Famous Cricketers No 71 - J.D.C.Goddard

SEASON’S AVERAGES Batting and Fielding M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50 Ct Season 1 2 0 16 14 8.00 - - 1 Career 2 4 0 21 14 5.25 - - 1 Bowling O M R W BB Ave 5i 10m Season (6b) 15 1 52 0 - - - - Career (6b) 36 6 114 2 1-31 57.00 - - 1938/39 In August 1938, despite his modest performance in first-class cricket thus far, Goddard was invited to Georgetown to participate in two first-class matches between R.S.Grant’s XI and British Guiana. These were trial matches to help the WICBC select the side to tour England in the summer of 1939. Rolf Grant’s team defeated British Guiana easily in the second match, after drawing the first. But Goddard’s contribution was negligible. The dominant player was Derek Sealy who scored a century in each match. Gomez, still two months short of his 19th birthday, struck a fine hundred in the second game for the visitors, after Celso de Freitas (133) and Persaud (116) had batted brilliantly for the hosts in the first. Gomez, Sealy and Jeffrey Stollmeyer eventually were selected to tour England, but Cecil Pouchet, the wily Trinidadian spinner who captured 13 wickets in the two matches, surprisingly was not. Pouchet was one of the best right-arm leg-break bowlers in the Caribbean in those days but his fielding was unreliable. Despite this inauspicious start as a first-class cricketer, Goddard was still a member of the Barbados team when it met British Guiana at the Kensington Oval in January 1939. He batted much better on this occasion, reaching double-figures twice in a low-scoring game that was left drawn after three days of intermittent rain. After batting well at No. 5 for 19 in the first innings, he was promoted to No. 3 in the second. A week earlier, he had been left out of the match against Trinidad. But the team had performed very poorly, losing at home by more than an innings. Hence Goddard’s recall. Apart from Bertie Clarke’s brilliant bowling (8/107), which solidified his claim to a place on the West Indies touring team to England that summer, the match was undistinguished. Own Team O M R W Opp Ct Total Total 3. R.S.Grant’s XI v British Guiana, Georgetown, August 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 (Match drawn) b J.M.Neblett 22 471 9 3 15 0 409 did not bat - 137-7d - - - - 159-5 4. R.S.Grant’s XI v British Guiana, Georgetown, August 25, 26, 27 (R.S.Grant’s XI won by an innings and 113 runs) b W.G.Griffith 10 431 108 1 210 5. Barbados v British Guiana, Bridgetown, January 17, 18, 19 (Match drawn) b C.S.Persaud 19 248 1 0 1 0 216 1 c B.Thomas b B.McG.Gaskin 30 135-7 4 0 14 0 197 SEASON’S AVERAGES Batting and Fielding M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50 Ct Season 3 4 0 81 30 20.25 - - 2 Career 5 8 0 102 30 12.75 - - 3 Bowling O M R W BB Ave 5i 10m Season (6b) 14 3 30 0 - - - - Career (6b) 50 9 144 2 1-31 72.00 - - 10