More often than not, when fans remember West Indies Cricket of the glory days, they hold their head in sheer bemusement.
Such fans remain stunned. Still very much so.
Their conversation about West Indies is enveloped with an air of invincibility and sheer awe, much like how their teams from that bygone era played.
Several questions strike their mind, such as, but not restricted to the following:
- How did Sir Sobers possess such world-class talent that even today, decades since his retirement, only his and Jacques Kallis’s name is taken when one recounts the greatest all rounders of the game?
- Just how did the West Indies team from the seventies possess such blisteringly quick pacers of the class of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Joel Garner and in the latter years, Malcolm Marshall?
- How did Sir Viv bat with that sheer instinct of domination that even the big names such as Virat Kohli count his name when talking of the world’s best batsmen?
Conversation, nevertheless, almost always glues around the Prince of Trinidad with several asking- how did Brian Lara manage to hit 400 runs on his own and better yet, remain unbeaten until the end?
While none of these questions are out of order and still bedazzle countless even as a new generation is shaping their Cricket, such as Shai Hope, Alzarri Joseph, Mikyle Louis, Nicholas Pooran, Brandon King, Gudakesh Motie (and the likes), time has come to look back at a question that is hardly asked.
A question so seminal about West Indies cricket that perhaps it not being asked or not nearly enough beckons a new discussion altogether.
Who was Karl Nunes?
What is his contribution to West Indies cricket and just what did he do in his life that you are, if at all you have come this far, reading this article?
Truth be told, we often remain so buried in the present that seldom do we get a chance to recollect the past. That’s despite it holding the key to the building a great future.
And fact is that none of the herculean successes of the sixties, seventies and eighties would have come to exist for West Indies Cricket had one man not led his troops valiantly in England and that too, back in the 1920’s.
That Karl Nunes is perhaps a name that would follow an empty stare by a generation perhaps over-obsessed with the fast-paced template of Cricket is a fact, even though a rather harsh one.
But that back in the day, he had to his credit the distinction of being the first-ever captain of the West Indies team is something none can take away from him.
His is a story of passion and courage, a genuine love for the game and the desire to wield the humungous challenge of captaining an inexperienced side against a formidable English one.
Born in Jamaica, Nunes was a noted figure, not many would know, during the travails of the First World War.
It was in 1914, where his leadership would garner respect; Karl Nunes served thousands of miles away from the Caribbean in France as captain of the West India Regiment.
But what’s rather interesting is that all of his cricketing knowledge and the proper exposure to the game would actually come in a land exasperatingly far from his West Indies.
Karl Nunes learnt his cricket at the Dulwich College in South London, which goes as far back in time as the year 1619, the year of its founding. Nunes would learn the ropes of batting by carefully observing legions of English cricketers holding the bat, not one of them from the far out land called the West Indies.
Although, captaincy for him should have happened much earlier; five years after the first Great War, Karl Nunes was appointed vice-captain of the West Indies side, circa 1923.
But his greatest exposure to the thing called facing the daunting English challenge would only come in 1928. The exciting and much-talked-about campaign had an interesting pre-cursor in the year 1926, which served as the basis for the team’s ’28 visit to England.
It’s worthwhile remembering that prior to the ICC, as we know it, there was the revered Imperial Cricket Conference, which in the 1926, allowed for the first time ever teams from New Zealand, India and the West Indies to attend the events.
The purpose of these conference events was to form for the first time ever cricket boards from their regions, in order to establish proper Test match teams. That is when Karl Nunes played a key hand along with key luminaries from the Caribbean islands in discovering talents who could be put together to form the maiden West Indies Test team.
But what also paved way for the first, official or proper West Indies Test tour to England was the former’s great success in the 1923 campaign to Her Majesty’s land. That was a series where the Caribbean side that hadn’t yet been anointed with the proper Test status won no fewer than 12 games and stunned Englishmen left, right and centre.
It was the first time ever that Englishmen in their own backyard were presented with potent cricket talents that really challenged their authority in a game they themselves had invented.
Of course, five years on from that time Karl Nunes would have the honour of setting foot in the territory with a proper and newly-formed West Indies cricket team where he’d contest the onerous challenge of locking horns against a pantheon of talents.
There were the batting greats up the order in Herbert Suttfcliffe and Charlie Hallows. In at number three was the mighty batter Ernst Tyldesley, followed by Wally Hammond, a giant of the game at five, and then the captain Percy Chapman. The indomitable Harold Larwood, Tich Freeman and the great Maurice Tate comprised an impressive bowling attack.
It was always going to be an uphill battle for the visiting West Indies team, who got the glorious occasion of making their Test debut at nowhere else but Lord’s.
Eventually, it didn’t take long for the English side to make the West Indians crumble inside three days. For the West Indies, the experienced George Challenor, who had been here back in 1923 for few unrecognised or should one say, unofficial competitive games, provided some respite with the bat, as did Freddie Martin.
But it was never going to be enough.
Surely, against a searing bowling attack, Karl Nunes hung in well for his watchful and very focused 37 before off spinner Valance Jupp, vastly recognised as a spending all rounder for England (23,000 plus first-class games), cleaned him up. The West Indies could only make 177.
In the next two games, at Manchester and The Oval, respectively, the West Indies suffered from batting collapses even as they did well to score 238 at The Oval. But the stern challenge posed by the English quicks and spinners left them puzzled.
Although, two years on from that disappointing maiden Test assignment, Karl Nunes, then 36 and nowhere near the prime of his young days, came up with something memorable from the bat and interestingly, against the same opponents, England.
Just that this time around, it wasn’t the cold gloomy English weather, it was the sultry but promising sunlight of Kingston, back in his native Jamaica. And in playing his last ever Test match, sadly just the fourth of his career, Karl Nunes produced a career-best performance of 66 and later, 92- both in the same Test.
He was still, back in 1930, the captain of the West Indies cricket team.
And he was still very much geared up for a fresh challenge even if that meant facing the serious pace of Larwood and Voce, the two dynamic fast bowling stars of England who’d gain notoriety in the Bodyline series of 1932-33 against Australia.
But an inning that perhaps has been largely forgotten maybe because so copious has been the volume of cricket played in the decades since is Karl Nunes’s 92. After Andy Sandham exhausted hosts West Indies thanks to an imperious triple hundred, Nunes opened the inning and held off quicks and spinners for no fewer than 330 minutes during the West Indies’s second and final inning.
He was stern in defence and methodical in run-making. No risks taken. Dangerous seam bowling was carefully averted. The focus was to keep the Englishman on the field, running around and tired. Did he succeed?
You bet.
The West Indies made England bowl to them for a good 164 overs, something that was perhaps unheard of just two years prior to this exceptional 1930 outing in the Caribbean. Only this time around, the West Indies had in their ranks a certain George Headly, whose graceful and efficient double century concerned the visitors.
And that’s that.
The game was drawn. Nunes didn’t lose that Test whilst playing at his home, his actual home and his team, you ought to think must have cut a big smile, as would all of Jamaica.
What’s sad is that we remember the ball-by-ball update of our favourite IPL games, not that they aren’t interesting and captivating. But we hardly remember that period of time where one man formed the central tenet to what became the first ever West Indies team.
What’s even sadder is that while we applaud seeing a Sunil Narine turning up for the KKR and Dre Russ hitting those monster sixes, both sights being truly fascinating, we tend to forget that even before the great George Headley came to represent the West Indies, there was Karl Nunes.
And that the great Headley played under Nunes, a man who perhaps deserves greater credit than any coming his way.
