Basil Butcher’s batting was unconventional for a West Indies batsman as he didn’t believe in belting the ball around. Instead, his game was more about deft touches and timing the ball, using his wrists as the major enforcer. Butcher picked gaps at will through sublime, delicate strokes that were works of pure wizardry. A middle-order batsman by design, he impressed right from his debut series and despite having a few slumps in between, largely endured a successful Test career. Butcher was a versatile man too, highly flexible to varying conditions and having six of his seven centuries away from home is a testimony to this fact. His defence was quite sound, as was his temperament even though it’s his effortless strokeplay that grabbed eyeballs on most occasions. With the ball, he could bowl part-time leg-spin and can boast of holding a unique record of all his Test scalps – five in total – in the same innings. Of course, with the efficiency of the West Indies attack, Butcher was barely needed to bowl.

Written by Hariprasad Sadanandan