by Arunabha Sengupta
That year Conrad Hunte was working in Chorley and had a contract to play for Enfield in the Central Lancashire League in the summer. He had made it known to the West Indian selectors that he was available for selection in the 1957 team to England. With runs galore behind him in the Caribbean, he was expecting a call up. However, there was a communication gap. The selectors supposedly sent him a letter which he did not get. He did not get to play the 1957 Tests.
When he did make his debut, against Pakistan in early 1958, Hunte hit 142 in five hours. In his third Test at Kingston, he hit 260, adding 446 with the 21-year-old Garry Sobers—the latter going on to score 365 not out. In the fourth Test Hunte scored 114.
During the final over of the Tied Test at Brisbane in 1960-61, with three runs to win and three balls to go, Ian Meckiff slogged Wes Hall high over Hunte’s head at mid-wicket. He raced after the ball and pulled it back inches from the boundary, turned and heaved in his return. The ball flew ninety yards and plopped into the gloves of Gerry Alexander. Wally Grout did put in the dive, but was short of ground as tried to complete the third and winning run. We all know what happened off the following delivery.
It was on that same tour of Australia that Hunte talked on the programme Pleasant Sunday Afternoon for Adelaide radio. He traced the history of West Indies through colonisation and slave trade down to the meeting of the first Federal Parliament in Trinidad. He ended: “The brotherhood of man transcends sovereignty of nations, the earth’s great treasure lies in human personality, service to humanity is the best work of life.”
One of the many who responded to his speech was James Coulter, a journalist who had spent the War flying Sunderlands with the Royal Australian Air Force in Britain and now gave all his time to Moral Re-Armament. He invited Hunte to watch a film called The Crowning Experience.
A new life began for the batsman. When his ship arrived in England after the tour, he met Dickie Dodds, the former Essex batsman who was dedicated to the cause.
Hunte continued to bat like a champion. During the famous tour of 1963, he opened with 182 at The Old Trafford and ended with 108 at The Oval. In the unforgettable Cowdrey-with-arm-in-plaster Lord’s Test during the series, he hit the first three deliveries for fours.
However, he was doing much more. Heavily involved with Moral Re-Armament, Hunte attended seminars all over the world. He met former Mau Mau leaders, German communist miners, the French Ambassador to Brazil and others during an Easter conference in Caux, Switzerland. He visited Rio de Jenario at the grip of gang warfare and contributed to the transformation in the dockers and their families wrought by Moral Re-Armament. In India, he joined the march-on-wheels from Cape Comorin to Delhi led by Rajmohan Gandhi—the Mahatma’s grandson—in order to stir up moral upsurge and battle corruption and selfishness in the country.
Hunte was not above feeling disappointed at not being given the West Indian captaincy when Frank Worrell retired. But after a six week battle with his feelings and conversations with God, he cleared the air with Sobers and pledged to support him. He did so, getting 550 runs in the series against Australia in 1964-65.
And then in India, in his final series, he scored 101 at the Brabourne Stadium. And when the Calcutta Test saw riots, stampede and fire, Hunte looked up from the dressing room to see the two national flags fluttering in the breeze, threatened by fire. He started to climb up to retrieve them, to avoid surrendering the symbols of sovereignty to mob rule.
Hunte retired with 3,245 Test runs at 45.06 with eight centuries. He continued to travel the world, working for better race relations through an MRA inter-racial group. He later settled in Atlanta where his wife was a local newsreader.
In 1991, as South Africa edged towards the end of apartheid, Hunte rang the cricket authorities there and pleaded to be allowed to help the reconciliation process. He called and called, and eventually turned up. He stayed for seven years, quietly funded by the MCC. Officially, he was a coach. However, his major work was in motivating and inspiring young people in the Black townships.
He was knighted in 1998, and the following year returned to Barbados as president of the country’s cricket association. Two months later he was in Australia to speak at a Moral Re-Armament conference when he passed away.
Sir Conrad Cleopas Hunte, cricketer and moral crusader, was born on 9 May 1932.