While Bradman
was making waves in Australia, George Headley burst on the scene on the other
side of the world, in Jamaica. He came to be known as the ‘Black Bradman’. His
is quite a remarkable saga. Bradman apart, only three men have averaged sixty
in a complete Test career of reasonable duration - South African southpaw
Graeme Pollock 60.97, Headley 60.83 and Herbert Sutcliffe 60.73.
Headley’s
achievements are all the more creditable because West Indies then were only
taking their first tentative steps in the Test arena. About nine months younger
than Bradman, Headley made a more dramatic entry in Test cricket, hitting 176
in the second innings of his debut Test against England at Bridgetown in
1929-30.
He relished
English bowling, cracking a hundred in each innings, 114 and 112, of his third
Test at Georgetown in the team’s maiden triumph, and a double century, 223, in
his fourth Test, on home turf at Kingston. The colonial masters were humbled,
returning with the four-Test series drawn 1-1. It was a tremendous initiation
at the highest level, 703 runs at an average of 87.87. No wonder the happy
people of sunny Caribbean called Bradman the ‘White Headley’.
In the
testing 1930-31 tour Down Under, Headley notched up hundreds in the Brisbane
and Sydney Tests, encountering Bradman for the only time in his career. Bradman
himself scored 223 at Brisbane.
Headley
continued to flay England’s bowlers. A big hundred - 169 not out - at Old
Trafford in the 1933 series was followed by his top score of 270 not out, inevitably
at Kingston, in 1934. For the second time in Tests, Headley hit a century in
each innings, 106 and 107, this time in the hallowed arena of Lord’s in 1939.
Len Hutton
was an unabashed admirer of Headley, as he wrote in his Fifty Years in Cricket: “Headley rightly had a devoted following.
No one admired him more than I did, as I fielded at Lord’s in 1939 when he
scored faultless centuries in both innings on a losing side. For years he WAS
the West Indies batting, and he has to be mentioned in the same breath as
Bradman (the ‘white Headley’ according to Jamaicans), Hammond and Hobbs.
Clarrie Grimmett described him as ‘the greatest on-side player ever’. (He was)
one of cricket’s master batsmen who had never failed in a series between 1929
and 1939 and, as a scorer, was second only to Bradman.”
Just before
the Second World War broke out, Headley had scored 2135 runs at an average of
66.71 in 19 Tests. Thereafter he played one Test in each of three different
series upto 1953, managing only another 55 runs.
Upto the War,
rarely has a team depended so much on one batsman as the West Indies did on
Headley. He scored a quarter of their runs, two per cent more than Bradman did
for Australia. Strong on the back foot, he relished hitting past mid-on and handled
the bad wickets deftly. He brought fresh fragrance of Caribbean flair to the
international game, a pioneer in the long line of inherently gifted batsmen
from those distant pristine islands.
(Author Indra Vikram Singh
can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).
Don’s Century
Published in India by Sporting Links
ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0
Fully illustrated
Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
188 pages
