Mr Easton “Bull” McMorris, who passed away yesterday, at age 86, was among Jamaica’s most accomplished cricketers and a man with one of the finest cricketing minds.

In fact, we are told that the great Jamaica and West Indies batsman Mr Lawrence Rowe regards Mr McMorris as the best captain he ever had.

Younger Jamaicans would not have had the pleasure of watching Mr McMorris play cricket. However, many of this newspaper’s readers had the good fortune of reading about his introduction to the game, his performances on the pitch throughout his playing years, and his thoughts on fellow players in a four-part feature by our Editor-at-Large Mr Garfield Myers, published in June 2020.

Born on April 4, 1935, Mr McMorris attended Kingston College from 1948 until 1952 and helped the school to Sunlight Cup and Minor Cup cricket titles.

In Mr Myers’ four-part series he related how Mr McMorris, on walking into Lucas Cricket Ground one Sunday afternoon, saw the legendary West Indies and Jamaica batsman Mr George Headley playing scrimmage football.

Inside the Lucas clubhouse he saw magnificent black and white photos of Mr Headley “in his sweater” batting at Lords and other English grounds during the 1939 West Indies tour of England.

The experiences that Sunday “sort of triggered my passion for cricket”, Mr McMorris is reported as saying, providing the platform for the development of an orthodox, right-hand batsman with a superb defensive technique. It was a technique so sound that Mr Headley is said to have advised young batsmen learning their trade to “watch McMorris”.

Mr McMorris matured to become among Jamaica’s most successful openers, scoring 5,906 runs in 95 first-class games for an average of 42.18.

Test match cricket proved much more of a struggle for Mr McMorris. In 13 Tests between 1958 and 1966 in the Caribbean, and on two tours of England, he scored 564 runs for an average of 26.85.

His finest moment came in 1962 — Jamaica’s year of Independence from Britain — when he scored his only Test century, 125, before his home crowd at Sabina Park.

That proved to be Mr McMorris’s best Test series by far as he scored 349 runs in six innings for an average of 56 against the high-quality Indian spin attack. Those who knew him and saw him play were not surprised, for Mr McMorris was blessed with the capacity to play spin bowling even better than he did pace.

In 1969 he led Jamaica to victory in the regional Shell Shield tournament, a feat which, along with his other cricketing accomplishments as well as his tenure in public service, contributed to his being invested with the national honour, the Order of Distinction for outstanding and important service, in 1972 by the Jamaican Government.

Off the pitch, Mr McMorris was a practical, straight-talking man who was very jovial with a sharp sense of humour. He was also very conscientious, and that showed in his approach to his job as liaison officer for the overseas farm work programme.

We will miss “Bull” McMorris, a man who held Jamaica and West Indies cricket very dear to his heart, but moreso because he was simply a good and decent human being.

May his soul find comfort in the great Test arena above.