KINGSTON, Jamaica, (CMC) - Courtney Walsh, Test cricket’s all-time leading fast bowler, is among the list of Jamaica’s top five players ever in the Scotiabank West Indies Jubilee votes.
At Tuesday night’s Jubilee Gala announcement of the island’s best five players all-time, voted for by the fans, batting great George Headley, Lawrence Rowe, Michael Holding and Jeffrey Dujon joined Walsh on the list.
Walsh’s world record 519 Test wickets was surpassed only last week by Sri Lanka’s spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.
Headley is widely regarded as the greatest batsman produced by the West Indies, and the stylish right-handed Rowe won admirers worldwide for his many classic innings during the 1970s.
Pacer Holding and wicketkeeper/batsman Dujon were key components of the dominant West Indies team of the late 1970s into the 1980s.
Rowe’s career-best innings of 302 against England in Barbados in March
1974, copped the award as the greatest Test innings by a Jamaican.
“I'm overwhelmed, just this morning someone came up to me and said it was the best innings he had seen,” Rowe told the Jamaica Gleaner.
When the votes were tallied for the best innings, Rowe’s triple century effort topped Headley’s 223 against England during the 1929-30 series and battling 107 against England on testing Lord's pitch in 1939.
The best bowling award went to Holding, for his match haul of 14 for 149 (eight for 92 and six for 57) against England at The Oval in the fifth Test of the 1976 tour.
The top five Jamaican cricketers will go into a regional pool of 30 players from which five will be selected as the greatest West Indians of all-time during the West Indies tour of England in July.