On Friday Cricket West Indies announced the appointment of Roland Butcher, as a Selector to the West Indies Men’s Senior & Youth Panels.
But who is Butcher?
Roland Orlando Butcher who migrated to the United Kingdom at age 13 was born on 14 October 1953 in Saint Philip, Barbados. He is the cousin of Basil Butcher, famed Guyanese and West Indies cricketer. Roland is the first Black cricketer to play for England.
He played three Test matches, all on the 1980-81 tour of the West Indies, and three One Day Internationals.
In his playing days he was considered an aggressive middle-order batsman. He represented Middlesex between 1974 and 1990 and came to prominence during Middlesex’s successes in 1980 when they won the County Championship and the Gillette Cup, impressing with a rapid half-century. He struggled more, however, on the 1980-1 tour against the West Indies who had the most powerful bowling line-up in the world at the time and did not play for England again.
Despite sustaining an injury in 1983 that damaged his eyesight Roland continued playing high level cricket for another seven years. He told Cricket Monthly he was able to continue playing by changing his head position and worked very hard, even getting his wife to throw balls to him in the local park, so he could work without anyone knowing how much he had to do.
Continuing to play for Middlesex, his team won the County Championship again in 1982 and 1985, and featured in victories in the finals of the NatWest Trophy in 1984 and 1988 and the Benson and Hedges Cup in 1983.
In 1987 Butcher won the Walter Lawrence Trophy for recording the fastest century of the season (in terms of balls faced) against Sussex.
Roland was part of the rebel group that toured apartheid South Africa in 1989 and later admitted it was a mistake. According to him, at the time he thought his playing career was coming to an end and playing in South Africa was an opportunity to secure his family’s financial future.
After his playing career ended with a recorded 277 first-class games and 271 List A games, the bulk of them for Middlesex, Roland went into cricket and football coaching. He has earned Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) coaching badges.
