West Indies batting great Sir Everton Weekes died on Wednesday at the age of 95 in Barbados. Weekes was the last surviving member of the famous '3 Ws' of West Indies cricket, along with Sir Frank Worrell and Sir Clyde Walcott. Weekes, Walcott and Worrell made their Test debuts in 1948 and dominated West Indies batting for most of the 1950s. Worrell died in 1967 and Walcott passed away in 2006.
Born in Barbados, Weekes went on to play 48 Test matches for the West Indies. Weekes made his debut against England at the Kensington Oval. He hit 15 centuries and scored a total 4,455 runs at an average of 58.61. His highest score in Test cricket was 207. Weekes play 152 first-class matches, scoring over 12,000 runs and hitting 36 centuries along the way. Only nine batsmen who batted at least 20 times in Test cricket have a higher average than Weekes. Weekes and England’s Herbert Sutcliffe are the fastest batsmen to score 1,000 Test runs, reaching the milestone in 12 innings, one less than Sir Donald Bradman.
ESPN Cricinfo noted that Walcott, Worrell and Weekes all had remarkable careers. "While all went on to enjoy outstanding careers—Worrell became West Indies' first black captain and was later a senator in Jamaica, while Walcott averaged 56.68 in Test cricket and later became the first non-white chair of the ICC—Weekes was, arguably, the best batsman of the three," ESPN Cricinfo reported.
Weekes is most notable for hitting a world record five successive Tests centuries in 1948. Four of those centuries were in India. Weekes scored "141 against England in Jamaica, followed by scores of 128, 194, 162 and 101 in India," the Associated Press reported. Weekes narrowly missed a sixth consecutive century when he was controversially run out in the Test match at Madras (now Chennai) for 90.
Everton Weekes was knighted in 1995. Both Worrell and Walcott had also been knighted.
