Basil Butcher

Basil Fitzherbert Butcher (3 September 1933 – 16 December 2019) was a Guyanese cricketer who played for the West Indies cricket team. He was regarded as a reliable right-handed middle-order batsman in the star-studded West Indian batting line-up of the 1960s. Australian cricketer and media personality Richie Benaud regarded him as the most difficult of the West Indian batsmen to dismiss. Although Port Mourant was a small village, it produced a number of notable cricketers. Butcher was a neighbour of Alvin Kallicharran's family, while future Test teammates Rohan Kanhai and Joe Solomon lived nearby. The match ended in a draw. Butcher scored his maiden Test century in the third Test at Eden Gardens, which the West Indies won by an innings and 336 runs. He was one of three batsmen to score a century in the West Indies innings, finishing with 103 in three hours with 15 fours, and sharing a 217-run partnership with Kanhai which lasted just over three hours. He backed up with a second consecutive century in the Fourth Test at Madras, scoring 142 in just over five-and-a-half hours with 10 fours, playing a key role in the West Indies' series-clinching victory. He finished the series with 486 runs at an average of 69.42.

He struggled until the 1963 tour of England, where he rediscovered his form by making 383 runs which included an innings of 133 from a team total of just 229, helping the West Indies to a draw at Lord's. The innings became legendary because during the interval he had received news through a letter that his wife had had a miscarriage back home in Guyana.

Butcher was an occasional leg-spinner. He took five Test wickets, which all came in the one innings, 5 for 34 against England at Port-of-Spain in 1967–68. He was West Indies' highest scorer in the series in England in 1969, with 238 runs at an average of 39.66, and was made a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1970. He retired after the series. His son wrote on Facebook: Cricket West Indies tweeted: