George John (c. 1883 – January 14, 1944) was a West Indian

fast bowler Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. ...

. George John was a very fast bowler in his prime and could cut the ball into the batsmen. He toured England with West Indies side in 1923 but by then was past his best. He claimed 90 wickets at 14.68 in all matches, 49 of them at 19.51 in first class matches. Against Glamorgan he took 10 for 147 and at

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, with George Francis, reduced a near

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quality HDG Leveson Gower's XI to 19 for 6 as they were chasing 28 to win in the second innings.The West Indians would have won, says CLR James, but for some atrocious umpiring John took 5 for 54 for Trinidad against MCC in 1925-26 when he was over forty years of age.

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, '' The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are i ...

who often played against him has left a picture of what John the bowler looked like : :''He was just the right height, about five foot ten, with a chest, shoulders and legs on him all power and proportion... He was one of those rare fast bowlers who proposed to defeat you first of all by pace and sheer pace. He ran about fifteen yards, a quick step or two first, a long loping stride that increased until near the crease he leapt into the air and delivered, his arm high...Thunderbolts they were''.

In June 1988 John was celebrated on the 30c Trinidad and Tobago stamp alongside the

Barbados Cricket Buckle The Barbados Cricket Buckle is a repoussé engraving on a belt buckle of a slave playing cricket in Barbados circa 1780–1810. It is believed to be the only known image of a slave playing cricket and is thought to be the oldest surviving artif ...

. He was the father of the playwright and actor

Errol John Errol John (20 December 1924 – 10 July 1988) was a Trinidad and Tobago actor and playwright who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1951. Biography Early years in Trinidad John was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 20 December 1924, the ...

Notes

References

, ''

Beyond a Boundary ''Beyond a Boundary'' (1963) is a memoir on cricket written by the Trinidadian Marxist intellectual C. L. R. James, which he described as "neither cricket reminiscences nor autobiography". It mixes social commentary, particularly on the place of ...

'', Duke University Press (1998) *

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

Obituary {{DEFAULTSORT:John, George Pre-1928 West Indies cricketers Trinidad and Tobago cricketers 1880s births 1944 deaths Saint Vincent and the Grenadines cricketers Saint Vincent and the Grenadines emigrants to Trinidad and Tobago