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The only Test cricketer to live for over 100 years was South Africa’s Norman Gordon (1911- 2014), 103 years and 27 days old. I thought that this record would be broken by another South African Test cricketer, fast bowler Lindsay Tuckett.
But Tuckett passed away on Monday aged 97 years and 212 days. He was cricket’s oldest surviving Test cricketer. The second on the list was West Indies opening batsman Andy Ganteaume who died aged 95 years and 229 days this February in Santa Margarita, St Augustine.
There are some similarities between the two. Both made their Test debuts against England in 1940s (Tuckett in June 1947 and Ganteaume in February 1948). Both were successful in their debuts – Tuckett taking 5-68 in the first innings and Ganteaume scoring 112 in his only innings.
Also their careers were short – Tuckett playing nine Tests taking 19 wickets, Ganteaume only one. I did not have a chance to interview Tuckett but I consider myself lucky to have corresponded with Ganteaume for over a decade.
Quirkily, the names of Andy Ganteaume and Don Bradman are linked. The great Don is remembered for his iconic Test batting average of 99.94 but Ganteaume averaged 112.00 with the bat. Sadly, after a successful Test debut, Andy became a forgotten man.
Born on 22 January 1921 in Port-of-Spain the Andy Ganteaume story defies logic. He was 27 when he scored a century on debut against England in the Port-of-Spain Test of February 1948. Despite this encouraging start he was never selected in a Test again. He retired a decade later with a Test batting average of 112.00, the only one to have a century average.
I wrote a Chapter on him in my book Dramatic Debuts and Swan Songs (2001) after corresponding with him and sharing his bittersweet memory. Sadly his debut was also his swan song. This is how he described his only Test innings to me.
“Jeff Stollmeyer, the regular opener, was injured on eve of the second Test and I was brought in as a replacement after my good scores for Trinidad against the touring MCC team. I opened with George Carew and put on 173 runs for the first wicket. Later Frank Worrell, another debutant, joined me. He scored 97 [in 195 minutes], adding 80 runs with me. We totalled 497 with me top-scoring, 112 runs in 270 minutes.”
So why Ganteaume was never picked again in a Test match again?
“I’ve asked this question to myself for many years and cannot find the answer,” he replied. “I was told that I had batted slowly, disregarding my captain’s orders. I disagree. When my captain Gerry Gomez sent a note to us to bat faster, Frank [Worrell] told me to ignore it and said, ‘Let’s “sun” them some more.’ The note was addressed to both me and Frank, not to me alone. In our partnership of 80, Frank had scored only seven runs more than I had done.”
Worrell went on to become a legend both as a batsman and a captain while Ganteaume became ‘Ganteaume who?’ The surprising part is that Stollmeyer was still unavailable but the appointed captain John Goddard was fit and the only place that could be found for him was as an opener. So out went Ganteaume and in came Goddard who had never opened in his life!
Goddard, a white man, scored 1 and 3 in the next Test in Georgetown as an opener. He went on to play 24 more Tests without scoring a century.
When I asked Andy “What about the statement by Gomez that had you scored 60 runs at a faster rate rather than a century, you could have retained your place?”
Choking with emotion he replied, “I ask anyone, could you imagine any player of the Establishment [the whites] being dropped immediately after making a century in his first Test for batting slow? Had I played the next Test and scored well, it would have been very difficult to bring back Stollmeyer with Geo Carew in brilliant form. It would have been embarrassing for them. Things got curious and curiouser. Them’s my sentiments.”
When I pacified him by saying that it must be some consolation that he had the highest batting average in Test history, he replied, “I’m always at pains to emphasize that my average is also my aggregate. It’s difficult to think of a better player than The Don. Certainly, I could not be mentioned among the greats.”
When I asked him what is wrong with West Indies cricket today, he said, “Professionalism is sadly lacking in our lot these days. Fitness is below acceptable level. There is talent but if one doesn’t know how to use it, talent’s worth nothing.”
Although treated shabbily by the national selectors he kept playing first-class cricket for Trinidad, scoring 2785 runs at 34.81 hitting five centuries (highest score 159) and 17 fifties in 50 matches. As a wicket-keeper he took 34 catches and stumped three. His first-class debut for Trinidad a few weeks after his 20th birthday in 1941 was also promising, 87 runs at No.8.
His persistence was rewarded in 1957 when selected to tour England with West Indies but could not make it to the Test XI. He was 36 then and past his prime.
After scoring 92 against Glamorgan late on the tour, he was named as 12th man for the fifth Test, which was the closest he got to playing a Test again.
He started his autobiography My Story: The Other Side of the Coin (2007) with “My Story is not intended to be a sob story.” He blamed his exile on the entrenched racial order of the time. “The aristocracy had to be kept up and the establishment boys had to have a share of the pie.”
In the Foreword of this book, the Windies cricket legend Everton Weekes wrote, “The injustices experienced by some players mainly because of social and economic disadvantages must not be allowed to go unnoticed. Thank heavens; the playing field now seems to be more level.”
Ganteaume had also been a regular member of Trinidad’s football team. After his playing career, he served as a cricket selector from 1974-85 and managed the West Indies team when Australia visited in 1984.
The West Indies Cricket Board lauded his contribution to cricket when he turned 95 this January. “We salute Andy Ganteaume, one of the patriots of our great game,” said WICB president Dave Cameron. “Andy has also contributed a lot off the field as well, especially with the development of our cricket… A wonderful player and administrator.”
His quirky Test batting average of 112.00 will always feature in cricket trivia contests.
‘Semoy’ Barbara whom he married in 1950 died in 2014. He is survived by their three daughters Jacqueline, Rachel and Deborrah. His granddaughter Michelle typed his autobiography.
The nonagenarians Lindsay Tuckett and Andy Ganteaume should be remembered by the true lovers of the game.