With the death of Everton Weekes on Wednesday at the age of 95, cricket lost one of its greatest batsmen.
Weekes was the last of a legendary trio of cricketing knights, known as the Three Ws, who oversaw the rise of West Indies cricket after the Second World War.
The numbers alone make impressive reading: in 48 Tests, played between 1948 and 1958, Weekes scored 4,455 runs at an average of 58.61. He made 15 centuries including five in an extraordinary sequence that remains a record till today.
Everton de Courcy Weekes was born in Pickwick Gap, Barbados on February 26, 1925. He was one of three West indies greats to be born within a mile and a half of each other over an 18-month period. The others were Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott. Together they were the Three Ws.
With Weekes, Walcott and Worrell in the middle-order, the West Indies rose from being a lightweight Test nation to world-leaders, laying the ground for the likes of Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards.
After retiring from Test cricket in 1958, Weekes continued playing in the Lancashire League in England, became an admired administrator and lethal bridge player, representing Barbados, and was knighted in 1995.
Here are some Twitter reactions to Weekes’ death:
[With inputs from AFP]
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