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Wilf Slack, the Middlesex left-handed opening bat, tragically collapsed and died
while batting in a match in the Gambia. He had collapsed in the nets
during England's tour of Australia in 1986-87, and also passed out while
playing for his county during the following season. The St.Vincent born
batsman had played for Middlesex from 1977, but grabbed his
international chance on the England B tour of Sri Lanka where, against
an attack which included de Mel, Anurasiri and Ravi Ratnayake he scored
96 at the SSC, 85 at Colombo CC, 67 in Kandy and other useful scores.
That made him an obvious replacement when Mike Gatting's nose was
splattered by a bouncer from Patrick Patterson in the West Indies in
1986. Slack arrived in time to play in the second Test at Trinidad, but
after scoring 2 and being run out for 0 he gave way to Tim Robinson
until the Antigua Test, where he made 52 and added 127 in an opening
stand with Graham Gooch. His only other Test was Mike Gatting's first as
captain, against India in Leeds in 1986 when he made 0 and 19. Wilf
made 34 in the One Day International in Trinidad in 1986, supporting
Gooch in a second wicket stand of 89 as England won by five wickets. He
toured Zimbabwe with Middlesex in 1981, scoring 60 and 9 and 94 in
Salisbury in two matches against the national team, which was captained
by Duncan Fletcher. In October 1981 he was part of an International XI
captained by Rohan Kanhai which played an unofficial series against
Pakistan.
He scored 17 and 15 in Karachi, but after making a pair in
Hyderabad he was dropped in favour of the little-known West Indian
Etwaroo. Wilf Slack scored 1,000 runs on eight occasions in 11 seasons
with Middlesex, his best being 1900 at an average of 54.28 in 1985. (Bob Harragan)
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