There is one player whose stats are really very good yet we tend to rate him below his contemporaries because of a limited look at the aggregate statistics.
No one denies that Frank Worrell was a world class batsman but it is a tendency by a majority of cricket fans to rate him, as a batsman, below the other two 'W's basically because of their career figures which read as under :-
Code:
[B]Player Tests Runs 50's 100's Avg[/B]
Weekes 48 4455 19 15 58.6
Walcott 44 3798 14 15 56.7
Worrell 51 3860 22 9 49.5
By any and every criteria, the stats appear to show Worrell's performance with the bat as being inferior to that of his illustrious colleagues. This is not borne out by a closer look at these figures.
While all three of them made their debut in the same year ,1948, they did not play all the series together. Worrell, particularly was unable to play in a few series, mostly because of his personal reasons - generally academic. Plus while Weekes retired in 1958 and Walcott in 1960, Worrell played till 1963 mainly because West Indies needed him to lead them as the first ever black captain of the West Indian cricket team.
The three series that Worrell missed were against the then minnows of Test cricket ;-
- India 1948-49 (5 Tests)
- Newzealand 1955-56 (4 Tests - Only Weekes played in this series)
- Pakistan 1957-58
Its interesting to note the number of runs Weekes and Walcott scored in these three series.
Code:
[B]Player Mts Runs 100s 50s Avg[/B]
Weekes 14 1652 8 4 86.9
Walcott 9 837 3 4 76.1
Clearly they made merry against the weak attacks. Take away these three series and the comparative figures of the three W's for 1948-1960 become :-
Code:
[B]Player Mts Runs 100s 50s Avg[/B]
Weekes 34 2803 7 15 49.2
Walcott 35 2961 12 10 52.9
Worrell 36 3011 9 12 52.8
Thats better but thats not all. There is more to it.
Walcott and Weekes were absolute butchers on the home tracks which in those years were as true batting wickets as you could get anywhere in the world. However, when playing away from home, these two were reduced to more mortal figures. Here is how the three W's fared at home and away during this period.
Code:
[B]Player Mts Runs 100s 50s Avg[/B]
Weekes-Away 16 838 1 7 28.9
Weekes-Home 18 1965 6 8 70.2
Walcott-Away 14 762 2 3 33.1
Walcott-Home 21 2199 10 7 66.6
Worrell-Away 16 1459 5 5 54.0
Worrell-Home 20 1552 4 7 51.7
The difference is too stark to require any comment and shows the relative batting strengths of the three in true light.
As I have always maintained, statistics rarely tell you everything although you can see a bit (just a bit) more out of them if you are willing to look a bit more carefully.
I had always, as a youngster been amazed at how much Worrell's batting was written in glowing terms while the same were not used for his two contemporaries. Then came internet and the ease with which one could look at all statistics in far greater detail and one saw the difference even in the figures - although by all accounts, Worrell's fabulous batting was difficult to capture in numbers.
