Tour of India 1948-49                      Captain: John Goddard

West Indies’ fifth Test tour

First Test-playing tour of India by West Indies

(September 1948 - March 1949)

On 21 January 1948 the Australian Cricket Board declined an invitation to tour the West Indies since they were already committed to their 1948 tour of England and visiting South Afica in 1949-50. Therefore the West Indies Board arranged their first tour of India which resulted in a one-nil victory for the visiting side.  Both teams and particularly the visitors compiled massive totals of runs so that there was insufficient time to complete four of the Test matches.  Weekes led the way with four consecutive centuries to follow his hundred in 1947-48 against England.

At the end of the tour the team returned to the Brabourne Stadium in Bombay for an additional 12-a-side charity match after which Weekes received a presentation of a silver plaque and 3001 rupees to mark his achievement.

Frank Worrell was in dispute with the West Indies Board of Control and refused to tour. In any case the Board would not to consider him for the tour because of his lack of discipline.

Several of the West Indian players were unfit at one stage or another; the President of the Indian Board, Mr Anthony de Mello took it upon himself to cable his West Indian counterpart, Karl Nunes, asking for a reinforcement in time for the fourth Test. The Board sent George Mudie with awkward consequences (see below).

The players were far from satisfied with the travel arrangements (long overnight rail journeys) and accommodation in second-rate hotels, as a result of de Mello’s parsimony.  In the face of strong complaints the Indian Board relented late in the tour and afforded air travel.

Other West Indies tours

Previous tour

To England 1939

Next tour

To England 1950

Next tour of India 

1958-59

Members of the Test tour party  (16)

Opening batsmen:George Carew, Allan Rae, Jeffrey Stollmeyer.

Middle-order batsmen:   Clyde Walcott, Everton Weekes John Goddard, Jimmy Cameron, George Headley, Ken Rickards.

Wicket-keepers:Bob Christiani,  Clifford McWatt.

All-rounders:  Denis Atkinson, Gerry Gomez

Spinner:Wilf Ferguson

Fast bowlers:Prior Jones,  John Trim.

Regional representation :

B – Barbados  (5)

BG - British Guiana (3)

Ja – Jamaica (4)

T – Trinidad  (4)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(10 November 1948):

      28 yrs 10 months

Test Appearances made before the tour

Headley 20,  Gomez 6,  Stollmeyer 5,  Christiani 4,  Ferguson 4,  Goddard 4,  Walcott 4,  Weekes 4,  Carew 3, Jones 1,  Rickards 1,  Trim 1,  Atkinson 0,  Cameron 0,  McWatt 0,  Rae 0.

Tour Officials

The manager, Donald Lacy, was Hon Secretary and Treasurer of the West Indies Board of Contol between 1945 and 1954, having previously been the Secretary of Jamaica Cricket Association. He died in 1991.

Selectors

F A C Clairmonte,  C Marley,  E J Marsden and skipper J D C Goddard met at Bridgetown.

Selection

On 14 May 24 players were asked to hold themselves available for selection for the final team of 15. These included H P Bayley, B H Pairaudeau (British Guiana), A Ganteaume, R Tang Choon (Trinidad), Irving Iffla, E S M Kentish, H H Johnson (Jamaica), J H Lucas and C B Williams (Barbados), none of whom was selected.

Goddard was appointed captain and Lacy manager on 27 May 1948.

Unavailable:  Hines Johnson (for business reasons he had to ask for terms which the Board could not entertain);  Irvin Iffla (another Jamaican, with education to complete); Frank Worrell (who rejected the financial terms, though Ivo Tennant and Jeffrey Stollmeyer have written that in any case Worrell was not chosen for disciplinary reasons).

Tour Party Announced :  9 August 1948.

Veteran George Carew was chosen, though not among the original list of 24 who were asked if available. Jimmy Cameron, the younger brother of John Cameron, vice-captain on the 1939 tour of England, was a student in Canada who had played only two first-class matches for Jamaica before the tour.

The original announcement of the tour party consisted of 15 names. Sixteen had been selected but the 16th name was held back until the Indian Board agreed to finance a team of that size. Then Ken Rickards could be added to the group on 11 August.

Not selected :   Andy Ganteaume was the most notable omission; he had just made a century in his debut Test.

Time between selection and departure from Jamaica:    

    49 days

 (9 August - 21 September)

Travel

Kingston   T    Avonmouth

              ‘Cavina’

London  Q   Bombay

The Guianese arrived in Trinidad by ship on 17 September 1948, while Goddard, Carew, Walcott and Weekes flew to Piarco Airport, Trinidad, on 19 September. The assembled party left Trinidad on 21 September on the 'ss Cavina' for Jamaica.  They reached Kingston on 25 September and stayed for two days.  The team sailed to England because of big concessions the West Indies Board had obtained on the passage in the banana boat 'Cavina', which left Kingston on 27 September for Bowden, Jamaica, (where Headley boarded) and Port Antonio. 

The ‘Cavina’ reached Avonmouth, near Bristol, on 12 October. Cameron joined up with the team in England where he was a student.  The team stayed at the Kimberley Hotel, New Oxford Street, London.

After a few days in England the team flew by an Air India International flight from London Airport (Heathrow) on 16 October via Geneva and Cairo to Bombay, arriving at Santa Cruz Aerodrome at 6.30 on the morning of 17 October. They resided at the Cricket Club of India until Thursday 21st, then drove to Baroda. 

All the team kit including clothing from Simpson’s of Piccadilly worth £1000 was found to be missing when the crates, which were brought out to Bombay on the steamer Canton, were opened.

Time spent in India

   139 days

(17 October - 5 March)

On-tour selection panel

John Goddard,  Jeffrey Stollmeyer  and Donald Lacy.  Gerry Gomez was later added to this committee.

Reinforcements

George Headley with a chipped rib bone did not play at all after 29 November except once when he scored a century against a Ceylon Schools side; Rickards was in hospital with typhoid fever; Trim, Atkinson, Ferguson and Stollmeyer caught chicken pox.  Mr AS de Mello, President of the Indian Board, called for an extra player on the touring party's behalf, preferably Frank Worrell (although Worrell had already been ruled out of the tour) or a fast bowler (although both Hines Johnson and Esmond Kentish were unfit).

The West Indies Board chose George Mudie on 11 January. They gave him a fitness test, kitted him out, arranged time off from his work with the public works department in Kingston, and flew him out to London on Saturday 15 January.  But by the following Monday, manager Donald Lacy had sent a cable saying that a replacement player was not needed, and Mudie had to fly back to Kingston without getting anywhere near India.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

Time spent in India before First Test:   24 days

(17 October - 10 November)

Time from end of final Test until departure from India    25 days

(8 February - 5 March)

Test appearances on tour

5  -  Cameron,  Christiani,  Goddard,  Gomez,  Jones,  Rae,  Walcott,  Weekes,

4  -  Atkinson,  Stollmeyer

3  -  Ferguson

2 -   Trim

1  -  Carew,  Headley

0 -   McWatt,  Rickards.

Highlights

•  Everton Weekes' sequence of Test scores, following 141 against England in March were : 128 at Delhi, 194 at Bombay, 162 and 101 at Calcutta, and 90 at Madras (when he was mistakenly given run out).

•  With 56 in his next Test innings he went on to his seventh consecutive fifty, which has never been equalled.

•  In the fourth Test  Rae and Stollmeyer struck an opening partnership of 239, a new West Indian record.

•  West Indians scored 11 centuries in the series and averaged 47 runs per wicket.

•  George Carew scored a century at Karachi, the first to be made in first-class cricket in Pakistan.

Tour Summary

Return to West Indies

Bombay  Q   London

Avonmouth   T    Kingston

                 ‘Bayano’

After the Fifth Test the West Indians made a tour of Ceylon, then left Colombo by air on 1 March flying back to Bombay for a charity match. On 5 March they flew from Bombay at 3.30 am, via Basra, Cairo and Geneva, arriving at London Airport (Heathrow) on 6 March. There were two inches of snow on the ground - some of the tourists had never seen snow before.

After a short holiday and sightseeing in London, most of the team went from Paddington Station to Avonmouth and sailed on the 'Bayano' on 10 March, reaching Kingston on 25 March, then flying to their final destinations.  Rae, a law student, and Weekes, who would be playing for Bacup in 1949, remained in England.  Stollmeyer and Gomez stayed on to complete some business until 24 March when they sailed on the 'ss Ariguani' for Trinidad.

Time away from West Indies     180 days  

(27 September  to 25 March arrived back in Jamaica)

Finances

The Indian Board was responsible for the West Indians’ tour expenses and evidently economised on travel and accommodation to the detriment of the players’ comfort.  The plan was for the West Indian Board of Control to receive a share of the tour profits. Although it got £500 profit made in Ceylon, it received none from India; but the Indian Board of Control was said to have made 94 000 rupees (£7000) of profit on the tour.

Published accounts of the tour

" West Indies Cricketers' Tour of India"  Sports & Pastimes of Madras (contemporary pre-tour brochure)

"Jeffrey Stollmeyer's Diary: The West Indies in India 1948-49"   Jeffrey Stollmeyer (2004, Royards Publishing)

Postscript