Deryck Murray

Deryck Murray was a thoughtful, composed figure in the West Indies side for 17 years. It started when Frank Worrell entrusted the wicketkeeping position in England in 1963 to a diminutive boyish figure, barely out of his teens - and was rewarded with a record 24 victims. Murray's influence on the improved status of cricketers in the Caribbean was immense, and in later life, after retirement, he took that diplomatic role on Trinidad's behalf to the United Nations. His keeping was compact, tidy and, bearing in mind some of his more exuberant successors, generally understated. Nowadays, when more runs are demanded of keepers, he might not have played as much as he did. But his batting was as dapper as his glovework. At Bombay in 1974-75 he made 91 and helped Clive Lloyd add 250 for the sixth wicket. He took to cricket administration and served as president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board. He lost the post to Azim Bassarath in 2009.
Mike Selvey November 2009