Former Windies captain Gerry Alexander dies at 82

BY GARFIELD MYERS Editor-at-Large South/Central Bureau myersg@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, April 17, 2011

FRANZ 'Gerry' Alexander, a former West Indies captain and wicketkeeper and one of the stars of the 1960-61 tour of Australia, including the famous tied Test, died yesterday at his home in Kingston.

Relatives speculated last night that he may have fallen to a heart attack. His wife of many years died a month ago. Alexander was 82 years old.

Alexander will forever be remembered for his batting and wicketkeeping on the 1960-61 West Indies tour of Australia which many analysts at the time suggested "saved Test cricket" because of the quality of play and enterprise shown by both sides.

Alexander, whose batting was largely unheralded previously, ended the tour atop the Test match batting averages with 484 runs at 60.50, including his only first-class century — 108 in the Third Test at Sydney which West Indies won by 222 runs.

Alexander scored a half-century in every other game — including 60 in the first innings of the famous tied Test at Brisbane.

At a time when class and colour were highly contentious issues in Caribbean cricket and society, Alexander was the last of the so-called "high brown" or white West Indies captains.

He came under the microscope in the tour of India and Pakistan in 1958/59 when as captain he was part of the management team that sent home fellow Jamaican, fast bowler Roy Gilchrist, for indiscipline.

Inevitably, class and colour blurred the issue, though many of Alexander's contemporaries insisted that the captain and management team had acted correctly.

He gained universal respect for his wholehearted support of Worrell in every aspect, not least performance, in Australia.

Alexander, one of five products of Wolmer's Boys' School to keep wicket for the West Indies, played 25 Tests, scoring 961 runs for an average of 30.03. He had 85 catches behind the wicket and executed five stumpings.

A graduate of Cambridge University, Alexander represented that institution at both cricket and football.

He was a veterinarian by profession, rising to the post of Chief Veterinary Officer in the public sector and also worked for the Inter-America Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).