Two former international cricketers – Anthony Merrick and Winston Benjamin – were honoured for their contributions to the sport and their community when All Saints Reunion 2022 presented the two former West Indies players with tokens of appreciation at a banquet held recently.
The two players, both former fast bowlers, were the first from All Saints to represent the West Indies at any level with Merrick named to the West Indies Under-19 squad in 1982 and Benjamin getting his call in 1986.
Merrick, who is currently the curator at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, made his debut for Antigua and Barbuda in 1980 in the Leeward Islands tournament and became a regular in the Leeward Islands Under-19 team for a number of years.
In 1982, Anthony Merrick became the first person from All Saints to be selected in any representative West Indies Cricket Team, when he was selected to tour England with the West Indies Under-19 team.
Merrick made his first class debut for the Leeward Islands in 1983 and patterned a very successful first class career in the West Indies and in the English County Championship, playing his last game in 1991.
Benjamin, on October 17 1986, became the fifth Antiguan and the first person from All Saints to represent the West Indies Cricket Team in international cricket at the senior level.
The then 21-year-old had made a meteoric rise in the game, having only started to play serious cricket three years earlier. Not having much schools’ cricket under his belt, he progressed through the Combined Schools, Antigua Under 19 and Leeward Islands Under 19, in 1983, purely on natural ability.
In 1984, his incisive fast bowling led the Combined Schools to become first-time winners of the Antigua Cricket Association First Class competition. This earned him selection to the Antigua team’s tour of Bermuda, where Vivian Richards first set eyes on him. Richards was so impressed that he altered arrangements already in train, to ensure Winston was the recipient of the scholarship named in his honour, to England, the following summer.
That stint drew English County recognition, and by the following year he was plying his trade for Leicestershire, then went straight into the West Indies team.
In total, five players from the village of All Saints have represented the regional squad at some level with the other three being Zorol Barthley, Larry Joseph and Alzarri Joseph. Joseph, who currently plays for the senior squad, ended 2022 as the leading wicket-taker in international cricket with a total of 70 dismissals.