McWATT, Clifford Aubrey
D.O.B: February 1, 1922
Teams: British Guiana, West Indies
Clifford McWatt was a competent wicketkeeper and useful left-handed batsman who played six Test matches for the West Indies between 1954 and 1955 at a time when the selectors were trying several glovemen as they sought a longtime replacement for the late Clyde Walcott. He first played for British Guiana in 1944 and continued for 13 years during which time he was engaged in some 41 first-class matches and effected 51 dismissals including 45 catches and six stumpings.
As a batsman who was unafraid to take risks, he compiled 1 673 runs at an average of 28.84 runs per innings and struck two centuries and seven fifties in the process. His chancy method of accumulating runs prompted one cricket writer to coin the term ‘McCatt’ in reference to his many lives.
The first of his centuries came in an Inter-colonial game against Trinidad and Tobago at the Queen’s Park Oval in 1947 when he registered scores of 56 and an unbeaten 123 batting at number six.
His efforts, however, were not good enough to stop the Trinis from romping to a comprehensive innings and 125-run victory on the heels of Jeffrey Stollmeyer’s 324, Gerry Gomez’ 190 and Wilfred Ferguson’s eight-wicket match haul.
Notwithstanding the loss, his all-round ability prompted the regional selectors to ticket him to India for the inaugural visit there in 1948-49 as Walcott’s deputy. Though he did not play in any of the five Tests, the experience he garnered stood him in good stead.
Walcott played through the historic four-Test rubber in England in 1950 and in the first two Tests of the 1951-52 tour to Australia before constant back problems forced him to surrender his wicketkeeping duties and concentrate more on his batting talents.
McWatt, however, was not immediately in the selectors’ reckoning as they tried Samuel Guillien, Alfie Binns and Ralph Legall over ten Test matches during 1952 and 1953.
In late 1953 at Bourda, he registered his second first-class hundred (128) against the Trinidadians and coupled with his continued nimbleness behind the stumps he was rewarded with a debut Test series against the touring Englishmen in 1954.
He contested all five matches, effected eight dismissals and totalled 194 runs at crucial times at the commendable average of 33.00 runs per innings.
In his debut match in Jamaica he struck a Test-best 54 and an undefeated 36 from number eight and also pouched two catches in a big West Indies win by 140 runs. In the second encounter in Barbados he only got 11 with the bat but he effected three dismissals including his only Test stumping which helped to propel his team to another emphatic victory.
At home in Georgetown for the third Test, he equalled his highest Test score (54) in the first innings while adding an invaluable 99 for the eighth wicket with JK Holt to lift the home team from a precarious position of 139 for seven in reply to the Aussies 435.
In scampering for the run that would have taken the partnership to triple-figures, McWatt was run-out by a long distance but the emotions of his countrymen took centre stage as they hurled bottles onto the field in protest of the ruling of local umpire Badge Menzies.
England won the match by nine wickets, secured a high-scoring draw in the next, then claimed another nine-wicket win in the fifth and final game in Kingston.
McWatt tapered off in the last two encounters but would have still fancied his chances of making the final eleven for the 1955 first Test against the Australians in Jamaica. He was, nevertheless, omitted to facilitate the return of the hometown boy Alfie Binns but was promptly included as a starter for the second game in Trinidad after Binns bagged a pair.
In the drawn Trinidad duel McWatt took two catches and scored four runs and then it was his turn to make way for the newcomer Clairmonte DePeiza who was involved in the remaining three matches.
He was never picked again but continued at the first-class level until 1957.
In 1986 he migrated to Canada and died there in 1997 after being involved in a car crash.
RECORD 
TESTS: 6 RUNS: 202 AVG: 28.85             HS: 54
WKP. DISMISSALS: 10 (Catches: 9; Stumpings: 1)
(Digicel: Guyana’s Bigger, Better Network)