Clyde Butts

Clyde Godfrey Butts (8 July 1957 – 8 December 2023) was a Guyanese cricketer who batted right-handed and bowled off breaks. Later, he became a team selector. In a career spanning 14 seasons, he played 87 first class games, including seven Test matches for the West Indies between 1985 and 1988. He also served as the chairman of West Indies Cricket Board Selection Panel for a brief stint.

Biography Clyde Godfrey Butts was born in a village called Perseverance as the tenth and last child in his family. though arguably, for an offspinner in that fearsome West Indies attack, most days were a rest day."

Butts died in a road accident in Eccles, East Bank Demerara, on 8 December 2023, at age 66. On 9 December 2023, during the third ODI between the West Indies and England, West Indies players wore black armbands to mourn the deaths of Clyde Butts and Joe Solomon.

Career The West Indies rarely selected spin bowlers when Butts was active – choosing instead to back their four fast bowlers and even ESPN Cricinfo has described the fate of being a West Indian spinner in the 1980s, by comparing it with a trained opera singer in a boy band.

Butts did play five matches on the Indian subcontinent, where teams traditionally select spin bowlers as the pitches are believed to suit them more. It was on the subcontinent that Butts registered his best bowling figures, with four for 73 against Pakistan during the third Test of the series which was played at Karachi in November 1986. He also took the prized wicket of the Pakistani captain and all-rounder Imran Khan and finished with six for 95 in the match, but could not prevent a drawn match and a drawn series. He also captained Guyana in domestic cricket during the 1980s and predominantly played first-class cricket representing Guyana. In July 2008, he was appointed a national selector and headed the selection panel of Cricket West Indies. During his stint as the chairman of selectors for Cricket West Indies, West Indies emerged triumphant in the final of the 2012 ICC World Twenty20.