The Past Crick­eters So­ci­ety wish­es to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press our con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the late Shel­don “Shelly” An­tho­ny Gomes, who met his un­time­ly death on 15 Sep­tem­ber 2020 at the age of 69. Shelly, a true son of the soil of the Bor­ough of Ari­ma, was a mem­ber of one of the most icon­ic sport­ing fam­i­lies to adorn our na­tion­al land­scape. All 5 broth­ers, Shelly, Lar­ry, Lester, Gre­go­ry and Randy rep­re­sent­ed North/East with dis­tinc­tion in the Wes Hall Un­der 19 Youth Crick­et League. Shelly, Lar­ry and Randy went on to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Na­tion­al Un­der 19 lev­el; with Shelly and Lar­ry go­ing on to play for the Na­tion­al se­nior team; Lar­ry even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing a West In­di­an Leg­end. Not to be out­done, his 5 sis­ters went on to pur­sue ca­reers in bank­ing, busi­ness and in the air­line in­dus­try.

In his teenage years the dash­ing, young, tal­ent­ed Shel­don ex­celled at both Crick­et and Foot­ball for Holy Cross Col­lege, even­tu­al­ly se­cur­ing an Ath­let­ics schol­ar­ship to Queen's Roy­al Col­lege in 1967. In as­sist­ing QRC to win the Col­leges League for 2 years straight, he scored 37 goals for QRC in the 1967/1968 and was one of the 5 na­tion­al foot­ballers of the year; scor­ing 23 goals the fol­low­ing year. Re­mark­ably he was not one-di­men­sion­al. In 1968, while still play­ing for QRC, he scored cen­turies against Queen's Park, Es­sex, Reg­i­ment, Maple and Shan­non, tal­ly­ing 632 runs, com­pared to the tal­is­man­ic Joey Carew's 637. He was named sports­man of the year at QRC and one of the 5 na­tion­al crick­eters of the year for 1968.

Be­ing se­lect­ed for the Na­tion­al se­nior team in 1969 brought Shel­don in­stant fame and no­to­ri­ety. Scor­ing ducks in his first 3 in­nings, Shel­don be­came the butt of many a joke. But every­one knew he could on­ly get bet­ter. Kept on the team be­cause of his field­ing prowess, he even­tu­al­ly be­came a fix­ture. He scored con­sis­tent­ly; topped the re­gion­al bat­ting av­er­ages in 1976; com­piled 5 first-class cen­turies in 1977 in­clud­ing: 213 ver­sus Ja­maica; 126 against Bar­ba­dos; 112 ver­sus Guyana; 100 ver­sus South; he al­so made 88 against the tour­ing In­di­ans. Odd­ly enough, be­lieve it or not, his per­for­mance in 1977 was viewed by the West In­di­an se­lec­tors as not mer­it­ing se­lec­tion for the West In­dies tour to In­dia even though our Se­nior play­ers were con­tract­ed to play in the Ker­ry Pack­er se­ries in Aus­tralia. Ranked among the best West In­di­an field­s­men, his ser­vices were in con­stant de­mand by West In­dies Test Cap­tains as an emer­gency field­s­man. Whether he was pa­trolling the cov­ers or tak­ing up the most feared po­si­tion at short leg, his low cen­tre of grav­i­ty, quick­ness, brav­ery, in­stinc­tive re­flex­es, fit­ness and su­perb wrist and shoul­der strength meant that no half-chance went a-beg­ging.

He closed his 15-year club and 14-year re­gion­al Crick­et ca­reer in 1983 at the ten­der age of 32 af­ter which he mi­grat­ed to New York, USA where he con­tin­ued to play recre­ation­al­ly and con­duct­ed coach­ing pro­grammes. He played 55 first-class match­es: scored 2645 run, in­clud­ing 5 cen­turies and 15 half-cen­turies, with an av­er­age of 32.65 and tak­ing 48 catch­es in the process.

Shel­don, right-hand bats­man, was by far the quin­tes­sen­tial crick­eter. He must have had in­stilled in him from the very ten­der age that crick­et was a gen­tle­man's game. He nev­er failed to live up to that ide­al. Shel­don was soft-spo­ken, shy, a thinker of the game and nev­er har­boured ill-feel­ings to­wards any­one. His ad­vice, honed by count­less years of ex­pe­ri­ence, was al­ways con­struc­tive. I re­call com­ing back from uni­ver­si­ty and play­ing in the na­tion­al tri­als for the first time. Shelly, who was in the win­ter of his re­gion­al ca­reer, and I had seen off the main bowlers and the oth­er side brought on a part-time bowler. I was ea­ger and ex­cit­ed to get some free runs. Shelly came down the wick­et to me and gave me the fol­low­ing sage­ly ad­vice: “Don't beat him out of the at­tack. Let us milk him and we can add an­oth­er 20 or 30 runs on the board.” That ad­vice is as rel­e­vant now as it was then.

Our So­ci­ety has since 2013 been ho­n­our­ing crick­eters, um­pires and ad­min­is­tra­tors (both past and present) for their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the game. In 2017 we had the priv­i­lege of recog­nis­ing Shel­don for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to lo­cal and na­tion­al crick­et and de­vel­op­ment in an event held in his home­town of Ari­ma. We tru­ly be­lieve you de­serve the high­est ac­co­lades. We mourn your pass­ing and shed tears at your un­time­ly death. On be­half of The Past Crick­eters So­ci­ety, many of whose mem­bers con­sid­er you a friend, I ex­press our deep­est con­do­lences to the Gomes' fam­i­ly. May you rest in Eter­nal Peace.

Jus­tice Prakash Moo­sai

Chair­man

The Past Crick­eters' So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ed­i­tor's Note
Shel­don An­tho­ny Gomes was crea­mat­ed on Sun­day 4th Oc­to­ber in Las Ve­gas, USA his ash­es would be re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go for bur­ial at the San­ta Rosa RC ceme­tery on a date to be an­nounced.