West Indies Cricket Fans

This series of articles has focused on the six Guyanese cricketers who have scored only one Test century in their career. The earlier instalments examined that special innings played by these batsmen, namely, Robert Christiani’s 107 against India at Delhi in 1948, Bruce Pairaudeau’s 115 against India at Port of Spain in 1953, Joe Solomon’s 100 not out against India at Delhi in 1958, Leonard Baichan’s 105 not out against Pakistan at Lahore in 1975, Faoud Bacchus’ 250 against India at Kanpur in 1979 and Clayton Lambert’s 104 in Antigua in 1998 against England.

This final article will view these innings in comparative perspective, pointing out similarities and differences, including areas of uniqueness.

The most obvious common trait of these six cricketers is probably the fact that they played Test cricket in the post-World War II era. Christiani scored his century in the 1940s, Pairaudeau and Solomon theirs in the 1950s, Baichan and Bacchus in the 1970s and Lambert in the 1990s.

it must be stated that the fact that these six Guyanese scored only a single Test century indicates that none of them had a truly satisfactory Test career. Only two of them, namely, Christiani and Solomon, commanded a regular place in the West Indies Test team. Most of them had a short or relatively short-Test career- Christiani (22 Tests), Pairaudeau (13), Solomon (27), Baichan (3), Bacchus (19) and Lambert (5). Only Baichan among them has an impressive Test career batting average (46.00). All the others have a moderate or poor average – Solomon (34.00), Lambert (31.55), Christiani (26.35), Bacchus (26.06) and Pairaudeau (21.61). These statistics are mostly in striking contrast to their productive batting for Guyana in first-class cricket.