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West Indies would honour two of its greatest cricketers — late Sir Clyde Walcott and legendary fast bowler Reverend Wes Hall — by inducting them in the Sticky Wicket Hall of Fame in Antigua this year.

According to a report in a local newspaper on Tuesday, Sir Walcott Hall will join the other 14 members of the Hall of Fame, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Vivian Richards, Sir Frank Worrell, Clive Lloyd, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall, Lance Gibbs, Andy Roberts, George Headley, Michael Holding, Brian Lara, and Ridley Jacobs.

Walcott, who passed away last year, remained heavily involved in West Indian cricket for the best part of his life. He represented Barbados and West Indies with distinction as a powerful batsman, wicketkeeper and bowler; was a selector and manager of the West Indies team and later was president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and head of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

On the field of play, Walcott was a giant of a man. He was tall — standing at six feet three inches — and hit the ball powerfully especially off the backfoot.

He combined with two other legendary Barbadians, Sir Frank Worrell and Sir Everton Weekes, to form the famous Three Ws, a triumvirate of batting experts, who carried with them the hopes, dreams and aspirations of Caribbean people all over the world. In 1994 he received a knighthood for his contribution to the game.

Rev. Hall, 69, is described as a man for all the people having performed the roles of a fast bowler, selector, manager, administrator and politician.

Switching early in his career from wicket-keeping to fast bowling, Hall quickly emerged as the first great post-war fast bowling hero of West Indies cricket. With his gold chain bouncing around his neck, he made the ball fly at the batsman’s torso, and he also had a devastating yorker.

After one of the longest run-ups in Test cricket, he bowled genuinely fast, and he could do it all day, as in his marathon spell in the famous Lord’s Test of 1963, when he bowled unchanged for over three hours on the final day. His partnership with Charlie Griffith on that tour was the stuff of English nightmares.

He was a selector and manager of the West Indies team and president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) from 2001 to 2003. During that period he sat on the board of directors of the International Cricket Council (ICC), where he pushed for better conditions for players in particular and West Indies cricket in general. He was the Minister of Tourism in Barbados in the 1980s and implemented many sports-related initiatives which have now been adopted globally.
Source:The News

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