IF Frank Worrell's life were judged solely by his cricket career, his legacy would be confined to indelible images of elegant and skilful batting; inspiring and historic leadership as the first black captain of a West Indies cricket team; and his pioneering role in forging a unified West Indies identity among small countries scattered across the Caribbean.
A hundred years after his birth on August 1, 1924, six biographies keep Worrell’s cricket achievements alive. One of them creates a new vision of Worrell – not primarily defined by cricket, but by his West Indianness.
Son of Grace, by cricket historian and newspaper columnist Vaneisa Baksh, doesn’t analyse Worrell’s cricket career. Instead, it presents the literal and figurative essence of Worrell as the complex, private man who shaped regional cricket, rather than vice versa.
“This is not a cricket book,” says Baksh.
She describes herself as a biographer, not a cricket commentator, and establishes that distinction in the book’s title. Worrell’s mother, Grace, a proud, strong and successful seamstress, laid the foundation for Worrell’s self-image, which would translate on the cricket field as the epitome of grace.
[caption id="attachment_1100366" align="aligncenter" width="461"] Vaneisa Baksh's Son of Grace. - Photo courtesy Metropolitan Book shop[/caption]
“From his mother, he experienced a social conditioning,” says Baksh. “Grace presented a distant feeling of royalty; a sense that he was different. I think he inhabited two worlds: his mother’s and that of the rest of Barbados.”
His mother’s influence is felt throughout the book.
“There's a nearly unspoken, parallel story going on in Son of Grace paying tribute to a mother who shaped Worrell through her own journey. How did Caribbean women raise noteworthy individuals who shaped transitional eras? Those stories are generational – never solitary journeys.”
Through his mother, Worrell lived a relatively privileged life, but he never lost sight of injustices shaped by colonialism.
As a West Indian, Baksh is well-positioned to probe the West Indies cricketer’s private life and connect it to his stellar achievements. Her master’s thesis focused on the search for West Indian identity as seen in cricketers’ biographies.
“That’s how I felt Worrell should be written about,” she says. “I have never written match reports. I study the people who play cricket – the personalities, environment and social circumstances.”
She began research and writing in 2016. The biography took about six years to complete and was published in 2023 by Fairfield Books, London.
Many challenges surfaced in the early stages of research.
“In TT, we don’t keep documents, archives, and records. Everything I had seen was primarily about cricket – description of cricket matches and Frank’s performances. I was determined not to write about his cricket, but to explore who Frank was, why he had such an impact on cricket internationally and how he formed a West Indian identity. That is not well documented.”
Many potential so
