WIGHT, Claude Vibart
D.O.B: July 28, 1902 (Georgetown)
Teams: British Guiana, West Indies
Vibart Wight was a useful right-handed middle order batsman and occasional bowler who participated in 40 first-class matches, including two Tests, in a 14-year career spanning 1925 and 1938. He was a senior relative of at least nine other cricket-playing family members and his nephew, Leslie Wight, went on to represent the regional side in a Test match against the visiting Indians at Bourda in 1953.
Vibart played locally for the Georgetown Cricket Club and made his first-class debut for British Guiana against Barbados on his home turf in the 1925 inter-colonial tournament where he opened the batting and eked out a brace of fours.
In the final against the Trinidadians at the same venue, he batted in the middle and compiled scores of 37 and 34 but could not have stopped the visitors scraping home by two wickets.
When the MCC visited the region under Frederick Calthorpe in 1926, he was picked to represent the national team against the tourists and a few days after he was included in a West Indies side to engage them again.
In the drawn three-day MCC-West Indies encounter at Bourda, the hosts batting first registered 462 with Wight crafting a composed 90 and in the process sharing a seventh-wicket partnership of 173 with Cyril ‘Snuffy’ Browne who recorded a splendid unbeaten 102.
The guests could only muster 264 in the first innings and following-on 198 runs behind-reached 243 for eight when time ran out.
He reached his first century (119 not out) in January 1928 when he turned out for a ‘Rest of the West Indies XI’ against a ‘British Born’ team at the Kensington Oval, an innings which influenced the selectors to include him in the regional squad to England to engage in their first Test encounters later the same year.
Wight was also given the responsibility of being vice-captain to the Jamaican Karl Nunes but had a disappointing tour garnering just 343 runs from 17 matches at a paltry 20.17 runs per innings.
However, he made his Test debut in the third and final Test at the Oval where scores of 23 and 12 not out from number eight did not help to prevent the hosts prevailing by an innings and 71 runs – their third such margin of victory in as many matches.
When the Englishmen returned for a four-match engagement in 1930, he played in the historic Bourda Test but only contributed scores of 10 and 22 as the West Indies recorded their first Test win by the comprehensive margin of 289 runs.
Though he was never selected again for international duties he graced the first-class field with his presence until 1938 during which time he fashioned two more high-quality centuries.
At Bourda in 1934 while playing for British Guiana against Barbados he cracked an unbeaten 119 (76 in the second innings) and in 1937 at the same venue against Trinidad he stroked his way to 127 before he was dismissed ‘hit wicket’.
In the 40 first-class games he was involved in, he accumulated 1 547 runs at 30.94 runs per innings.
Vibart Wight was the Mayor of Georgetown thrice and his family members were shareholders to both the ‘Daily Chronicle’ and ‘Daily Argosy’.
He died in Guyana on October 4, 1969.
RECORD:
TEST: 2  RUNS: 67 AVG: 22.33 HS: 23 vs England, The Oval, 1928

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