Famous Cricketers No 61 - Wes Hall

WESLEY WINFIELD HALL Wesley Winfield Hall was born of modest roots on 12 September 1937 in the Glebe Land, near Station Hill, St. Michael, Barbados. His education began at the early age of four when he entered St. Giles, one of the most famous elementary schools in the island. He showed some early promise as a cricketer and represented St. Giles occasionally in ‘friendly’ matches against other elementary schools, such as the Bay Street Boys’ School which his great friend and contemporary, Gary Sobers, attended. In January 1949, Wesley entered Combermere, one of the oldest and best-known secondary schools in the British Empire. There he came under the influence of three persons who had much to do with his development as a cricketer: Major Cecil Noott, Ronald G. Hughes and Frank McD. King. Noott, the Combermere headmaster (1946-1961), was a Welsh soldier/educator who firmly believed that cricket taught valuable lessons about life, discipline and character. He encouraged his boys to play the game and occasionally rewarded them for outstanding performances on the field. He appointed Hughes, a local scholar-athlete, the cricket master in 1952; and, in a bold and unusual move, he also hired Frank King to serve as the school’s chief groundsman and cricket coach. Ronnie Hughes encouraged the lads to play proficiently, even going as far as to invite them to practise on a make-shift pitch near his home in the Pine Hill area during the summer holidays. Frank King was then the fastest bowler in the Caribbean and he was the one after whom Hall tried to pattern his approach. King had a fluid classical run-up, which Hall was never quite able to emulate. Both Hughes and King played for Combermere in the BCA First Division competition and served as sources of inspiration to their young charges. Hall was a very promising wicket-keeper/batsman whom Hughes expected to wear the gloves for Barbados when he matured. He was certainly one of the best schoolboy wicket-keepers in the colony during the early 1950s. Wesley was no more than 14 years old when he first proved his worth as an aggressive right-handed batsman by scoring 92 runs in a Second Division match against Leeward in an opening partnership that yielded 202. For this achievement, he was rewarded by the headmaster with an expensive pair of cricket boots. Hall also earned promotion to the First Division and played for two or three years in one of the finest of all Combermere teams. It was a squad that included Rawle Brancker, Peter Lashley and Lionel Williams who were destined to represent Barbados in first-class cricket. Brancker, Lashley and Hall, in fact, were all selected to tour England with the West Indians under Gary Sobers in 1966. Following his departure from Combermere in 1955, Hall joined the staff at Cable & Wireless (now BET) and suddenly took up fast bowling for the very first time. He had naturally been selected to play on the Cable & Wireless First Division team as its opening batsman and wicket-keeper. But it so happened that on one occasion the regular opening bowler had not turned up in time for an important match against Wanderers, one of the leading teams in the island. Hall’s captain urged him to take off his pads and give the new ball a try. To his own amazement, Wes generated considerable pace and dismissed six batsmen. He never kept wicket again. In fact, his progress as a right-arm fast bowler was so phenomenally rapid that he was selected to represent the BCA in its annual match against the Barbados Cricket League (BCL) in 1956 and was invited to open the bowling for Barbados in its match against the touring E.W.Swanton’s XI later that year. Wes did not do particularly well in his first-class début as he had the singular misfortune to confront an in-form Tom Graveney on a bowler’s graveyard at Bridgetown. His first 24 overs at this level cost him no fewer than 112 runs. He could not snare a single victim. As a result, when Barbados visited British Guiana to participate in a quadrangular intercolonial tournament in October 1956, he was excluded from the team. Still, Hall showed sufficient promise in the BCA First Division 1956/57 season to warrant an invitation to two trial matches staged by the West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC) at Port-of-Spain early in 1957. Playing for E. De C. Weekes’ XI against C.L.Walcott’s XI in the second match (after having failed dismally in the first), he bowled and batted well enough to impress the selectors. He struck a violent 77 in the second innings and followed that up with a fine exhibition of fast bowling (3/63) on a batsmen’s pitch. With F.C.M. ‘Gerry’ Alexander, he 5