Guyanese Online

Everton Weekes, walking out with Frank Worrell (left), still holds the record for five or more successive Test hundreds © Getty Images

Ninety years of Everton Weekes

February 26, 2015 – espncricinfo.com

By Tony Cozier

Sixty-six years ago, a century eluded the legendary West Indies batsman. He now has another chance, without bat in hand, to reach that magical figure.

Of all the numbers stacked against the name Everton de Courcy Weekes in scorebooks the world over, 90 carries an unfortunate significance.

It was his score in West Indies’ first innings of the fourth Test against India in Chepauk, Madras, now Chennai, in January 1949. Ten more runs would have extended his overall record of five successive Test hundreds that has never been surpassed; he was cut short by a run-out decision by the square-leg umpire that Weekes now euphemistically describes as “rather doubtful”. 

Sixty-six years on, the figure 90 carries an altogether happier connotation for a celebrated cricketer, now Sir Everton Weekes, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG), holder of Barbados’ Gold Crown of Merit (GCM), who enters the tenth decade of a fulfilling life on Thursday.

Of surviving West Indies Test players, only Andy Ganteaume, the diminutive opening batsman with the unique record of scoring a hundred in his one and only Test innings, is older, at 94.  [Read more]