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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Former cricketer Sheldon Gomes dies

by

Ryan Bachoo
1771 days ago
20200917
Sheldon Gomes, right, at a function with his younger brother, Larry.

Sheldon Gomes, right, at a function with his younger brother, Larry.

For­mer T&T crick­eter Shel­don Gomes has been hailed “as an ex­cel­lent team man with an in­fec­tious per­son­al­i­ty” by for­mer West In­dies wick­et-keep­er Deryck Mur­ray. Gomes, who is the old­er broth­er of for­mer West In­dies crick­eter Lar­ry Gomes, passed away at his home in Las Ve­gas, Neva­da, on Tues­day. He was 69 years old just over a month shy from cel­e­brat­ing his 70th birth­day.

Wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the best field­ers to have played the game in this coun­try, Gomes rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the First-Class lev­el 55 times. He scored five cen­turies and 45 half-cen­turies. He al­so played 14 List A match­es for this coun­try.

Mur­ray, who played with Gomes in the T&T team of the 1970s said, “What re­al­ly stands out for me about Shel­don is that he was an ex­cel­lent team man. There was noth­ing that he wouldn’t do to help the team and no mat­ter what the sit­u­a­tion was. He was al­ways cheer­ful, al­ways en­thu­si­as­tic and ea­ger to get on with the game and he had this in­fec­tious per­son­al­i­ty that it was great to be around him in the dress­ing room.”

Mur­ray al­so ex­pand­ed on Gomes’ field­ing prowess say­ing: “I think he was a bril­liant field­s­man in any po­si­tion and he was one of those peo­ple who would vol­un­teer to go to bat-pad or sil­ly point in the days when pro­tec­tion wasn’t around in the game so it was just share brav­ery. He was the one to do it.”

Gomes al­so had the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing in the re­gion­al cham­pi­onship win­ning team when T&T copped the Shell Shield Tour­na­ment in 1975. His high­est score of 213 was record­ed against Ja­maica in the 1976-1977 sea­son which in­ci­den­tal­ly was his most pro­lif­ic in re­gion­al crick­et when he chalked up 633 runs for an im­pres­sive av­er­age of 70.33 per in­nings with three cen­turies.

He al­so played for North, East Trinidad and Queen’s Park Crick­et Club.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) Az­im Bas­sarath al­so ex­tend­ed his con­do­lences and Crick­et West In­dies, on the pass­ing of Gomes de­scrib­ing him as a gift­ed crick­eter whose ex­ploits es­pe­cial­ly in the field added an ex­cit­ing di­men­sion to the game.

“You were al­ways sure that some­thing could hap­pen when Shel­don Gomes was prowl­ing in the cov­ers or field­ing close up to the bats­man as he pos­sessed the safest pair of hands, and a quick turn of foot that left no ball struck by the bats­man un­chal­lenged with­in range,” said Bas­sarath.

Among his peers in his First-Class ca­reer from 1969 to 1983 were many oth­er stand­out crick­eters of the era in­clud­ing Bernard Julien, Rangy Nanan (de­ceased), Ken­rick Bainey, Dud­nath Ramkessoon, Im­ti­az Ali, Raph­ick Ju­madeen, Prince Bartholomew (de­ceased) and In­shan Ali (de­ceased).


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