My friend Morris Sheftel - author of these tributes to Roy Keane and Sir Alex Ferguson - contributes the following recollection to the 'Memories of cricket' series.
In July 1957 at Trent Bridge, Frank Worrell batted throughout the West Indies first innings to finish undefeated on 191. It was then only the fifth time that a batsman had carried his bat through a completed Test innings in England (and only the 14th time overall).
It was an innings of genius, remarkable for a number of reasons. It was exceptional in itself. Pressed into service as a makeshift opener, Worrell's concentration never wavered during the 9 hours and 35 minutes he batted. He scored 26 fours, gave no chances, made hardly a single false stroke, and displayed all the elegance which was his hallmark (Cardus observed that he never made a crude or ungrammatical stroke and Constantine that 'Worrell was poetry').
It was the more impressive in the context of the match. Batting first, England made a massive 619 for 6 declared (Graveney 258, Richardson 126, May 104) against a threadbare and demoralized West Indian attack (Worrell had to open the bowling at little more than medium pace, delivering 21 overs in all). In the West Indian reply, Worrell's 191 was made out of a total of 372, none of his teammates reaching 50. When Worrell was out for 16 in the West Indian follow-on, he had been on the field continuously from the start of the match until the afternoon of the fourth day - some 20 and a half hours. A fine century from Collie Smith allowed them to draw the game but it was Worrell's contribution with bat and ball that had held their fragile team together.
And it was a remarkable innings in the context of the series. The West Indies had arrived in England full of optimism that they could repeat their triumphs of 1950 (when Worrell had averaged over 80 in the Test series). Instead, they were routed. By the time the teams got to Trent Bridge, the West Indians had narrowly avoided defeat at Edgbaston (they finished on 72 for 7) and been beaten by an innings at Lord's. They would go on to innings defeats at Headingley and the Oval. Many of their greatest players would retire after this tour, Weekes and Walcott among them. Worrell himself quit Test cricket for three years (and four series) before returning to lead the team to Australia in 1960. Here, his great innings laid the foundation for the only creditable West Indian performance of the summer.
It was an innings that gave me my first hero. Barely into my teens, I did not see a single ball of the Trent Bridge Test. Instead, enthralled, I followed Worrell's progress with my ear pressed to the BBC World Service commentaries and reports as they sputtered and crackled over the old radio in my parents' home in Lusaka in what is now Zambia, the exercise punctuated regularly by my mother's pronouncements about my lack of sanity. In the years to come, Worrell was to more than justify his heroic status, and not just in my eyes: the first black captain of the West Indies, finally ending the practice of reserving the captaincy for what C.L.R. James called the white mercantile-planter class; the greatest of all West Indian captains; a scholar and academic; a voice for West Indian independence; and a fearless critic of the divisions promoted by island insularity. In 1960-61 in Australia, he and the Australian captain, Richie Benaud, virtually rescued Test cricket from the dead, defensive game it had become, so much so that when the West Indian team left at the end of their tour, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Melbourne to cheer them and manifest that strange sense of community that sport so often generates. Worrell enshrined a code and style of play that endeared West Indian cricket to millions all over the world, myself among them, a style that was carried forward by Gary Sobers after Worrell's tragic death at the age of 42 from leukaemia.
From my bookshelves:
West Indies... wanted 470 to avoid a follow-on and introduced a new pair of opening batsmen in Worrell and the tall left-handed Sobers. Both rose to the occasion and at the close of the second day West Indies were 59 for no wicket. Worrell went on to bat all through Saturday, waging a remorseless battle with his colleagues against some splendid bowling and excellent fielding. - Wisden 1958
Only Worrell remained invincible. - Ernest Eytle, Frank Worrell: The Career of a Great Cricketer
Frank Worrell was the hero of this day, as of the next one... For Worrell's innings no praise could be too high. He had carried his bat through the whole innings of 575 minutes - more than nine and a half hours. He had hit 26 fours, and, slow though his scoring at times had been, his strokes were so accomplished that they always had entertainment value. - Bruce Harris, West Indies Cricket Challenge 1957
Then came a performance which stamped Worrell with that special quality of greatness which can sometimes only be evoked by adversity. After bowling twenty-one overs during the marathon English innings, Worrell opened the batting along with Sobers. Without the semblance of a chance he batted through the entire innings and carried his bat for 191 not out of a total of 373. - Michael Manley, A History of West Indies Cricket
He went back out when the follow-on was enforced but, not unnaturally was soon out. Since he fielded throughout England's long grind and bowled 21 overs besides, he had been on the field from 11.30 a.m. Thursday to 3.00 p.m. Monday. - Tony Cozier, The West Indies: Fifty Years of Test Cricket
Frank Worrell's too modest disclaimer:
I had opened the innings because our three recognized opening batsmen - Pairaudeau, Ganteaume and Asgarali - had been left out of the side, and I carried my bat throughout the nine and a half hours. At the end I had 191 runs to my credit.
I was showered with superlatives by both critics and spectators. People talked in terms of one of the greatest-ever innings. They compared it with my effort at Trent Bridge in 1950. They compared it with any big innings they could call to mind.
Which just proves how valueless to cricket statistics are. My 191 not out at Trent Bridge was far from being my best-ever innings. It is, in fact, an innings which has no real right to go down in history among the list of fine knocks.
How can you describe a knock of 191 by an experienced batsman as a good innings at Trent Bridge? You can only play a good innings when conditions are fair for both sides, and conditions are not fair for both sides at Trent Bridge. The bowler gets no assistance at all, and any batsman who has a sound defence and one - yes, just one - scoring shot will be able to score a century on this Nottingham wicket.
.....
So I am not proud of my Trent Bridge innings. Far from it. To tell the truth I found it a little boring and certainly a long way from being satisfying. You cannot enjoy cricket when the dice are loaded so heavily against the bowler. There is no fun, no thrill in scoring runs under such conditions. - Frank Worrell, Cricket Punch
[For links to the other posts in this series, see here.]