Au­gust 1, 2024, marked the cen­te­nary of Sir Frank Wor­rell’s birth. Many re­gard him as the quin­tes­sen­tial Caribbean man. He matched his ex­ploits on the crick­et field with his ac­tiv­i­ties off the field.

Born in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos, in 1924, he made his first-class de­but at age 17 for Bar­ba­dos. In 1947, he moved to Ja­maica and rep­re­sent­ed Ja­maica un­til 1964. In 1948, George Headley be­came the first West In­di­an cap­tain of colour in the first Test against Eng­land in Bar­ba­dos. In 1960, Frank Wor­rell be­came the first cap­tain of colour ap­point­ed for an en­tire se­ries.

Per­for­mances and im­pact must be un­der­stood in the pre­vail­ing so­cial and po­lit­i­cal cli­mate. Sir Frank came at a time when Caribbean minds could dare to think about self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and self-gov­er­nance. Uni­ver­sal Adult Suf­frage was first in­tro­duced in the 1950s, and con­fi­dence in be­ing able to self-gov­ern through in­de­pen­dence from Britain, which held the reins of pow­er for over 250 years, was grow­ing. Re­gion­al­ism was a fledg­ling thought, but each is­land was de­vel­op­ing a po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ty. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties had been formed, and peo­ple of colour were in the dis­cus­sion. Two re­gion­al bod­ies were emerg­ing: West In­dies Crick­et and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

Be­com­ing the fourth Test-play­ing na­tion of the Im­pe­r­i­al Crick­et Con­fer­ence (re­named the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil in 1987) in 1928, the team’s make-up was heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by the light­ness of one’s skin. Many be­lieve this cri­te­ri­on pre­vent­ed George Headley from mak­ing the West In­dies test tour­ing team. When the UWI opened in 1948 (as the Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of the West In­dies in re­la­tion­ship with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don), it brought young minds of the re­gion to­geth­er to study med­i­cine, of­fer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to all races to study at home. That year, Wor­rell made his de­but for the West In­dies.

He, Clyde Wal­cott and Ever­ton Weekes con­sti­tut­ed the fa­mous 3 Ws that would in­flu­ence world crick­et for decades. But crick­et then was as much a sport as a test of self-con­fi­dence. Crick­et was played in the plan­ta­tions of the West In­dies and was the on­ly place where mas­ter and work­er could play against and even with each oth­er (nev­er as equals!). Through lib­er­a­tion and be­yond, West In­di­an peo­ple’s de­sire to beat the for­mer mas­ters and colo­nial lead­ers could on­ly be re­alised through crick­et. So, when the West In­dies beat Eng­land in Eng­land in 1950, it was a crown­ing mo­ment for the re­gion for many rea­sons. And front and cen­ter of that was Wor­rell. That feat was re­peat­ed in 1953, but more im­por­tant­ly, the West In­dies was beat­ing oth­er teams with reg­u­lar­i­ty, fu­el­ing re­gion­al self-be­lief.

As his Test ca­reer grew, so did his rep­u­ta­tion as a man of rea­son and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The team re­lied on his ad­vice, as did young debu­tants such as Garfield Sobers. Play­ing for Ja­maica then, many young Ja­maican first-class crick­eters at­tribute their suc­cess to his ear­ly guid­ance. By the time he was ap­point­ed cap­tain for the tour of Aus­tralia in 1960-61, he was a tow­er­ing fig­ure in the team, a true all-rounder, very good at bat­ting, bowl­ing, and lead­ing! The team by then had Garfield Sobers, who had bro­ken the Test record by scor­ing 365 not out two years ear­li­er, and had the likes of Weekes and Kan­hai for bat­ting and Hall, Grif­fiths, and Gibbs for bowl­ing.

It was a spe­cial se­ries. In the first tied test, Gibbs took a hat­trick, and stiff com­pe­ti­tion end­ed with a de­feat for the West In­dies (2-1) which could eas­i­ly have been a 3-1 vic­to­ry for the West In­dies. It was not that they lost, but how they played that de­fined that se­ries as one of the best in his­to­ry. Much of that was be­cause of Wor­rell’s lead­er­ship on and off the field. So much so the send-off for the team from Mel­bourne on open bus­es saw 250,000 peo­ple bid­ding farewell.

https://www.es­p­n­cricin­fo.com/se­ries/west-in­dies-tour-of-aus­tralia-1960-61-61907/pho­to

His Test ca­reer end­ed in 1963 with dis­tin­guished per­son­al sta­tis­tics. But not be­fore an­oth­er in­ci­dent of note in 1962 when the tour­ing In­di­ans were play­ing Bar­ba­dos, and a ball from Char­lie Grif­fith hit cap­tain Nari Con­trac­tor on his head. Need­ing surgery, the next day, the first per­son to do­nate blood was Wor­rell. Such was the im­pact of this ac­tion that in 1981, the Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion of Ben­gal re­named their blood dri­ve to com­mem­o­rate this. They have had an­nu­al dri­ves since, lead­ing to tens of thou­sands of units of blood do­nat­ed in mem­o­ry of that ges­ture. The UWI named its blood dri­ve af­ter Sir Frank in 2009, which Nari Con­trac­tor launched.

The end of his crick­et­ing ca­reer was cer­tain­ly not the end of his con­tri­bu­tion to the re­gion. He joined the UWI as war­den of Irvine Hall. He was in­stru­men­tal in up­grad­ing the Mona play­ing fields for the 1966 Com­mon­wealth Games in Kingston. His con­tri­bu­tion to the uni­ver­si­ty and the re­gion has prompt­ed all crick­et grounds at UWI to bear his name, sole­ly at Mona and St Au­gus­tine and as the 3Ws Crick­et Oval at Cave Hill, where all three are buried.

In 1963, he was named to the Sen­ate of Ja­maica, where he served till he passed away. He was knight­ed by Queen Eliz­a­beth II for his ser­vice to crick­et in 1964. While on his fi­nal tour to In­dia in 1966-67 as part of the West In­dies man­age­ment team, he was di­ag­nosed with leukemia. He re­turned to Ja­maica and died a month lat­er at age 42. His short life achieved more than most do in a whole life span. He was the first sports­man to have a memo­r­i­al ser­vice at the West­min­ster Abbey.

The UWI con­tin­ues to ho­n­our him through the Frank Wor­rell Memo­r­i­al lec­ture se­ries at Cave Hill. In­au­gu­rat­ed by a speech in 1994 by Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter Michael Man­ley, the 22 lec­tures thus far have been de­liv­ered by six re­gion­al prime min­is­ters, one British, three CWI pres­i­dents, and three test cap­tains (Richie Be­naud (Aus­tralia), Nari Con­trac­tor (In­dia) and Ali Bach­er (South Africa). The lat­est pre­sent­ed by PM Mia Mot­ley stirred the minds and turned the necks of many in the re­gion.

Sir Frank be­lieved not on­ly in win­ning but al­so in play­ing the right way. He was an in­sti­tu­tion builder who be­lieved in struc­tures and prop­er Gov­er­nance. One won­ders what West In­dies crick­et would look like to­day had he lived an en­tire life span and what the West In­dies would be like.

Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh is Dean, Fac­ul­ty of Sport, The UWI. He can be reached at ak­shai.mans­ingh@uwi.edu