Joe Solomon, who has died aged 93, was a West Indies cricketer in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a solid middle-order batsman but he will be best remembered by many for the celebrated run-out of Australia’s Ian Meckiff at the Gabba in Brisbane in 1960 that led to the first tied Test in the sport’s history.
It had been a thrilling encounter, described in the Telegraph at the time as “a match of genuine chivalry as well as gripping entertainment”.
As the fearsome West Indies bowler Wes Hall thundered in to start the final (eight-ball) over, Australia needed six runs for victory with three wickets standing.
The hosts made a run off the first ball and then off the second Richie Benaud tried a hook shot but was caught behind by the wicketkeeper Gerry Alexander. Benaud was replaced by Ian Meckiff, who failed to hit the third ball, while the next was a bye. Australia required four from four.
Hall just failed to take a caught-and-bowled chance on the fifth ball, allowing the Aussies to register a run, then on the sixth ball they made two more runs before Wally Grout was run out. Two balls to play, one run to win.
On the penultimate delivery the last man in, Lindsay Kline, laid bat on ball and set off for a single – but Solomon ran in and scooped up the ball. Side-on to the wicket, 12 yards away, he effectively had one stump to aim at. Improbably, he hit it before Meckiff could cross the line; Australia were all out and for the first time in 84 years of Test cricket a match had been tied.
The sport’s only other tied Test was in 1986, when India and Australia finished all-square in Madras.
Joseph Stanislaus Solomon was born into a Catholic family of Tamil extraction on August 24, 1930 in Port Mourant, a sugar-plantation town in the Berbice region of British Guiana (now Guyana); it has been a fertile cricket breeding ground, with Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher and Alvin Kallicharan just three of West Indies’ finest players to hail from there.
(The Telegraph)
