Basil Butcher: The Guyanese crisis man

The stylish yet obdurate Basil Butcher was born on September 3, 1933. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the reliable yet patchy career of a Guyanese middle-order batsman.

Basil Fitzherbert Butcher would have played a lot more if his career had not coincided with some of the greatest batsmen of all time. Playing alongside the likes of the Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Clive Lloyd, Seymour Nurse, and Conrad Hunte meant that Butcher had to bat consistently to keep his position in the side.

A batsman with supple wrists and tremendous concentration levels, Butcher was one of the most technically sound batsmen in the strong West Indian outfit, which was saying something. He was generally a crisis man, bailing his side out of trouble as frequently as any of his teammates.
[url=http://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/basil-butcher-the-guyanese-crisis-man-30579]READ MORE AT CRICKET COUNTRY

Wisden wrote of him:

“Butcher’s grim, resolute approach to the game is typically Guyanese —  :-*

and even more typically Berbician. He has been known to smile during an innings,

but rarely before the four-hundredth run.”

Of the adventurous, destructive West Indians the trait has been replicated the best :

by another Guyanese who played his cricket decades after Butcher —

Shivnarine Chanderpaul.  8)

dat doh mek no sense to me.

Butcher came into the side in 1959-60 against england in the west indies and failed fus' 2 tests and got dropped.  den he was recalled in 1963 and went ballistic at Lords and that was that. 

Butcher's position was never threatened, never reconsidered until the day he retired.  he was in solid, his position won for his duration

I doh know wat dat fella talking about.  he better go back to his research

again:  Butcher could hit the ball and score as fast as the rest and best of them. 

Butcher could buckle down and solidify an innings but he was very much like the rest as a stroke-player and scorer

I doan understand ::confused:: ::confused:: ::confused::

Wisden and dem must be mistaking Butcher fuh Solomon..after all Butcher is a dougla.

yuh know how dem white people stop.  we all look alike to them :-[ :-[ :-[

hahahahaha....Chairman can e mail a correction for dat yoiuth writer  :

You right ....he may be mixing up Joe with Basil and a curry leaf  ::LOL::