Nurse celebrates 80th birthday

The prolific Barbadian and West Indies batsman from the 1960s, Seymour Nurse celebrated his 80th birthday recently, making him one of the oldest surviving West Indies cricketer.

Nurse was a classy right-handed middle order batsman who played 29 Test matches. He made 2,523 runs and averaged 47.6 runs per innings. He made six centuries including a best of 258 in his final Test innings in New Zealand in 1969.

Nurse is among an elite list of West Indian batsmen who made over 500 runs in a Test series on two occasions.

He made his Test debut against England in Jamaica in 1960 and was named one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year in l967.

After retiring from the game, Nurse was a long-standing coach in Barbados and played a role in the development of several Test players including Malcolm Marshall. He was the manager of the West Indies Under-19 team and the Barbados senior team.