Richard Gabriel

Richard Gabriel player profile

A right-hand batter who got his chance in international cricket only at 31, all of Richard Gabriel's 11 ODIs came in 1984. That was during the Benson & Hedges World Series Cup, which also involved Australia and Pakistan.

All but one of Gabriel's 11 innings came as an opener, as he partnered Desmond Haynes at the top. West Indies beat Australia twice in the best-of-three finals in the Benson & Hedges Cup, although Gabriel wasn't part of either of those wins. The second final, in which he got 19, was tied. But Gabriel's best performance of the series came in his eighth innings, when he scored 41, including two sixes, to set the base for an eventually successful chase of 166 against Australia.

Gabriel never played a Test, but did well in first-class cricket in the lead-up to his West Indies debut. Starting 1976-77, he averaged at least 35 with the bat in six out of seven seasons. The most fruitful of those came in 1978-79, when he piled up 452 runs in seven innings, including two centuries and half-centuries each. Fifty-nine of his 84 games in the format came for Trinidad and Tobago.