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

SEASON’S AVERAGES Batting and Fielding M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50 Ct Test matches 4 7 2 122 46* 24.40 - - 4 Other matches 2 3 0 75 52 25.00 - 1 1 Season 6 10 2 197 52 24.62 - 1 5 Career 27 46 7 1794 218* 46.00 5 8 26 Bowling O M R W BB Ave 5i 10m Test matches 149.5 49 287 11 5-31 28.09 1 - Other matches 33 8 74 3 2-18 24.66 - - Season (6b) 182.5 57 361 14 5-31 25.78 1 - Career (6b) 358.4 92 } 1368 48 5-31 28.50 2 - (8b) 139 13 1948/49 - West Indians in India, Pakistan and Ceylon After leading the West Indies to victory over England, Goddard was entrusted with the leadership of the team to the sub-continent even though the vastly more experienced Headley had pronounced himself fit and was in fact included in the squad. As it was, the great George’s health soon broke down again and he played only a minimal role on the tour. Having left the promising Frank King at home, the West Indies had to rely on Prior Jones and John Trim to do all of their fast bowling on wickets that proved generally unresponsive. They therefore lacked the penetration to claim twenty wickets in the allotted span and the majority of first-class matches had to be left drawn, despite the awesome power of the batting. The tourists won 6 and lost only 1 of their 19 first-class matches and also won the Test series 1-0. The remaining 4 produced no conclusive result as the batting was too powerful on both sides. With Rae, Stollmeyer, Walcott and Weekes all exceeding 1,000 runs on the tour, Goddard was required to play only 17 innings in his 16 first-class matches. He seldom therefore had the opportunity to profit from the friendly nature of the matting surfaces on which the majority of the games were played. He was also required to bowl more overs than he might otherwise have expected and his average of 28.09 for his 35 wickets in 378 overs speaks volumes for his steadiness of length and line. He showed occasional flashes of brilliance, too, when the situation looked bleak. Early in the campaign, for instance, he top-scored with a defiant 42 against Holkar State in an innings of 189 and then propelled his team to victory by capturing four wickets. On a batsman’s paradise at Poona, early in December, he produced 39 very steady overs to take 2/52 when his other bowlers were struggling. At the end of the same month, he delivered 34 niggardly overs while taking 2/55 against the Governor’s XI at Calcutta. Although Goddard did not once capture 5 wickets in any innings, he toiled effectively throughout and claimed 4 wickets on three occasions. He gave an outstanding performance against the States XI in October, capturing 4/29 from 21 overs to earn the West Indians a first innings lead of 63 after they had themselves mustered only 206 against the wiles of Vijay Hazare and ‘Vinoo’ Mankad. Goddard’s batting, however, fell from the high standards he had set during the war-years, and he produced but a single half-century. During the third Test at Calcutta, in his 36th first-class appearance, he achieved his 2,000th run. It had taken him 22 matches to move from the first milestone to the second and his average had slid all the way from 55 to 41. On the other hand, the tour was a remarkable triumph for Weekes who completed a world record five consecutive Test centuries and broke all previous records for a Test aggregate in a series against India by amassing no fewer than 779 runs (ave 111.28). That record still stands. Own Team O M R W Opp Ct Total Total 28. West Indians v States XI, Baroda, October 23, 24, 25 (Match drawn) c V.S.Hazare b M.H.Mankad 4 206 21 8 29 4 S.W.Sohoni c G.E.Gomez 143 Raisingh c G.E.Gomez S.G.Shinde c A.F.Rae D.Narottam b did not bat - 183-3d 4 0 21 0 164-5 17