Sir Sydney Walling (12 July 1907 – 8 October 2009) was an

Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Bar ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played for

from the 1920s to the 1950s. Despite being a successful batsman for his national team, he was never selected to play for the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

, perhaps because of inter-island prejudice, or simply because he lived on a small island that did not play

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

at the time. In 1948 he played two matches for a Combined Leeward and Windward Islands team against

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first European to encounter Guiana was S ...

in Georgetown, top-scoring in each innings with 111, 82 and 38. He began his working life in 1922 as a messenger with the post office, and worked his way up to become Antigua's postmaster in 1947. He was knighted in 2004 for services to Antigua. In 2006 the road that runs from the capital, St John's, to

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is a stadium in North Sound, Antigua, Antigua and Barbuda. It was built for use in the 2007 Cricket World Cup where it hosted Super 8 matches. The stadium usually caters for 10,000 people, but temporary seating doubl ...

was renamed the "Sir Sydney Walling Highway". Walling died at the age of 102 in Antigua on 8 October 2009. Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer paid tribute to Walling after his death.PM Spencer expresses sadness on death of Sir Sydney Walling
, ''Sun St. Kitts Online''

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* * 1907 births 2009 deaths Antigua and Barbuda cricketers Antigua and Barbuda centenarians Cricket people awarded knighthoods Men centenarians Knights Bachelor {{Antigua-cricket-bio-stub