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Butcher’s well played innings ends on 86
By Sean Devers
Basil Fitzherbert Butcher, reportedly the first person of Amerindian decent to play Test cricket for the West Indies, was given out by almighty for a well-played 86 and now sits in a Heavenly Pavilion with the late greats of the cricketing world.
Basil Butcher at the BCBC presentation a few years ago.
His innings began on September 3, 1933 in the Village of Port Mourant, Berbice in British Guiana and ended on December 16, 2019 in Florida, USA.
A solid, responsible and dependable right-hander, Butcher was born to an Amerindian mother (Mathilda Elizabeth Lowe) and Ethelbert Fitzherbert Butcher, a Barbadian who migrated to British Guiana, His father worked at the Port Mourant Sugar Estate, while his mother ran a bakery.
Butcher was born on Port Mourant Sugar Estate in Central Corentyne in Guyana’s second largest County, about 100 miles from Georgetown, Guyana’s only City.
Butcher attended the Corentyne High School but left school before writing his Exams. He worked as a teacher, a Public Works Department clerk, an Insurance salesman and a Welfare Officer, while playing cricket for Port Mourant.
He grew up with six sisters and married Pam Liverpool in 1962 and leaves to morn his wife and four children Brian, Bruce, Blossom and Basil Junior, who is actively involved with cricket in the USA.
The level-headed Butcher was the calming factor in the storm of aggressive stroke-players; many times batting at four, sandwiched between fellow Berbician and arguably Guyana’s best batsman Rohan Kanhai and the legendary Sir Garfield Sobers.
Butcher was discovered by the late Sir Clyde Walcott, along with Kanhai and Joe Solomon in Port Mourant in the mid-1950s when he worked as Welfare officer at Port Mourant Estate which was then controlled by the Bookers Group of Companies.
Butcher played 44 Tests and 169 First-Class between 1955 and 1971. He also played the last of his five 50-over matches in 1973 but never played an ODI.
One of 19 Berbicans to play Test cricket and one of six from Port Mourant, Butcher scored 3,104 runs from 78 innings at an Average of 43.11 with seven centuries and 16 fifties and a highest score of an unbeaten 209.
His 262 First-Class innings produced 11,628 runs with 31 tons and 54 half-centuries at an Average of 49.90. Butcher’s leg-spin got him five Test wickets, all one innings (5-34) against England in Trinidad in 1967-68. He also took 40 First-Class victims.
Butcher was selected for the 1958-59 tour to India and made his Test debut along with Wes Hall in the first Test.
He scored 28 and 64 not out, batting with Kanhai as a runner and sharing a 134-run stand with Garfield Sobers before the West Indies declared.
Butcher scored his first Test century in the third Test at Eden Gardens, which the West Indies won by an innings and 336 runs. He was one of three batsmen to score a century in the West Indies innings, finishing with 103 and sharing a 217-run partnership with Kanhai which lasted just over three hours.
The Berbician made a second consecutive century in the Fourth Test at Madras, scoring 142 in just over five-and-a-half hours with 10 fours, playing a key role in the West Indies’ series-clinching victory to finish the series with 486 runs at an average of 69.42.
After enduring a slump in form he rediscovered his form by making 383 runs in the 1963 tour of England which included an innings of 133 at Lords, out of just 229, helping the West Indies to a draw.
This was one of his better innings and demonstrated great mental strength and temperament. During the interval he received news that his wife in Guyana had suffered a miscarriage but an emotional Butcher continued to bat and played a match saving innings.
After he retired from First-Class Cricket he moved to Linden and played club cricket for the McKenzie Sports club, while being the proprietor of a Hotel and Restaurant after working at Guymine Bauxite Company in Region 10. Butcher was also a West Indies selector.
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