Nass­er Khan

The dis­mal per­for­mances of our re­gion­al crick­et team in re­cent years leave many a fan wist­ful­ly think­ing back on the tru­ly great play­ers of the past. To dis­tract from the pain of the re­cent abysmal show­ings of the West In­dies, we be­gin a se­ries that will hope­ful­ly raise our hopes that an­oth­er true su­per­star is around the cor­ner.

Learie Con­stan­tine was des­tined to be­come one of the great­est all­rounders the world had ever seen from the time of his birth in Diego Mar­tin in 1901. His veins flowed with crick­et­ing blood–his fa­ther Le­brun's and his mom's broth­er, Vic­tor Pas­call's, the for­mer rep­re­sent­ing both T&T and the West In­dies and the lat­ter T&T.

Be­ing ex­posed to crick­et at an ear­ly age, young Learie showed a keen en­thu­si­asm for the game along with great co­or­di­na­tion and ath­leti­cism.

He pro­gressed through his ear­ly crick­et­ing foun­da­tion on a plan­ta­tion es­tate in St Ann's (his fam­i­ly was orig­i­nal­ly from Mar­aval), on to St Ann's RC School where he cap­tained the first eleven team.

There­after, he worked as an of­fice boy on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, a place where his in­ter­est in the le­gal pro­fes­sion be­gan. Soon he burst in­to Vic­to­ria's (lat­er Shan­non) First XI, cap­tained by his fa­ther. In spite of his rel­a­tive­ly young age, his de­vel­op­ing tal­ents saw him play­ing for Shan­non, cap­tained by Wilton St Hill (WI, 1928-1930, 3 Tests), com­pet­ing against the likes of Maple/Sting, Sham­rock and Queen's Park. That he would go on to be­come the West In­dies and T&T's first glob­al su­per­star (the first non-white pro­fes­sion­al in Eng­land) and role mod­el, and play a ma­jor part in lift­ing his peo­ple to a new lev­el of re­spect with­in the British Com­mon­wealth, was unimag­in­able at that time. Add to that, the fact that he be­came one of the biggest draw­ing cards in the his­to­ry of the game as one of the great­est all rounders ever.

His field­ing an­tics, (mirac­u­lous was one de­scrip­tive from some who saw him) es­pe­cial­ly, en­deared him to his fans. Don Brad­man rat­ed him as the "great­est field­s­man ever." Neville Car­dus, fa­mous crick­et writer said: "When Con­stan­tine plays the whole man plays, not just the pro­fes­sion­al crick­eter part of him. There is noth­ing in the world for him when he bats, save a ball to be hit–and a bound­ary to be hit over. "When he bowls, the world is three wick­ets, there to be sent spin­ning glo­ri­ous­ly. Crick­et, in­deed, is Con­stan­tine's el­e­ment; to say that he plays crick­et, or takes part in it, is to say that a fish goes swim­ming. Con­stan­tine is crick­et, West In­di­an crick­et...."

The com­mon touch

While his sta­tis­tics are not flat­ter­ing he scored 28 first class fifties (4 in Tests), held 133 catch­es and took five or more wick­ets in a Test match on six oc­ca­sions (twice tak­ing five in one in­nings).

No doubt to­day's one day/20-20 for­mat would have been ide­al­ly suit­ed to him. In 1933 when his club Nel­son for which he played in nine suc­cess­ful sea­sons (win­ning sev­en cham­pi­onships...a one man wreck­ing army it is said) in the Lan­cashire League re­fused to re­lease him for the first and third Tests at Lord's and the Oval, both of which we lost, one lament­ing fan com­posed a dit­ty to the strains of "O' my dar­ling...Con­stan­tine," which ex­pressed the es­teem in which his fans held him.

In the 2nd Test, in which he did play, the West In­dies held on for a draw such was the val­ue of the man to the Windies at that time.

There is an ac­count that a study by math­e­mati­cians at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty con­clud­ed that he bowled at speeds of 85 mph, faster than even Lar­wood, the fa­mous speed­ster at the time. Dur­ing his ear­ly days in Eng­land he cam­paigned tire­less­ly against a se­lec­tion process–both in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and at home in the West In­dies–that favoured those of white skin, re­gard­less of tal­ent. His ef­forts led to se­lec­tors be­ing pushed to­wards the se­lec­tion based on mer­i­toc­ra­cy. As CLR James put it: "He re­volt­ed against the re­volt­ing con­trast be­tween his first class sta­tus as a crick­eter and his third class sta­tus as a man."

For every sto­ry of his in­cred­i­ble and ex­plo­sive per­for­mances with bat, ball or field­ing on the field of play there are match­ing ex­ploits of the man off the field of play. He al­so played crick­et for the Wind­hill crick­et club in the Brad­ford League in Eng­land, and in the Liv­er­pool and Dis­trict Leagues in Ire­land and Scot­land. He was in­vit­ed to go to In­dia to coach and to take part in the Ma­hara­jah's gold cup tour­na­ment; he coached for three months in Cey­lon and at the Trin­i­ty Col­lege in Dublin. He end­ed his Test ca­reer in 1939 at the Oval in Eng­land with a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly stage com­mand­ing per­for­mance tak­ing 5-75 and scor­ing 70 scorch­ing runs in one hour.

His affin­i­ty for the le­gal world saw him be­ing called to the bar in the UK in 1954 at age 53, (and in 1955 in T&T) his stick-to-it de­ter­mi­na­tion and per­se­ver­ance pay­ing off even­tu­al­ly.

His fam­i­ly faced racial re­ac­tions when they moved to Nel­son in 1929 but his friend­ly de­meanor, along with his pro­fes­sion­al crick­et­ing sta­tus, even­tu­al­ly en­deared him to the vast ma­jor­i­ty. In 1944, he suc­cess­ful­ly sued the Im­pe­r­i­al Ho­tel in Lon­don for re­fus­ing to re­ceive him, such was his de­ter­mi­na­tion to fight racism and his sense of high morals. In 1946, he was elect­ed cap­tain of an all white Do­min­ion team that beat Eng­land at Lord's in an end-of-war game. He re­turned to T&T as an as­sis­tant le­gal ad­vis­er in 1955 (for Trinidad Lease­holds, lat­er Tex­a­co), joined the rul­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ty and fought and won the Tu­na­puna seat. He served as min­is­ter in The Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty Works and Util­i­ties fol­low­ing which, from 1961-64, he was the first High Com­mis­sion­er to Lon­don, Eng­land, a po­si­tion which al­so al­lowed him to take part in In­de­pen­dence talks around that time.

He lat­er had a dis­pute with Dr Er­ic Williams which saw the end of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer in T&T. He was mar­ried to Nor­ma Cox and had a daugh­ter, Glo­ria Valere who re­sides in Trinidad, un­til his death in 1971 of lung and heart com­pli­ca­tions at Home­stead, UK. He was post-hu­mous­ly award­ed T&T's high­est ho­n­our, the Trin­i­ty Cross.

At his fu­ner­al ser­vice in the Cathe­dral in Port-of-Spain, Arch­bish­op An­tho­ny Pan­tin called him: "....a man who walked with kings with­out los­ing the com­mon touch." Record­ed at the NALIS Her­itage li­brary in Port-of-Spain are some mem­o­rable mo­ments in his ca­reer in­clud­ing:

�2 1929, for T&T ver­sus Bar­ba­dos, scored his high­est first class score of 133.

�2 1930, his first Test match there, ver­sus Eng­land, scored 52, took 6 wick­ets and held 2 catch­es.

�2 1935, his sec­ond and last Test there, ver­sus Eng­land, scored 90 and 31, took 5 wick­ets and held 1 catch in the game. WI won by 217 runs, sav­ing his hero­ics to thrill the crowds with the penul­ti­mate ball to take the fi­nal wick­et.

�2 19,000+ life long col­lec­tion of books, mag­a­zines, ar­ti­cles, let­ters, pho­tographs, mem­o­ra­bil­ia of all sorts cov­er­ing the var­i­ous spheres of life, par­tic­u­lar­ly crick­et, of the leg­endary Learie Con­stan­tine.

This un­doubt­ed­ly is the largest sin­gle per­son­al col­lec­tion of ma­te­r­i­al in any one lo­ca­tion which has "crick­et" as its cen­tral theme and is a tes­ti­mo­ny to his pas­sion for read­ing, writ­ing, and doc­u­ment­ing for over 50 years from 1920-1971. He con­tin­ued to play char­i­ty match­es in­to his fifties, at times dis­play­ing flash­es of his all round tal­ent.

Mem­o­rable games at the Queen's Park Oval / Trinidad:

�2 1929, for T&T ver­sus Bar­ba­dos, scored his high­est first class score of 133.

�2 1930, his first Test match there, ver­sus Eng­land, scored 52, took six wick­ets and held two catch­es.

�2 1935, his sec­ond and last Test there, ver­sus Eng­land, scored 90 and 31, took five wick­ets and held one catch in the game. WI won by 217 runs, sav­ing his hero­ics to thrill the crowds with the penul­ti­mate ball to take the fi­nal wick­et.

Mem­o­rable mo­ments

�2 1921: At the Queen's Park Oval, age 20, along with his un­cle Vic­tor Pas­call. Af­ter just three first class match­es, he was se­lect­ed to play for T&T ver­sus Bar­ba­dos.

�2 1922: Played along­side his dad for T&T ver­sus British Guiana at Bour­da, an oc­ca­sion long cher­ished nat­u­ral­ly by both men.

�2 1923: He was aboard the SS Inta­ba, se­lect­ed for a West In­di­an team (pre-Test sta­tus) to Eng­land. There he show­cased his tal­ents build­ing a huge rep­u­ta­tion with ex­plo­sive bursts of fast bowl­ing, pow­er­ful bat­ting and elec­tri­fy­ing field­ing.

�2 1924: He pro­duced his best ever bowl­ing per­for­mance 8-38 for T&T ver­sus Bar­ba­dos at Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos.

�2 1928: He was se­lect­ed to the first West In­dies Test team. Play­ing at Lord's ver­sus Eng­land her­ald­ed the start of many mag­i­cal mem­o­rable Learie Con­stan­tine per­for­mances in Eng­land, es­pe­cial­ly on the coun­ty cir­cuit. In fact, the West In­dies were grant­ed Test sta­tus in 1928 large­ly on the ba­sis of the bril­liant per­for­mances on the ear­li­er tour of Eng­land by Learie Con­stan­tine (and George Chal­lenor). To­geth­er with George Headley they her­ald­ed in what is com­mon­ly re­ferred to as the Con­stan­tine-Headley era of West In­dies crick­et.

�2 1928: Be­came the first West In­di­an to take a wick­et in a Test match (at Lord's). That year, too, he took a hat trick for the West In­dies ver­sus Northamp­ton­shire.

�2 1930: First al­so to cap­ture five wick­ets in a Test match in­nings, in our first Test vic­to­ry, at Bour­da, British Guiana (5-87 off 40 overs).

�2 1935: He had the un­ex­pect­ed ho­n­our of cap­tain­ing the West In­dies in the 4th and de­cid­ing match in the se­ries ver­sus Eng­land at Sabi­na Park, Ja­maica, lead­ing the side in the de­cid­ing game to their first ever se­ries win in the ab­sence of the in­jured Jack­ie Grant.

Awards and ho­n­ours:

�2 Wis­den Crick­eter of the year 1940;

�2 MBE (Mem­ber of the British Or­der of the Em­pire)1945;

�2 1954 Lawyer, LLB, called to the Bar (UK);

�2 1955 Lawyer, called to the Bar (T&T);

�2 Knight­ed (Sir) 1962;

�2 Free­man of the Bor­ough of Nel­son 1962;

�2 Hon­orary Mas­ter of the Bench 1963;

�2 Life Peer­age 1969;

�2 Baron 1969;

�2 T&T Trin­i­ty Cross (Posthu­mous) 1971;

�2 Wit­co Hall of Fame In­ductee 1984;

�2 Fea­tured on T&T Postage Stamp 1988;

�2 Mil­le­ni­um Award, Min­istry of Sport T&T 2000;

�2 One of Nel­son's (UK) 2 men of the Mil­le­ni­um 2000;

�2 Learie Con­stan­tine Col­lec­tion, Nalis Her­itage Li­brary, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad 2001;

�2 Fea­tured on pop­u­lar BBC TV se­ries "This is your life";

�2 Learie Con­stan­tine Stand, Queen's Park Oval.

�2 Books Writ­ten about him: A Look at Learie Con­stan­tine, Un­dine Giusep­pi,1974; Learie N Con­stan­tine (book­let), com­piled by Eu­stace Ward, 1948; Learie Con­stan­tine, Ger­ald Howat, 1975; Learie Con­stan­tine by Pe­ter Ma­son (2008)

�2 Books Writ­ten by him: Crick­et And I, 1933 (with CLR James); Colour Bar, 1954 (with CLR James ); The Chang­ing Face of Crick­et, 1966 (with Den­zil Batch­e­lor); Crick­et in the Sun 1946; How to Play Crick­et 1951; Crick­eters' Car­ni­val 1948; Crick­et Crack­ers 1949; The Young Crick­eter's Com­pan­ion 1964; Crick­eters' Crick­et,1949; It's like this Cat,1963; The Young Crick­eter's Com­pan­ion, 1964;

Al­so fea­tured in many books which chose and dis­cussed Top Crick­eters of all Time (e.g. Crick­eters of my Times, AA Thomp­son, 1967; Michael Man­ley's The His­to­ry of West In­dies Crick­et, 1988; 'Learie Con­stan­tine' in New Com­mu­ni­ty, 1971 by Sam Mor­ris; West In­di­an Crick­et, Nicole Christo­pher, 1957; CLR James's Be­yond a Bound­ary, 1963; The Great All­rounders, John Ar­lott, 1969; 100 Great West In­di­an Test Crick­eters, Brid­gette Lawrence, 1988)

�2 Record­ed Ca­lyp­soes about him: Lord Ca­ress­er 1939; Black Stal­in 1962.

�2 Some Po­si­tions Held: Wel­fare Of­fi­cer, Min­istry of Labour, UK (Dur­ing WWII); 1956 Elect­ed the PNM's Chair­man and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (Tu­na­puna) and Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty Works and Util­i­ties; 1961-64 T&T's first High Com­mis­sion­er in Lon­don; Gov­er­nor of the BBC; Mem­ber of Race Re­la­tions Board and the Sports Coun­cil (UK); BBC Broad­cast­er; Rec­tor of St An­drew's Uni­ver­si­ty 1967.