By Clayton Goodwin
Clyde Walcott is often in danger of being the “forgotten man” of the legendary three Ws – the other two being Frank Worrell and Everton Weekes. His achievements, considerable as they have been, are overlooked when it comes to handing out superlatives. Even though the statistics of his fame leap from the pages of the record-books, the mystique is not quite the same. The familiar saying that Worrell was revered, Walcott was respected, and Weekes was loved, goes some way towards an explanation. Walcott did not quite seem to have the “common touch” which his colleagues enjoyed in abundance. And yet, it could be said, Clyde’s achievements have had the more permanent impact on cricket as it is played today. As Worrell’s legacy is based as much on his latter-day captaincy as his performances with bat and bat, that of Walcott derives from his administrative skills after his playing days were over.
Peter Mason has gone a long way to setting the record right in his book Clyde Walcott – Statesman of West Indies cricket which he introduced to The Cricket Society earlier this year. To illustrate this view the author has chosen to work from his study of the written word, and selected personal comments, which he does well, rather than to interview Walcott’s family and those who knew him more intimately. In that way, he seeks to avoid being swayed by subjective sentiment. And while that works to the extent of confirming, and enhancing, the impression that Sir Clyde Leopold Walcott was indeed an outstanding statesman it leaves the “human” aspect much as it is. That is evident in one particularly important respect. Mason draws more attention that most writers to how close his subject came to the West Indies captaincy and how he fell quickly out of contention. That is welcome.
The captaincy of the West Indies team which toured England in 1957 was controversial from the start, and it remains so. At the time the selection of retired former skipper John Goddard seemed to be incomprehensible, and it still does. In his book Everything Under The Sun, Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Goddard’s heir and successor, indicates that he considered himself to have been elbowed out of the job. Denis Atkinson, who was left stranded after just leading a young West Indies side to victory in New Zealand, and popular favourite Frank Worrell were passed over for the vice-captaincy in favour of Walcott, who, at the time, was considered to be an outsider. Mason rightly shows that Clyde had a far stronger hand than appeared then to the world outside the Caribbean. In short, Walcott, a Barbadian, had revitalised cricket in British Guiana (now Guyana) and led that then colony to victory in the regional domestic tournament.
Nevertheless, the appointment was not successful. By the time the tour was over Worrell rather than Walcott was the favourite to become the West Indies first regular black captain. When the former was not available to accept the honour, due to his studies, the untested Jerry Alexander was preferred to Walcott, who then bowed out of Test cricket (though he appeared briefly later on). Having posed the question perceptively, the author cannot find an adequate explanation. It may well indeed be that “human factor”. While being friendly and agreeable to those he admired and respected, Walcott had a reputation for not suffering fools gladly and, it is said, that people were a little intimated before they got to know him, and he them.
It may be down to the perception of power. That is the quality most associated with Clyde Walcott. Power on the field of play – he was a big man physically – and power in his dealings afterwards. I can attest to the former. As a schoolboy I witnessed the West Indian early batting being nibbled away by the Kent bowlers at Canterbury before Walcott, in a double-century fifth-wicket partnership with Nyron Asgarali, which he dominated and – as Wisden reported: “Walcott, the captain, swung the game the other way with a wonderful display of driving”. Yes, those strokes were powerful. Power. That is just the quality needed in a “statesman” and Peter Mason is right to draw that our attention and to posterity.