England and West Indies players pay tribute to Sir Everton Weekes

England and the West Indies will pay tribute to the great Sir Everton Weekes during their respective intra-squad matches on Thursday.

The Bajan, celebrated as one of the finest batsmen the Caribbean has ever produced and one of the famous ‘three Ws’ alongside Sir Clyde Walcott and Sir Frank Worrell, died on Wednesday aged 95.

Black armbands will be worn by England’s players at the Ageas Bowl on the second day of their internal squad match before next week’s first Test at the same venue against the Windies.

The West Indies players will honour Weekes with a minute’s silence in their huddle prior to warm-ups on the final day of their game against each other at Emirates Old Trafford.

Furthermore, the flags at the Manchester ground are being flown at half-mast to mark the passing of Weekes, the only man in Test history to record five consecutive tons which he did in his first year of international cricket.

That streak came in 1948, with an innings of 141 against Sir Gubby Allen’s England followed by knocks of 128, 194, 162 and 101 against India, the last two in the same Test. He could have extended that run to six had he not been run out somewhat controversially for 90 in Madras.

He played a total of 48 Tests, scoring 4,455 runs at 58.61 with 15 hundreds. His average is the 10th highest in Test history among batsmen to have played at least 20 innings.