Vin­ode Mam­chan

West In­dies' for­mer tear­away fast bowler Wes­ley Hall was in­duct­ed in­to the ICC Crick­et Hall of Fame on June 11, rais­ing the tal­ly of Caribbeanin­ducteesto 18.

A to­tal of 80 il­lus­tri­ous play­ers have been be­stowed with the pres­ti­gious ho­n­our­for their ser­vices and con­tri­bu­tions to the sport.

Hall re­ceived his com­mem­o­ra­tive cap from fel­low ICC Crick­et Hall of Famer, Court­ney Walsh, dur­ing the lunch break on the open­ing day of the sec­ond crick­et Test be­tween the West In­dies and Aus­tralia at the Sabi­na Park.

Al­so present at the cer­e­mo­ny were ICC Di­rec­tor and West In­dies Crick­et Board Pres­i­dent Dave Cameron,Clive Lloyd and Sir Ever­ton Weekes.

Hall is the fourth crick­eter this year to be in­duct­ed in­to the ICC Crick­et Hall of Fame af­ter Bet­ty Wil­son, Anil Kum­ble and Mar­tin Crowe, who were in­duct­ed ear­li­er this year dur­ing the ICC Crick­et World Cup 2015.

Com­ment­ing on his in­clu­sion in­to the ICC Crick­et Hall of Fame, Hall said,"I feel priv­i­leged and in­deed ho­n­oured to be giv­en this tremen­dous award. I have not­ed the list and it has some tremen­dous crick­eters�he­roes who have made the game what it is to­day. So, I am hum­bled to be in­clud­ed among these many greats of the game.

"Any­time you get these kind of en­comi­ums, it is mem­o­rable. It is fan­tas­tic to re­ceive the award in the West In­dies and in front of ador­ing fans, which makes it even more spe­cial. I have rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies as a crick­eter, as the team man­ag­er, and as the Pres­i­dent of the WICB, so I will treat this as some­thing I val­ue and will al­ways re­mem­ber.

"Fast bowl­ing was my hall­mark and I en­joyed my mo­ments on the crick­et field. I en­joyed rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of the West In­dies and con­tribut­ing to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of the game and the re­gion. Crick­et has been ex­treme­ly good to me and I was hap­py to give back to the game. This ho­n­our, pre­sent­ed to me by the ICC, is one I will cher­ish. It is not just for me but for the peo­ple of the West In­dies."

Hall, born on Sep­tem­ber 12,1937 in­Glebe Land, Sta­tion Hill, St Michael, Bar­ba­dos, played in 48 Tests from 1958 to 1969 in which he took 192 wick­ets, in­clud­ing five wick­ets in an in­nings nine times and 10 wick­ets in a match on one oc­ca­sion. In 170 first-class match­es, Hall claimed 546 wick­ets at an av­er­age of 26.14.

He was first se­lect­ed on the 1957 tour of Eng­land with on­ly one first-class game to his name but didn't play any Tests.

He was then cho­sen for the 1958-59 tours to In­dia and Pak­istan and fin­ished with 46 wick­ets in eight Tests.

In the third Test against Pak­istan at Bagh-e-Jin­nah, La­hore, Hall took the wick­ets of Mush­taq Mo­ham­mad, Nasim-ul-Ghani and Fazal Mah­mood to be­come the first West In­dies bowler to claim a hat-trick.

Hall al­so fea­tured in the fa­mous tied Test against Aus­tralia in Bris­bane in De­cem­ber 1960 where he took match fig­ures of nine for 203, in­clud­ing five for 63 in the sec­ond in­nings. He bowled the last over of the match as Aus­tralia, re­quir­ing six runs for vic­to­ry with three wick­ets stand­ing, was bowled out for 232 on the penul­ti­mate de­liv­ery.

In an­oth­er epic fin­ish in the 1963 Lord's Test against Eng­land, Hall­bowled un­changed for three-and-a-half hours in the sec­ond in­nings and took four for 93 as the match end­ed in a draw with Eng­land, chas­ing 234 for vic­to­ry, fin­ished at 228 for nine.

In 1964-65, his 16 wick­ets were in­stru­men­tal in guid­ing the West In­dies to its first se­ries win over Aus­tralia. He re­tired, along with his new ball part­ner Char­lie Grif­fith, at the end of the tour of Aus­tralia and New Zealand in 1968-69.

Af­ter re­tire­ment, he be­come an or­dained min­is­ter as well as the Min­is­ter of Tourism and Sport in the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment. He al­so man­aged West In­dies tour­ing sides and in 2001 took over as the Pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Crick­et Board.

The process for the se­lec­tion of play­ers in­to the ICC Crick­et Hall of Fame start­ed in 2014, when the ICC Chair­man in­vit­ed all the liv­ing ICC Crick­et Hall of Famers to send their nom­i­na­tions to the ICC. The ICC Nom­i­na­tions Com­mit­tee then re­duced the long-list to 10 men and three women.

The short-list was then sent to the Vot­ing Acad­e­my, which in­clud­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all the 10 Full Mem­bers, me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all the 10 Full Mem­bers, As­so­ciate & Af­fil­i­ate Mem­bers, women's crick­et and FI­CA rep­re­sen­ta­tives as well as liv­ing ICC Hall of Famers. The ICC col­lat­ed the nom­i­na­tions and for­ward­ed the bal­lot pa­pers to the au­di­tors who pro­vid­ed the fi­nal re­sults.

ICC Crick­et Hall of Fame � ini­tial in­ductees (55)

Syd­ney Barnes, Bis­han Be­di, Alec Bedser, Richie Be­naud, Al­lan Bor­der, Ian Both­am, Ge­of­frey Boy­cott, Don­ald Brad­man, Greg Chap­pell, Ian Chap­pell, De­nis Comp­ton, Col­in Cow­drey, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Lance Gibbs, Gra­ham Gooch, David Gow­er, WG Grace, Tom Graveney, Gor­don Greenidge, Richard Hadlee, Wal­ter Ham­mond, Neil Har­vey, George Headley, Jack Hobbs, Michael Hold­ing, Leonard Hut­ton, Ro­han Kan­hai, Im­ran Khan, Alan Knott, Jim Lak­er, Harold Lar­wood, Den­nis Lillee, Ray Lind­wall, Clive Lloyd, Hanif Mo­ham­mad, Rod­ney Marsh, Mal­colm Mar­shall, Pe­ter May, Javed Mian­dad, Kei­th Miller, Bill O'Reil­ly, Graeme Pol­lock, Wil­fred Rhodes, Bar­ry Richards, Vi­vian Richards, Andy Roberts, Garfield Sobers, Bri­an Statham, Fred True­man, Derek Un­der­wood, Clyde Wal­cott, Ever­ton Weekes, Frank Wool­ley, Frank Wor­rell

2009-10 In­ductees (five)

Her­bert Sut­cliffe, Steve Waugh, Wasim Akram, Vic­tor Trumper and Clar­rie Grim­mett

2010-11 In­ductees (four)

Rachael Hey­hoe-Flint, Ken Bar­ring­ton, Court­ney Walsh and Joel Gar­ner

2011-12 In­ductees (four)

Be­lin­da Clark, Fred­er­ick Spof­forth, Curt­ly Am­brose and Alan David­son

2012-13 In­ductees (four)

Enid Bakewell, Bri­an Lara, Glenn Mc­Grath and Shane Warne

2013-14 In­ductees (four)

Adam Gilchrist, Deb­bie Hock­ley, Bob Simp­son and Waqar You­nis

2014-15 In­ductees (four)

Anil Kum­ble, Bet­ty Wil­son, Mar­tin Crowe and Wes­ley Hall.