Kenneth Weekes: Remembering a legend (17 Feb 1998)

February 17, 1998

Remembering a legend

Tony Becca

CRICKET: The recent death of Kenneth Weekes brought back memories of an age when batsmen used to hit the ball - when fast bowlers were cut, hooked, pulled or driven over head, and when, with twinkling feet batsmen used to go at spin bowlers and smash them anywhere between extra cover and midwicket.

In those days when fast bowlers bowled fast - when coaches, the few that were, did not preach the gospel of line and and length with the monotony of today, batsmen had to protect themselves, and without the benefit of padding all over their bodies, arm guards helmets, the best method of defence was attack.

In those days when spin bowlers used to spin the ball on uncovered pitches, batsmen were forced to get to it before it pitched, spun and jumped at them; and but for silly mid off and/or silly mid on, fielders were in the deep at long-off and long-on - unlike today where they are perched under the batsman's nose or in his back pocket even for the gentlest of slow bowlers on covered pitches.

In those days, cricket was exciting and entertaining, it was attack and counter-attack - and hardly anyone, in local club cricket for Lucas, in firstclass cricket for Jamaica and the West Indies, or in one magnificent Test innings at The Oval, entertained as much as Weekes.

He hit the ball hard - so hard in fact that he became known as "Bam Bam".

At his home ground of Nelson Oval, the ball used to drop onto the neighbours' zinc roofs like bombs, and on most Saturdays the residents in the Rollington Town community used to race to the ground at the sound of the first explosion.

"I remember," said Easton McMorris, the former Lucas, Jamaica and West Indies batsman, "when, as a boy, I saw him batting against the tight, accurate left-hander George Mudie. He seldom allowed the ball to drop. He used his feet and hit him on top of the clubhouse repeatedly."

That was "Bam Bam" Weekes, and it mattered not who was bowling at him, the occasion, or where he was batting. He blasted the best of Jamaica, in key matches, and all over Jamaica. And in his second and last Test match, with the West Indies on the run, he destroyed the best of England at The Oval in the third and final Test 1939.

One down after losing the first Test at Lord's, the West Indies were 164 for four replying to England's 352 when the left-handed Weekes joined Victor Stollmeyer.

According to the reports of the match, Weekes started nervously before suddenly breaking loose and taking 11 runs off one over from Reg Perks. After that, "Bam Bam", driving high to long-off and long-on, went to town, and in 90 minutes the pair added 163 - including 21 off one over from pace bowler Perks when England called for the second new ball.

Weekes went on to score 137 in a little over two hours as the West Indies reached 498 in the drawn match.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Douglas Jardine, the famous England captain of a few years earlier, said that the swing of Weekes bat on that unforgettable day was sweeter than that of Don Bradman - the Australian champion rated the greatest batsman of all time.

Those were the days when batsmen hit the ball, and today, with so many batsmen preferring to prod and block, with batsmen failing to entertain, and with the crowds getting smaller and smaller, the world of cricket would do with a batsman like "Bam Bam" Weekes.

Source :: The Jamaica Gleaner (https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/)