricket against minor teams from America, the West Indian cricket team progressed enough to tour England in 1900. The relative success of the team (winning five games, losing eight and drawing the rest) showed the West Indies could be competitive. The tour also set a precedent that black players should be included in the team; Charles Ollivierre, Lebrun Constantine, “Float” Woods and Tommie Burton – all of whom were black – headed the tour averages. But a combination of factors prevented the West Indies from attaining the same level of acceptance as Australia and South Africa through being given Test status. The main issues lay in the attitude of the English authorities to the West Indies team. But perhaps just as importantly, West Indian cricket was held back by its own administrators. This may be best illustrated by looking at the career of one man, George Dewhurst, who should probably have captained the West Indies in their first Test series, but who instead disappeared from cricket.

For a few years after the 1900 tour, English cricket showed an increased interest in the West Indies. HDG Leveson-Gower assembled a team to tour the region in 1902, led by the former Eton and Hampshire wicketkeeper Richard Bennett. Following the precedent set on previous tours by English teams, three first-class matches were played between Bennett’s team and a “West Indies” team. The latter included Woods and Burton from the 1900 tour, and H. B. G. Austin who had represented the West Indies in the 1890s; but the composition of the team varied depending on where the matches were played, and leading cricketers were absent.

In 1905, another English team toured, this time led by Lord Brackley, another former Eton schoolboy and a future president of the MCC. Once more, matches were played against teams representing the West Indies. Although Lord Brackley’s team won both games, he was sufficiently impressed by the cricket of the region to arrange for a second West Indies tour of England to take place in 1906; he also ensured that this one would have first-class status, which had not been forthcoming for the 1900 tour. A committee comprised of representatives from Trinidad, Demerera and Barbados chose the strongest possible team. Of the 14 players picked, seven were black, although the captain was white (Apart from when George Headley led for one match in 1948, West Indies captains were exclusively white until Frank Worrell was appointed in 1960). Four of the players had toured in 1900, including Lebrun Constantine and Tommie Burton. New players included Austin, who captained the team; CP Cumberbatch, who had impressed against visiting English teams for several years; Charles Ollivierre’s younger brother Richard; and Sidney Smith, who remained in England after the tour to qualify for Northamptonshire.

The 1906 West Indies team

The 1906 team was unsuccessful on the field and attracted little interest from spectators. Of 19 games, the West Indies won seven, lost ten and drew two. The press concluded that the team was not strong enough; there was also criticism of the black players specifically (for example, criticising their fielding) and of the idea of having a side composed of both black and white players. By the end of the tour, several writers had blamed the weakness of the team on the inclusion of black players. For example, Trevor Phillip wrote in The Sportsman (14 June 1906): “Speaking roughly the native members of the side have not so far done as much as those whose training, origin, and associations are more or less similar to our own.” Racial stereotyping that had been largely absent six years before also made regular appearances in the press.

Geoffrey Levett, in his article “The ‘White Man’s Game’? West Indian Cricket Tours of the 1900s”, states:

“In tracing the path of the cricket tours in 1900 and 1906 it is possible to discern a cooling of the notion of the West Indies as being able to fit into the idea of being ‘settler’ colonies, despite their status as being the oldest such British colonies. The 1900 tour occurred in the context of a bitter colonial war in South Africa of which the outcome was still in doubt. At that point in time support from any of the colonies was welcome as a reminder of the loyalty of British subjects overseas.”

It is notable that English cricket after 1906 made a concerted attempt to raise the status of South African cricket, beginning with a successful tour of England by a team in 1907. This push culminated in the “Triangular Tournament”, in which England, Australia and South Africa played a series of Tests in 1912 to determine the world champions. England won easily in a summer blighted by poor weather and against two teams riven by internal disputes and missing key players; the concept was quietly shelved. However, South Africa were regular opponents for England from 1907 (although they played Australia only rarely) despite being generally uncompetitive until the mid-1930s.

Part of this push to cultivate South African cricket was prompted by leading English administrators, such as Lord Harris and HDG Leveson Gower, who had considerable financial interests in South Africa. South African figures such as Abe Bailey, who devised the Triangular Tournament, wished to keep cricket in the hands of white English speakers. Bailey also had strong ideas on race: as Gideon Haigh wrote, he was “the basest of racists”. Perhaps it was a coincidence that after 1906, West Indian cricket was relegated in this grand imperial project. But perhaps not. After 1906, no West Indian team toured England until 1923.

An MCC team toured the West Indies for the first time in 1911 (by this time, the MCC organised most overseas tours by leading English cricketers; earlier ones were privately organised) but only three of the eleven-strong party were regular first-class players. Even so, this weak team, led by AWF Somerset, was able to defeat West Indies teams easily in two representative games. There is also some irony that Sydney Smith was a member of the MCC side, finishing second in the batting averages and heading the bowling averages for the tour. A slightly stronger MCC team toured the region in 1913, once more led by Somerset and including Smith. This time, the West Indies defeated the MCC in one match but lost the other two. The First World War then intervened; the MCC did not tour again until 1926.

Somewhat neglected by the outside world, cricket continued to develop in the West Indies. The Intercolonial Tournament between Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana was played most years. Jamaica did not take part owing to its distance from the other colonies; although Jamaican cricketers were included in the West Indies teams to England in 1900 and 1906, they were often omitted from sides chosen to oppose touring English elevens.

Although black cricketers were now allowed to take part in the Intercolonial Tournament (although professionals were not), cricket still reflected society in that it was dominated by white men. This racism was perhaps most prevalent in Barbados where black cricketers were restricted to the role of bowling and fielding in net practice, hindering the emergence of black Barbadian batsmen. In British Guiana, the leading club, Georgetown, was dominated by white men of English and Portuguese descent, and the vast majority of the cricket team came from these groups. Black cricketers from Jamaica seem to have had more opportunity.

George Dewhurst

However, the clearest picture comes from Trinidad and Tobago, thanks to the hugely influential Beyond a Boundary, written by C. L. R. James in 1963. He describes how, from the viewpoint of an ordinary Trinidadian cricket follower, selection for the Trinidad first-class team and for the West Indian teams that toured England in the 1920s and 1930s was dominated by considerations of race, class and precedent. James writes about black cricketers unfairly omitted from the Trinidad team in favour of white players of lesser ability. Among these is a man known only as Piggott, named in Beyond a Boundary as an incredible wicketkeeper. The man who took his spot was George Dewhurst, a white player. Piggott had played for Trinidad before the war, but Dewhurst took the place from 1920.

George Alric Rosenorn Dewhurst (Alric comes from the family’s Danish roots and Rosenorn, another Danish name, was his maternal grandmother’s maiden name) worked for Trinidad and Tobago’s Customs and Excise Department. Like several of his cricketing colleagues, he also represented Trinidad at football; a newspaper article written in the 1950s classed him among Trinidad and Tobago’s best ever footballers. There is little other information generally available about him. He played for the Queen’s Park Club, the pre-eminent club in Trinidad, and made his debut for the island’s first-class team in the Inter-Colonial Tournament in 1920 at the age of 26; he opened the batting in his first match and came in at number eleven in the second.

When the West Indians were finally invited to tour England again in 1923, ending ten years of cricketing isolation, several matters came to a head. Barbados, Trinidad, British Guiana and Jamaica were each allowed to choose a certain number of players for the team; Barbados and Trinidad each had five cricketers in the touring party while British Guiana and Jamaica both included three. Unlike in 1900 and 1906, no-one was chosen from any smaller islands. Furthermore, this system of having a fixed proportion of players from each colony meant that several cricketers missed out who would have been worthy of a place if chosen purely on merit. Keith Sandiford, in his essay “The Rocky Road to Test Status” suggests that Johnnie Brown, Herman Griffith and Wilton St Hill should have toured.

The West Indies team to England in 1923. Standing: J. A. Small, V. 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.

But that was not the end of “political” considerations. C. L. R. James writes at length about the Trinidad representatives in that 1923 team. He argues that Piggott, the best wicketkeeper was left out in favour of Dewhurst. His omission was almost certainly because four of Trinidad’s five representatives were black; had Piggott been preferred, all five players would have been black. According to James, it was inconceivable that no white cricketer would have been chosen (By way of contrast, four of the five Barbados players were white). Furthermore, the Queen’s Park Club ran Trinidad cricket and the Trinidad team used their ground to play first-class cricket; Dewhurst was their only representative. It would have been impossible to include no players from the Queen’s Park Club. These two factors secured Dewhurst’s selection in preference to Piggott.

The 1923 tour was generally successful. Although several players were complete failures with the bat, George Challenor, the white Barbadian batsman, scored six first-class centuries and finished third in the English batting averages. Trinidad’s Joe Small was also a success, and the fast bowlers George Francis (Barbados) and George John (Trinidad) averaged under 20 with the ball in first-class cricket. In total, the team played 26 games, winning 12 losing 7 and drawing the remainder. After a slow start, the visitors recorded several prestigious victories, including a particularly big win over a strong Surrey team.

The team also impressed in a loss to Lancashire, but perhaps the game that made the cricket authorities really take notice was their final match. Invited to play in the end-of-season Scarborough Festival, the West Indies faced H. D. G. Leveson-Gower’s XI, a team composed entirely of cricketers who had played or who would later play for England. The West Indies’ batting failed twice, leaving the home side needing just 28 to win; but Francis and John bowled extraordinarily well to reduce Leveson-Gower’s XI to 19 for six and cause an almighty panic before JWHT Douglas and PGH Fender scrambled the winning runs. In many ways, this was the game which secured Test status for the West Indies five years later.

Dewhurst was a great success on the tour. James concedes that English critics praised his wicketkeeping (although he believes that Piggott would have been even better), a view supported in The Cricketer’s review of the tour at the end of the season. One of his team-mates, “Snuffy” Browne, later wrote that Dewhurst’s “heart is as big as his body” and that his “expansive smile captures many victims”. From surviving photographs, Dewhurst was clearly not a small man; his nickname was “Fatty Dewhurst” (which the team manager in 1923 ascribed to his popularity in the team: he was the only man with a nickname), and it is hard to imagine him being agile behind the stumps. However, contemporary accounts describe him as frequently standing up to the stumps, and C. L. R. James wrote in Beyond a Boundary that he always did his job “excellently”.

But Dewhurst did little with the bat in 1923: in 15 first-class matches, he averaged slightly over ten. His lack of runs may have arisen because the captain and vice-captain, unconvinced by his batting ability, insisted that he bat down the order. Given the opportunity against Nottinghamshire, one of the strongest counties, to open the batting as nightwatchman, Dewhurst wanted – according to an account by Harry Mallett, the team manager, in The Cricketer – to “seize the opportunity” to show that he could bat; he scored 52, his only half-century of the tour.

Later accounts of the tour in the West Indian press (albeit from sources favourable to him) suggested that Dewhurst was very influential in the side, acting as an unofficial vice-captain. With his place now cemented in both the West Indies and Trinidad teams, Dewhurst was regarded as the best wicketkeeper in the West Indies. He became the Trinidad captain and led them to success against Barbados at home in February 1925, ending a sequence of four successive Barbados wins stretching back to 1910. His team won again when the competition was held that October in British Guiana.

When the MCC toured West Indies in 1926, their first tour since 1913, Dewhurst was first-choice wicketkeeper and vice-captain of the West Indies XI when he was available. Unspecified business interests kept him out of one of the games; he worked for Customs and Excise and most likely was refused leave to play. In the four games he played against the MCC, for both Trinidad and the West Indies, he passed fifty three times, opening the batting in every match; he finished fourth in the West Indies averages for the representative matches. Commenting on the form of the Trinidad team, Lord Harris described Dewhurst, in the English Sporting Chronicle, as “promising”. From being a tail-ender, he was now one of the best batsmen in the region as well as the first-choice wicketkeeper. Incidentally, the CricketArchive scorecard names Frederick Grant, who had played under Dewhurst in 1925, as captain of Trinidad in 1926, but this seems very unlikely. The contemporary press in 1926 called Dewhurst the Trinidad captain, and continued to do so as late as 1928; a photograph taken at the time also pictures Dewhurst next to the MCC captain when the English team played Trinidad.

A combined photograph of the MCC and Trinidad teams in 1926. Dewhurst in pictured seated in the second row from the front, third from the left, next to the MCC captain Freddie Calthorpe, which suggests that he was the Trinidad captain. FG Grant is seated on the floor in the centre of the row, just in front of Dewhurst.

Although no-one probably suspected it at the time, least of all Dewhurst, these were his last games for the West Indies and he played just once more for Trinidad. He missed the 1927 Inter-Colonial Tournament: his work for the customs department prevented him travelling to Barbados, and his superiors were criticised for refusing to release him to play; it also seems that Dewhurst had relocated for work reasons, reducing his availability. In his absence, Trinidad were led by Frederick Grant.

Meanwhile, on 31 May 1926, a crucial meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference took place at Lord’s. Alongside the usual representatives from England, Australia, and South Africa were men from the West Indies, New Zealand and India. At this meeting, the definition of Test matches was expanded to include matches played between representative teams selected by the governing bodies of countries within the British Empire. The West Indies delegates, W Morrison and HBG Austin, set in motion plans which culminated in the West Indies being invited to tour England in 1928 and play their first three Test matches.

Late in 1927 and early in 1928, trial games were held in Barbados to help the selectors choose the team. For Dewhurst, this was where the trouble began. At first, he said that work would prevent him being able to tour. Possibly for this reason, he missed the trial games . But there were other issues in the background.

The incumbent captain HBG Austin, had recently retired. Through much of 1927, the press in the West Indies touted the claims of various people to lead the 1928 tour. Given that Austin’s replacement had to be white, Dewhurst was a realistic candidate; failing that, he was a likely vice-captain. But when the team was chosen at the end of the three trial matches held in Barbados, Karl Nunes, an occasional wicketkeeper from Jamaica, was chosen to lead (although, like Dewhurst, he had missed the trial games). Even before the tour began, some commentators wondered if Nunes could carry the load of leading batsman, occasional wicketkeeper and captain. His vice-captain was Vibart Wight, a cricketer from British Guiana with little experience of captaincy – his debut as captain in first-class cricket was the third trial match in January 1928 when he had already been named in the role. But it is undeniable that Wight could point to better social connections and a more influential family than Dewhurst, who merely worked in Trinidad’s Customs and Excise Department.

The Trinidad press were furious that Dewhurst had been overlooked as captain and vice-captain. He was nevertheless included in the team as wicketkeeper – which itself was a surprise to some as it was half-expected that he would be unavailable – and appeared in several previews in the English and West Indian press which profiled the players. In England, The Cricketer magazine, in its spring issue, described him as “a first-rate wicketkeeper and a batsman who can adapt himself well to circumstances”. Others were less happy; an article in the Gleaner in Jamaica was critical of the inclusion of Dewhurst, “the man who it is said could not stand the fast bowling in the 1923 tour when one of our representatives, a bat, had to shoulder his work of wicketkeeping”. This view does not appear to have been expressed elsewhere. Furthermore, the selectors still thought highly of Dewhurst: they planned for him to be part of the selection committee during the tour, picking the team for each match, alongside Nunes and Wight.

By February 1928, Dewhurst had withdrawn from the team. The reasons are unclear; some press reports blamed illness, others “business” interests. It was also suggested in the press that Dewhurst missed the tour in a fit of pique at being overlooked as vice-captain; he was accused of poor sportsmanship in some quarters. Any of these are possible reasons, especially as his availability had been doubtful beforehand, but later events suggest that a dispute of some kind lay behind his withdrawal.

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The West Indies team that toured England in 1928

In Dewhurst’s absence, the team was unbalanced, as the selectors did not chose a direct replacement as wicketkeeper. There were several candidates mentioned in the press; even Piggott was suggested, although this drew the odd comment in the press that it may have been thought “undesirable to select Piggott”, presumably on the grounds of his colour or social status. Instead, the leg spinner Tommy Scott of Jamaica was chosen, having been controversially omitted at first. Nunes, at best an occasional wicketkeeper, took the role behind the stumps for most of the tour but came nowhere near Dewhurst’s standard. The team and bowlers suffered; almost every review of the tour criticised the fielding and wicketkeeping standards of the team. Results on the field were poor: the team won just five and lost twelve of its thirty first-class games; all three Tests were lost by an innings. The only real bright spot was the form of Learie Constantine, who completed the “double” of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in first-class games.

Recriminations started almost at once. Some newspapers carried reports of dissension among the players and suggested that Nunes was mismanaging the team. When he was approached during the tour, Dewhurst convinced a press interviewer that the withdrawal was not his fault but would not give details.

Dewhurst did not play for Trinidad in the 1929 Inter-Colonial Tournament; whether this for business reasons, or owing to a fall-out from the events of the previous year is not clear. Nelson Betancourt had taken over from Grant as captain, winning the competition.

In 1930, the MCC toured the West Indies once more and played four representative matches – the players did not consider them to be full Test matches and the games were only retrospectively classed as such. For each Test, the hosts were heavily favoured in selection, and many players appeared only at home, quite possibly, as a cost-saving exercise: in total, 27 players appeared for West Indies in the series.

Although the initial plan seems to have been for the West Indies to have one captain across the series – as had happened in 1926 – the lack of availability of many leading candidates meant that each match had a different captain, selected from the host colony. Early on, Dewhurst’s name was mentioned as a potential captain for at least the Trinidad Test. A newspaper in Barbados went as far as to say that he was the only suitable Trinidadian candidate for the captaincy. The same report suggested that “all the misunderstandings appear to have been amicably settled”, whatever that meant. However, while Dewhurst intended to play in the series, his superior at Customs and Excise was on leave during the crucial period and so, according to the Barbados press report, Dewhurst’s availability was very limited. But an odd little episode took place before the Trinidad Test.

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The West Indies team that played England in Trinidad during the 1930 series

In each colony, the MCC played the home side twice before playing a Test match against the West Indies. When the MCC reached Trinidad for the second Test, three men chose the home teams: Frederick Grant, the former captain; Joe Small, the only black selector, a member of the West Indies team in 1923 and 1928, and a man widely known for not rocking the boat; and Joseph Kelshall, a former Trinidad cricketer then aged 42. They chose different captains for Trinidad’s two matches against the MCC. Betancourt led the team to victory over the MCC in the first match. For the second, Dewhurst, playing his first game for the island since 1926, took charge but the MCC won (CricketArchive gets this wrong; although Dewhurst was in the team, the scorecard names a different captain and wicketkeeper. Contemporary press reports state that Dewhurst performed both roles). It was thus the 43-year-old Betancourt who led the West Indies in the Test match (He scored 39 and 13 in his only Test match). There was considerable fall-out from these decisions.

The storm in the Trinidad press reached the Jamaican Gleaner, which reprinted a story from The Sporting Chronicle of Trinidad. There may well have been other stories in the Trinidad press but unfortunately I cannot access them at the moment. The furious writer suspected a conspiracy against Dewhurst: “The selection of Betancourt in preference to Dewhurst was a pre-arranged affair, the latter being only given the leadership of the second Trinidad team in order to keep quiet a suspicious and already much chagrined public.” The author suggests that Dewhurst was deliberately given a sub-standard team which did not compare to that led by Betancourt. He notes that the bowler Edwin St Hill, who had played in the first Test in Barbados, was quite successful in the first Trinidad match but was omitted from the second. The given explanation – that St Hill was being rested in preparation for the Test match – was somewhat undermined when he was left out of the Test side; even more oddly, he went on to play in the next Test. The author believed St Hill was left out simply to weaken Dewhurst’s team and suggested that weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiation resulted in Dewhurst being “outmanoeuvred” (although he does not say by whom). He concluded that Dewhurst had outperformed Betancourt tactically but became victim to the “insularity and prejudice” of the Trinidad selectors. The author was a big supporter of Dewhurst, and if he is to be believed, so were the public. But I am reluctant to read too much into one article; cricket reporting in the Caribbean at this time seems to have been very parochial.

Dewhurst was not selected again for Trinidad or the West Indies, although his name continued to be mentioned as a candidate for a place in the team, even as captain; critics judged him to be still the best wicketkeeper in the West Indies, but suggested that outside factors made his appearance unlikely; one report, later in 1930, stated that minds had been “poisoned”. If the story behind these events was widely known at the time, the press did not put it into print and so from this distance it all seems very mysterious.

Why was Dewhurst not made captain or vice-captain in 1928 or 1930? No matter how much the Trinidad press may have exaggerated his claims or his popularity, he seems to have been widely respected and was a realistic candidate for both roles. We cannot know whether his reduced availability from 1927 onwards was connected to any dispute which caused him to pull out of the 1928 tour, such as the selectors favouring Nunes, or simply caused by pressures of work. Nor can we know for certain why he really missed the 1928 tour and was overlooked in 1930.

It is possible that a personality clash lay behind at least some of these events. His successors as Trinidad captain were both powerful figures. Nelson Betancourt was a fairly high ranking civil servant; as “Assistant Inspector of Mines”, he sat occasionally on the Legislative Council of Trinidad, but his main interest seems to have been sport, in which he was deeply involved. Frederick Geddes Grant, an undistinguished cricketer, was the son of the founder of T. Geddes Grant, a large distribution company which still operates; he became the company’s Managing Director in 1917. He also was involved in Trinidadian politics. As one of the driving forces behind the formation of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control, he was extremely influential and was himself a strong contender to captain the 1928 West Indies team. Furthermore, he was one of Trinidad’s selectors in 1930. His younger brothers Jackie and Rolph both captained the West Indies in the 1930s, despite possessing few cricketing credentials. Additionally, Dewhurst’s family recall rumours of bad blood between him and the Grants; this may explain some of the events between 1928 and 1930.

After this, Dewhurst fades from the cricket record, and I have little information on the rest of his life. His grand-daughter, who was only four when he died, recalls a kind, gentle man who patiently played cards with her. Dewhurst’s son Rex went on to become a respected cricket coach who was an early influence on Brian Lara. Dewhurst himself died in 1954. It is unlikely that the disputes between 1928 and 1930 seriously inconvenienced him. He would never have faced the hardships or prejudice of his black team-mates such as Piggott, whom he replaced in the team.

However, given that the captaincy of the West Indies in the 1920s and 1930s was only ever going to be held by white men, owing to the ethnicity and self-interest of those who ran cricket in the region, perhaps Dewhurst was unlucky in seemingly falling foul of politics. His tale is illustrative of how West Indies cricket was being run in this period. If the best players had been chosen, the team would have performed better. And there is a suggestion – albeit lukewarm – from an important voice that Dewhurst would have been a better captain than those chosen.

Learie Constantine, who toured England four times under four different West Indies captains, was a vocal opponent of the policy of white-only captains. During the ill-tempered 1928 tour, when factions and discord were rife within the team, Constantine and Nunes did not get along. Nor was Constantine a fan of the captaincy of Jackie and Rolph Grant on the 1933 and 1939 tours. In Cricket Crackers (1950), he wrote that the only West Indies captain from his time that he rated was H. B. G. Austin. The only other white captain whom Constantine believed was worthy of holding the position on merit (although he qualifies his recommendation by calling him “the one doubtful exception” to the lack of “a really capable or strong skipper for Tests”) was George Dewhurst.

This is perhaps the clinching argument that he was unfairly overlooked. While it is unlikely Dewhurst could have turned around the 1928 tour, which turned into a complete disaster for the West Indies, maybe he would have been more deserving than most of the other early captains. Maybe he should have been West Indies first Test captain. Instead, he never played a Test and, but for the writing of C. L. R. James, would have perhaps been completely forgotten.