Reverend Dr. Wesley ‘Wes’
Winfield Hall
September 12, 1937, in Glebe Land, Station Hill, St. Michael, Barbados
Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaican XI, West Indies, F. M. Worrell’s XI, Queensland, World XI, Commonwealth XI, Indian President’s XI
A man for all the people, all the time, Hall made his Test debut in 1958. Among the most feared fast bowlers in the history of the game, he played 48 Tests, took 192 wickets (exactly 4 a match) at 26 runs each with a best of 7 for 69. He took 5 wickets in a single innings nine times and 10 in a match once. In 1961, he bowled the last over of the infamous tied Test against Australia held in Brisbane. Unstoppable, he took 27 wickets at 15.74 in 1962 against India. A year later, he and his regular pace partner Charlie Griffith combined to inspire a famous series win in England, when he bowled flawlessly for three and a half hours at Lord’s, taking 4 for 93. Hall led the West Indies to their first series win over Australia in 1964-65 with 16 wickets. In all first-class cricket, he took 546 wickets in 170 matches.
He was a selector and manager of the West Indies team and president of the West Indies Cricket Board from 2001 to 2003, during which time he sat on the board of directors of the International Cricket Council. He was the Minister of Tourism in Barbados in the 1980s and implemented many sports-related initiatives that have now been adopted globally. He is an evangelical church leader and is on the board of directors for Stanford 20/20 Cricket.
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