G.Headley-Black Bradman

George Alphonso Headley (May 30, 1909 - November 30, 1983) was a West Indian cricketer. He is universally acknowledged as one of the finest batsmen of all time and his career batting average in Test cricket, 60.83, is the third highest of any player with a completed career, behind Don Bradman and Graeme Pollock. He was Wisden's Cricketer of the Year in 1934, and on 6 September 2009, he was posthumously inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

He was born in Panama where his father had worked building the Panama canal, and was taken to Jamaica at the age of ten to improve his English - Spanish had been his first language - and planned to study dentistry in the United States. He played against a visiting English team captained by the Hon. Lionel Tennyson. Headley scored 78 in the first match and 211 in the second.

Headley was not selected for the West Indies 1928 tour of England but in the home series against England in 1929-30 he scored 703 runs in eight Test innings, averaging 87.80, with four centuries. His scores included 21 and 176 in his first Test, 114 and 112 in the third, making him the youngest player in Test Match history to score and hundred in both innings. This record was not broken until 8 March 2009, by Phillip Hughes of Australia. He followed up that achievement by scoring 223 in the fourth Test. He was the first batsman to score three and then four test centuries before the age of 21. In 1930-31 in Australia he scored two more Test centuries and ended the tour with 1,066 runs. Clarrie Grimmett described him as the strongest on-side player he had ever bowled against. In 1932, in a single month, he hit 344 not out (his highest-ever score), 84, 155 not out and 140 against another English side to visit Jamaica. Against sterner opposition and in more difficult conditions in England in the following year, he averaged 66 for the tour, scoring a century on his first appearance at Lord's and taking 224 not out off Somerset. In the second Test at Manchester he made 169 not out, a score he improved upon with 270 not out at Kingston in the 1934-35 series.

In 1948 he became the first black man to captain the West Indies and, in his final appearance in January 1954, he set a record as the oldest West Indian Test cricketer (44 years and 236 days). He had not played a Test for four years but the selectors chose him on his home ground and he was welcomed to the crease by what E.W. Swanton described as "an ecstasy of applause" from the crowd. England spread the field "as happens when a man comes in to bat in his benefit match" and gave him a single, a fact he acknowledged by doffing his cap.

Headley was compact, balanced and light on his feet. Sir Len Hutton, who saw him at his best in 1939, declared he has never seen a batsman play the ball later. He was strong off the back foot, with the cut a particular favourite, but could also drive fluently and work the ball adeptly into the leg side. Like Bradman he was skilled in picking the gaps in the field. He was not limited to one set of conditions, thriving on the damp green seamers of league cricket in England as much as the sun baked strips of home.

His rate of scoring centuries, often seen as an accurate measure of great batsmen, of one every four innings is bettered only by Bradman. In 22 Tests he scored ten centuries, with eight against England and was the first to score a century in each innings of a Test at Lord's in 1939. The West Indies played far fewer test matches in his era, and he lost six years to the Second World War. By comparison Graeme Pollock hit 7 centuries in his 23 tests compared to Headley's 10 in 22. By the start of the war he had scored 9,532 runs in first-class cricket at average of 72.21. He played on after the hostilities had ended in a few matches and finished with 9,921 runs, and 33 centuries, at an average of 69.86. He is still known as the "Black Bradman" and during his career West Indians jokingly called Bradman the 'white Headley'. He scored 29% of his sides' runs in his career - the highest ever percentage, more than Bradman's 27% and was also nicknamed 'Atlas' for he way he carried his team. Only Learie Constantine can match his influence on the formative days of West Indian test cricket. Headley was also an excellent fielder and occasional leg-break bowler.

Headley's son Ron Headley appeared in two Test matches for the West Indies in 1973 and his grandson Dean Headley played fifteen Test matches and thirteen One Day Internationals for England in the late 1990s. It was the first of only two instances of a grandfather, father and son playing Test cricket, the other being Jahangir Khan, Majid Khan and Bazid Khan. The 8,000 seat George Headley stand at Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica is named in his honour.

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