IT’S been 50 years, but Jackie Hendriks still gets angry at the memory of how his friend Franz ‘Gerry’ Alexander was treated during a media campaign to have Frank Worrell appointed as West Indies cricket captain.

“They treated Gerry terribly,” Hendriks told the Sunday Observer recently as he reminisced on the life of Alexander, a former West Indies captain and wicketkeeper/batsman who died a week ago of a heart attack at age 82.

“I know people had good reasons (for the pro-Worrell campaign), but they could have conducted their campaign without being unfair to Gerry and they were grossly unfair,” said Hendriks. “They gave him no credit for what he did as a great servant of West Indies cricket and a very good captain,” added Hendriks.

Alexander, who led the Caribbean side in 18 of his 25 Tests with considerable success, was the last of the West Indies captains categorised as “high brown” or “white” at a time of intense bitterness in West Indies cricket and society regarding colour and class.

Frank Worrell, commonly referred to as the first “black” man to lead a West Indies Test-match team on a tour away from home, replaced Alexander for the acclaimed 1960-61 tour of Australia following an intense campaign led by the Trinidadian journalist and intellectual CLR James.

In his landmark book, Beyond a Boundary, published in 1963, James, who unlike Hendriks, claimed Alexander was not a good captain, conceded that he had treated the Jamaican unfairly. But he appeared to suggest his approach was justified because of the wider considerations involving the need to appoint Worrell.

James wrote: “It was hard on Alexander. He was not a good captain and in any case he was keeping wicket, which is no place for a captain. But it was hard on me also. Alexander is a fine soccer player, he kept wicket magnificently, he is a good defensive bat and is a hard fighter. I put my scruples aside and I think that for the first, and I hope the last, time in reporting cricket I was not fair. But I was determined to rub in the faces of everybody that Frank Worrell, the last of the three W’s , was being discriminated against…”

In support of his argument that Alexander was under-rated as captain and badly treated, Hendriks pointed out that Alexander had been in charge of a young team and played a lead role in the moulding of several players who would dominate the scene in the 1960s and beyond.

Those players included the legendary all-rounder Garfield Sobers, batsmen Rohan Kanhai, Conrad Hunte, Seymour Nurse and Basil Butcher; off-spinner Lance Gibbs; fast bowler Wes Hall and Hendriks himself, who would command great respect as a wicketkeeper in the 1960s following the retirement of Alexander.

One player who did not make it through under Alexander’s guidance was fellow Jamaican and fast bowler Roy Gilchrist who was sent home from the tour of India for indiscipline in 1958/59.

Inevitably, the disciplinary action against Gilchrist was blurred by the ongoing controversy involving colour and class and Alexander endured intense criticism over the issue, though many at the time insisted that the tour management had acted correctly.

However, on the tour of Australia in 1960-61 made famous by the first ever tied Test match at Brisbane and exchilarating cricket from both sides, Alexander, the vice-captain, gained acclaim for his support of Worrell, on and off the field.

The wicketkeeper/batsman topped the Test match batting aggregate 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. His wicket-keeping also gained high praise. The series ended 2-1 in favour of Australia.

Alexander retired from first-class cricket following the Australian tour at age 33, having scored 961 runs for an average of 30.03. He had 85 catches behind the wicket and five stumpings.

In the recent interview with the Sunday Observer, Hendriks underlined the importance of Alexander’s role in Australia. “Gerry supported Frank in every respect,” said Hendriks, who toured as reserve wicketkeeper.

Underpinning, Alexander’s approach said Hendriks was his personality — a “a true sportsman” and a “gentleman”.

Another former West Indies player of the period, opener and former Jamaica captain Easton McMorris who also played under Alexander’s leadership, remembered him as a “gentleman of the old school who was very firm on the field…”

“Gerry served West Indies cricket very well,” said McMorris.

The funeral service for Alexander — a veterinarian by profession who rose to the post of Chief Veterinary Officer in Jamaica’s public sector and also worked for the Inter-America Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) — will be held at St Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Church in Liguanea on Saturday (April 30).