For­mer West In­dies bats­man Char­lie Davis was re­mem­bered as a gift­ed crick­eter, de­vot­ed fam­i­ly man, and mas­ter sto­ry­teller dur­ing a memo­r­i­al ser­vice at St Fin­bar’s Ro­man Catholic Church, where rel­a­tives, friends, and mem­bers of the crick­et fra­ter­ni­ty gath­ered to cel­e­brate his re­mark­able life.

​Davis, who died on June 25 at the age of 82, leaves be­hind an en­dur­ing lega­cy as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s great­est bats­men. Dur­ing his in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer, he scored 1,301 runs in 29 Test match­es for the West In­dies at an out­stand­ing av­er­age of 54.20, in­clud­ing a ca­reer-best 183. He al­so amassed 14 cen­turies in 90 first-class match­es while av­er­ag­ing 41.32.

​Among those pay­ing trib­ute was his nephew, Bar­ry Davis, who spoke on be­half of his fa­ther, Bryan Davis—Char­lie’s broth­er and a for­mer West In­dies crick­eter. Bar­ry re­flect­ed on the ex­tra­or­di­nary im­pact Char­lie made as a teenag­er while still at­tend­ing St Mary’s Col­lege (CIC).

“While still on­ly 17 years old and af­ter com­pil­ing hun­dreds and tons of runs for CIC, in­clud­ing an un­beat­en 202 against a team fea­tur­ing Test spin­ner Cha­ran Singh, Char­lie was se­lect­ed for the Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al crick­et team,” Bar­ry said.

​He not­ed that Davis an­nounced him­self im­me­di­ate­ly on the se­nior stage, scor­ing 57 on de­but against EW Swan­ton’s XI, a tour­ing side fea­tur­ing sev­er­al lead­ing Eng­lish coun­ty crick­eters.

​Bar­ry al­so re­count­ed one of the defin­ing in­nings of Davis’ ear­ly ca­reer. Bat­ting at num­ber six against a pow­er­ful Guyana side that in­clud­ed leg­endary off-spin­ner Lance Gibbs, Trinidad and To­ba­go found them­selves strug­gling at 16 for four be­fore the teenag­er walked to the crease.

“He pro­ceed­ed to make 127 in the first in­nings and then fol­lowed it with 97 in the sec­ond in­nings. He was still on­ly 17 years old,” Bar­ry said.

The con­gre­ga­tion, which in­clud­ed for­mer West In­dies World Cup-win­ning wick­et­keep­er Deryck Mur­ray, al­so heard about Davis’ as­ton­ish­ing achieve­ments in school crick­et.

Bar­ry de­scribed his fi­nal sea­son at CIC in 1963 as one of the great­est ever pro­duced by a school­boy crick­eter. Davis dom­i­nat­ed the Trinidad Crick­et Coun­cil se­nior grade com­pe­ti­tion, av­er­ag­ing an in­cred­i­ble 294. When his per­for­mances in in­ter­col­le­giate crick­et were added—in­clud­ing an un­beat­en 192 in the Na­tion­al In­ter­col Fi­nal—his av­er­age for the sea­son soared to a scarce­ly be­liev­able 763.

“For those less fa­mil­iar with crick­et, an av­er­age of 50 is re­gard­ed as ex­cep­tion­al,” Bar­ry said. “Char­lie’s av­er­age that sea­son was 15 times that.”

Davis’ daugh­ter, Tracey, paint­ed a warm and per­son­al pic­ture of her fa­ther, re­call­ing his friend­ly na­ture and love of con­ver­sa­tion. She said he was al­ways ap­proach­able and ea­ger to en­gage with any­one he met, of­ten shar­ing sto­ries that kept lis­ten­ers cap­ti­vat­ed.

“You wouldn’t be for­giv­en for wav­ing hi when you saw him at Long Cir­cu­lar Mall,” she said with a smile. “Be­cause if you had any­thing to do two hours lat­er, you couldn’t make it be­cause he would say, ‘let me ask you some­thing,’ and you’d be stuck be­cause he would start the sec­ond sto­ry be­fore the first sto­ry even end­ed.”

As fam­i­ly, friends and for­mer team­mates re­flect­ed on his life, Char­lie Davis was re­mem­bered not on­ly for his el­e­gant stroke play and re­mark­able bat­ting records, but al­so for the warmth, hu­mour and gen­eros­i­ty that made him a cher­ished fig­ure both on and off the crick­et field.