Tour of England 1928                Captain: Karl Nunes

First West Indies Test tour

First Test-playing tour of England by West Indies

  (April - October 1928)

This was the fourth visit to England by a West Indies team. The three previous (non-Test) tours were in 1900, 1906 and 1923.  The 'father' of West Indian cricket, Barbadian Harold Austin, had set up this tour in 1926 with Sir William Morrison of Kingston, Jamaica.  Austin’s contention that the playing record of the 1923 side touring England - played 26, won 12 -  advanced West Indies' claim to full Test status and convinced the Imperial Cricket Conference to admit West Indies to senior membership, until then made up of only three Test-playing nations.  Forming a Board of Control was a necessity for this tour to take place, creating one authoritative body fully representative of all the West Indian islands with whom the English cricket authorities could deal.

The new West Indian Board of Control met in January and June 1927 and on its behalf Englishman Harry Mallett began to arrange fixtures, transport and accommodation for the first official Test tour of England. The Board set up three trial matches in Barbados and then chose a tour party of sixteen players; seven of these had taken part in the last tour in 1923. However, the original nomination of 50 year-old Austin as captain for the six month tour was soon seen as a step too far. Now President of the new Board of Control, he withdrew.  39 year-old George Challenor, the senior player, also declined the opportunity to lead the side. Unfortunately, being able to concentrate on his batting did not especially help him for he was a failure compared with his 1923 form.  Captaincy settled upon the Jamaican Karl Nunes.

The Board sought to play in Australia before making their way to England but the Australian Cricket Board turned that request down and invited a West Indian team to tour Australia in 1929-30 instead.

The tourists were not as strong as the 1923 side and their fielding was particularly poor. West Indies lost each of the three Test matches by an innings' margin. Learie Constantine shone as an all-rounder, achieving the ‘double’ of 1381 first-class runs and 107 wickets in the season, although he had little success in the Test matches.

Other West Indies tours

No Previous tours

Next tour

To Australia 1930-31

Next tour of England

1933

Members of the Test tour party   (17)

Opening batsmen: Clifford Roach, Freddie Martin, George Challenor.

Middle-order batsmen:  Wilton St Hill, Edward Bartlett, Teddy Hoad, Vibart Wight, Ernest Rae.

Wicket-keepers:   Maurice Fernandes, Karl Nunes.

Slow bowlers:  James Neblett, Tommy Scott

Fast bowlers:  'Snuffy' Brown, Joe Small, Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith.

Regional representation :

B – Barbados (5)

BG - British Guiana (4) (often then described as Demerera)

Ja  -  Jamaica (4)

T  - Trinidad (4)

Two of the British Guiana players wer Barbados-born: Browne and Neblett.

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(23 June 1928) :

      31 yrs  6 months.

Test Appearances made before the tour

None

Tour Officials

Selectors

Major G S Cox,  P A Goodman,  J G Kelshall,  C V Wight,  C Shankland,  with H B G Austin (President of WICB).

Selection

On 23 June 1927 when the West Indies Board was constituted and Harold Austin was made its first President, he was also nominated as captain of the touring team in England.

On 10 July 1927 the names of nine players being asked whether they were available for the tour were announced: H B G Austin, L N Constantine, G A Dewhurst, G John, V Pascall, C A Roach, W St Hill, B Sealey, J Small.

Withdrawal:    H B G Austin.

The captain and vice-captain were appointed at a meeting of the WI Board on the evening of 6 January 1928.  Karl Nunes had led West Indies regularly in England in 1923 when Harold Austin was ill and absent most of the time.

Three trial matches were held at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown:

Trinidad-Guyana  v  Barbados-Jamaica;

P H Tarilton's XI  v  C A Wiles's XI;

Barbados-born X I v  Rest of West Indies

Tour Party Announced :  11 January 1928.

Five members of the announced team had not participated in the trials:  Browne, Fernandes, Martin, Nunes, Scott.

Withdrawal   George Dewhurst ( T).  Tommy Scott and Maurice Fernandes were then added to the touring party.  Nunes would now share wicket-keeping duties with Fernandes.

Not selected : The following sixteen were not selected following the trial matches: H B G Austin, L S Birkett, E Cherubin, C Durant, V Hardy, L G Hylton, H W Ince, C Innis, G John, C Jones, N N Nethersole, V Pascall, B J Sealey, P H Tarilton, O S Wight, C A Wiles.

Time between selection and departure from West Indies

 82 days

 (11 January - 2 April)

Travel

 Port of Spain  T    Avonmouth

                    ‘Camito’

The Jamaican and 'Demerera' (ie British Guiana) cricketers assembled at Port of Spain and, with the Trinidadians, left Port of Spain on 2 April sailing to Barbados. The completed team (less Ernest Rae and assistant manager Joe Seheult, who travelled from New York) sailed from Bridgetown across the Atlantic on the R M S 'Camito'. The original plan had been that the team should use ss 'Inanda'. 

The 'Camito' arrived at Avonmouth (Bristol Docks) in a bitterly cold wind on Monday 16 April and the team was met at Paddington Station (London)  by their English manager, R H Mallett.

Time spent in England

   143 days

(16 April - 28 September)

On-tour selection panel

Karl Nunes (captain),  Vibart Wight (vice-captain),  Harry Mallett (manager).

Reinforcements

There were no official reinforcements though G C ‘Jackie’ Grant was co-opted to help out in the final matches.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

Time spent in England before First Test:

 68 days

(16 April - 23 June)

Time from end of final Test until departure from England   45 days

(14 August - 28 September)

Test appearances on tour

3  -  Challenor,  Constantine,  Francis,  Griffith,  Martin,  Nunes,  Roach.

2 -   Browne,  St Hill,  Scott,  Small.

1  -  Bartlett,  Fernandes,  Hoad,  Wight.

0 -   Neblett,  Rae.

Highlights

•    Learie Constantine achieved “the double” of 100 first-class wickets and 1000 runs during the season.

•    Three other batsmen – Roach, Martin and Challenor – also scored 1000 first-class runs in the season

•    The next most successful bowlers were Griffith (76 wickets), Francis (56) and Small (50).

•    Against Northamptonshire Constantine scored a century (107) and did the hat-trick

•    Hermann Griffith's six wickets for 103 runs at The Oval was West Indies' first five-wicket haul in a Test match.

•    Clifford Roach scored fifties in each of the last two Tests.

Tour Summary

Return to West Indies

London   T   Bridgetown

              ‘Ingoma’

Avonmouth   T   Kingston

                 ‘Bayano’

On Friday 28 September the bulk of the team sailed home from West India Docks, London, on HLS 'Ingoma'.  Mallett saw them off at the quayside.

Challenor and Wight stayed in England for a few weeks and left in early November, while Seheult spent a month with friends in France where his family were originally from.  The Jamaicans (Martin, Nunes, Rae and Scott) had earlier left Paddington Station for Bristol on 27 September and sailed from Avonmouth on the 'Bayano', reaching Kingston on 13 October.

The 'Ingoma' anchored in Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown, at 3 pm on 13 October and the Barbadians disembarked.  Constantine, Roach, St Hill and Small left the ship at Port of Spain on 16 October, while Browne, Fernandes and Neblett pressed on to Georgetown, arriving two days later.

Time away from West Indies    194 days 

 (2 April  to 13 October)

Finances

The West India Club in England held a sum of £250 in hand from the 1923 tour which was used for preliminary expenses. The West Indian Cricket Board of Control received £820 in advances from the colonies while Mr A C O'Dowd advanced £1,000 towards the initial expenses of the tour. 

With a surplus of £2197 from the tour the Board was able to refund those advances, as well as refund £250 clerical and other expenses to manager R H Mallett and grant an honorarium to him of £250, and £100 to assistant manager J E Seheult..

Published accounts of the tour

"The West Indies Cricket Guide"     F S Ashley-Cooper.

"A Nation Imagined"  (2003)   by Hilary M Beckles  (Barnes & Noble).

Postscript

The Sporting Chronicle of Trinidad, looking forward to West Indies’ captain in its next series against MCC in 1929-30, urged that it should not again be Nunes, writing: “If the Board flies in the face of public opinion and the opinions of the players who were under him in 1928, then they will be solely to blame for whatever failures such a move might bring in its train. The players do not want him under any circumstances.” 

West Indians v Bolton League

At Piggott Park, Farnworth      Saturday 22 September 1928

Bolton League Team  94 and  86-2 dec   West Indians  111  and 102-4

(Constantine scored 65 in 18 minutes with 8 fours, 5 sixes, three singles)

Match arranged by Dr V S Lucas in aid of the Social Circle Club funds. Roscoe and Stones were players from the Social Circle Club.

Dull day and bad light so a disappointing crowd of less than 2000.

 “… Further along [Guidepost Road] was, later, built a house and surgery for Dr Vincent St Claire Lucas. He was a very large West Indian doctor who was later to become the first Freeman of the Borough of Farnworth. A memorial window dedicated to this very well respected doctor is in All Saints Church Farnworth. (Also Lucas Road was named in his memory)”  from http://www.boltonrevisited.org.uk/a-pigott-st.html    by Arthur Clough.

http://www.boltonrevisited.org.uk/p-dr-lucas.html  

SEE also newsletter 20 (January 1998) of the Black & Asian Studies Association

 “Further down Piggott Street on the other side of Barton Road was and still is, Piggott Park, home of the Social Circle cricket club. (I often wonder how this name came about. The playing area is circular, but what about Social?)”