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‘Bertie’ Clarke: The doctor from Barbados who played Test cricket

In later years, the college has added the names of Robin Bynoe, David Holford, Richard Edwards and Geoffrey Greenidge to their list of distinguished alumni who have played Test cricket. Another name in the list is that of Carlos Bertram ‘Bertie’ Clarke.

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Bertie Clarke © Getty Images
Bertie Clarke © Getty Images

Perhaps it would be best to begin this narrative with the mention of one Thomas Harrison (1689 – 1746), Churchwarden of the Vestry of St Michael, Bridgetown. Mr Ralph Jemmott, SCM, introduces us to this remarkable gentleman in his book A History of Harrison College: A Study of an Elite Educational Institution in a Colonial Polity. It seems that upon his appointment as Churchwarden in 1729, he had suggested to the Vestry that from his 10% commission for the collecting and paying of taxes, he would like to contribute a part of his earnings towards the establishment of a Charity School, the maintenance of which would be dependent on the benevolence of persons interested in the education and development of the country.

The school building was completed in 1732 and was officially incorporated via a deed dated July 30, 1733. According to contemporary reports, “The School was modelled on the paradigm of the large Public School in England complete with a Governing Body which included the President of the Council, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, the Attorney-General, the Rector of the St. Michael Parish, the Churchwarden (Thomas Harrison) and two members of the St. Michael’s Vestry.”

Over years, Harrison College has produced several great cricketers like Sir Harold Austin (captain of West Indies on tours of England from 1906 to 1923 and Speaker of the House of Assembly from 1934 to 1942) George Challenor, Plum Warner; Cecil Williams, Cammie Smith and Clyde Walcott. In later years, the college has added the names of Robin Bynoe, David Holford, Richard Edwards and Geoffrey Greenidge to their list of distinguished alumni who have played Test cricket. Another name in the list is that of Carlos Bertram ‘Bertie’ Clarke.

Clarke was born towards the end of World War I, on April 7, 1918, at Lakes Folly, Cats Castle, in the parish of St Michael, Bridgetown. His time at Harrison taught him the basics of cricket and fired in him the zeal for the game. He played in the school First XI in 1936, aged about 18. He gradually developed into a right-hand bat and a leg-spin and googly bowler. Playing for the local club side, Spartan, against Trinidad at Port of Spain in 1937-38, Clarke captured 4 for 109.

However, Clarke had made his First-Class debut even before that. Playing for Barbados against British Guiana (BG) earlier that season, Clarke, one of four debutants, scored 1 and 7 and took 2 for 146.

Bertie Clarke’s First-Class career spanned 1937-38 to 1961. During this time he played 97 matches, scoring 1,292 runs with a solitary fifty, and he averaged 12.30. He held 42 catches. His leg-spin and googly bowling brought him 333 wickets at 26.37. His best bowling figures were 7 for 75. He had 20 five-wicket hauls and a ten-wicket haul.

In February 1939 he was selected to play for a Combined XI against Jamaica at Port-of-Spain, a trial to select the touring party to England for the 1939 Test tour. Well, his performances in the match amounted to 1 wicket and 6*. Nevertheless, he found himself bound for England as a leg-spinner.

Clarke played 10 First-Class matches in England before the first Test, picking up 32 wickets in the process. That seemed to suffice for skipper Rolph Grant, and Clarke was selected for the first of his 3 Tests, at Lord’s. This was only the 20th Test overall for West Indies, who were still rather new to this format of the game. The scorecard says that England won the Test by 8 wickets, but that blanket statement does not do justice to some exquisite batting performances from both sides.

For the visitors, George Headley (106 and 107) became the first to score centuries in each innings of a Lord’s Test. Len Hutton began the England first innings in imperious style, scoring an imposing 196. Denis Compton scored 120 in the same innings before becoming the very first Test victim of debutant Bertie Clarke (his only wicket in the Test). On the bowling front, debutant Bill Copson of Derbyshire covered himself with glory by taking 5 for 85 and 4 for 67 in a brilliant exhibition of fast-medium bowling.

In the lead-up to the second Test at Old Trafford, Clarke had a five-wicket haul at Harrogate, Learie Constantine taking the other 5 of the Yorkshire first innings of 114. The Test ended in a draw. Bad weather dogged the Test. Only 35 minutes’ play being possible on Saturday; a storm on Sunday evening drenched the entire playing surface, and it was only thanks to the concerted and energetic efforts of the ground-staff, who often had to resort to the use of blankets to soak up the water, that play could commence a few minutes after noon. The light then continued to be insufficient as England went in to lunch at 34 for the loss.

The events of the post-lunch session on Monday are recalled in Living My Dreams by Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira. It seems that Grant had thrown the ball to young Clarke with the words: “Now young Clarke, I’m not setting a field for leg breaks and googlies, you have to decide what you are going to bowl. You can’t bowl both.”

The rookie thus had no option but to stick to the skipper’s plan, and started by bowling only leg-breaks. However, it is said that by the time Clarke was delivering his third over, Headley, fielding at short mid-on, was advising Clarke (under his breath, of course), to bowl the googly. It took a little time for the newcomer to work up enough courage to go against the advice of his skipper. His first googly had England skipper Wally Hammond down the wicket searching for it, only to be stumped by Derek Sealy for 22. Amid the jubilation at the England skipper’s dismissal, however, Grant was said to have reprimanded his young spinner for going against instructions.

Clarke captured 3 for 59, his other victims being Eddie Paynter and Compton. The England innings ended on 164. The third day of the Test happened to be the birthday of Bill Bowes; he celebrated it in style by capturing 6 for 33 as West Indies were dismissed for 133.  The Test finally ended in a draw.

Clarke’s next 3 First-Class games in England proved to be quite productive as he returned figures of 5 for 64 and 4 for 80 against Surrey, 6 for 32 and 7 for 75 (his best ever analysis) against Hampshire, and 6 for 138 against Somerset. Indeed, Clarke was to pick up 87 wickets from his 22 matches on the 1939 tour of England at an average of 21.81, with 6 five-wicket hauls.

Roger Seymour, in an article entitled The Abandoned Tour, depicts a sombre scene for the beginning of the third Test: “The atmosphere was almost surreal as the silvery barrage balloons cast their ominous shadows across the Kennington Oval, London, with the threat of war looming larger with every passing day.”

In the ultimate analysis, the third Test had ended in a relatively high-scoring draw. Constantine took 5 wickets as England were bowled out for 352, Clarke picking up the wicket of Tom Goddard. West Indies replied with 498, ‘Bam Bam’ Weekes scoring 137, his maiden Test century. Vic Stollmeyer, in what turned out to be his only innings in Test cricket, scored 96. Constantine lit up the last day with a spectacular display of power hitting, adding 78 runs to his overnight 1* in about an hour, with 11 fours and a six off the bowling of Reg Perks that disappeared into the pavilion.

The England second innings total was a very robust 366 for 3 declared. Hutton remained not out on 165. Hammond threw his bat at the ball in very uncharacteristic style to reach 138 before he was bowled by Clarke, the last wicket to fall in the innings, and the last Test wicket to fall before the outbreak of World War II. Hammond was also Clarke’s 100th First-Class victim. The Test produced 1,216 runs for the loss of only 23 wickets. It was to be the last Test for six Englishmen and eight West Indians.

This Test was to be the last First-Class match for Clarke on the tour as the last 7 matches were hastily cancelled with the impending global conflict in Europe appearing imminent. Although his Test career was restricted to only 3 appearances for West Indies, and although he had captured only 6 wickets, how many bowlers with so few Test matches could boast of the wickets of Hammond and Compton twice each in their brief careers?

The 21-year old Clarke was offered a seat to read Medicine by Guy’s Hospital, London and he gratefully accepted the offer in October that year. He qualified as a Doctor in 1946 and set up a practice at Pimlico in central London. He married Elma Addison in 1948 and they were blessed with a daughter, Madeline, in 1954.

During the War years, First-Class cricket came to a standstill in England due to the lack of sufficient manpower, the majority of the youth of England having enlisted for the war. A series of games was organised along the length and breadth of the country with the intention of raising funds for the war effort. The archives show that Clarke had thrown himself whole-heartedly into this altruistic enterprise, playing about 117 matches, mainly for a team hastily got up and called the British Empire XI (he was skipper of the team on several occasions), among others, from 1940 to 1945. It was reported at the time that Clarke had met with a fair amount of success in these games with his mixture of leg-spin and googlies. His 1941 haul was 98 wickets at 11.48; his 1942 haul was even better, 129 wickets at 10.17; and so on.

These British Empire XI games were the brainchild of a Public Schoolboy, one Desmond Donnelly, who later became Member of Parliament. In six years of wartime cricket, the British Empire XI were able to raise about £20,000 for the British Red Cross Society and smaller sums for other worthy charities. In all, they won 150 of their total 238 matches played and lost only 36.

Bertie Clarke enjoyed a long association with BBC from the time he was the Caribbean correspondent and later as a commentator. He was a member of the BBC Sports Club and played cricket matches around the country for nearly 30 years, captaining the side on numerous occasions. Wisden reports that Clarke continued to play for BBC until he was almost 70 and would often make the train journey to a club game on a Sunday in the midst of a Championship match. It is estimated that Clarke had taken about 3,000 wickets for the BBC Club in his long tenure with them, even winning the First XI Bowling Cup in his final year for the BBC Club.

The second phase of Clarke’s First-Class career began in 1946 when he made his debut for his adopted county Northamptonshire (under a special qualification clause), against Middlesex at Lord’s. He took 3 wickets. That began a relationship that was to last from 1946 to 1949, during which Clarke played 49 matches, scoring 874 runs and taking took 156 wickets for them. His best season for Northants was 1947, when he took 89 wickets including 6 five-wicket hauls. He also excelled once with bat, against Worcestershire in 1947, scoring 25 and 86 (following on).

He then played 18 matches for Essex in 1959 and 1960, scoring 177 runs and taking 58 wickets.

Sunday Advocate reported that Clarke had been invited by MCC to play the requisite number of matches to qualify for membership. It seems that his name had been proposed to the MCC Committee in 1942 by no less a person than Plum Warner (with his strong Barbados roots) and seconded by former Essex captain Lt Col GTS Stevens. It was a signal honour for Clarke, the invitation being extended only to those who had made significant contributions to the progress of the game in any manner. He was required to play 10 matches for MCC in two consecutive years for full membership to the MCC. He played 4 matches for them in all, including his very last First-Class game, against Gloucestershire in 1961. He had the honour of leading the MCC in this game.

The journal Jet reported an incident in connection with Clarke to the effect that the latter had become embroiled in an unfortunate incident of an illegal termination of pregnancy and had been forced to accept the hospitality of The Crown for a period of three years.

He made frequent trips back to Barbados in his later years, and kept up his long-term friendships with his Barbados acquaintances. An avid enthusiast of music and parties, he attended the Trinidad Carnival whenever he could. Following the demise of both parents and with the help of his sister, he had converted the family home in Bridgetown into a small hotel and often spoke of retiring to his beloved island. Throughout his medical career he went out of his way to offer help, support and friendship to West Indians living in England, particularly those in London. In recognition of his energetic social workamong the West Indian population in the UK, he was honoured with an OBE in 1983.

Dr Carlos Bertram Clarke passed away from cancer on October 14, 1993 at Putney, London, aged about 75.

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