Before the fire: the old Wolmer's School building in Kingston, alma mater to five Test Wicketkeepers, two of them captains

 TO THE IMPARTIAL observer of the international game, South Africa's five-Test series at home to West Indies will not come second to the Ashes series as a source of interest. By beating England 3-1 last winter, West Indies reversed their decline-or did they only halt it? A defeat on their first tour of South Africa might well renew the crisis of confidence in the Caribbean.

 Curtly and Courtney are still leading the West Indian attack this winter, while no new Test batsman has come to light, only the returnees Clayton Lambert and Philo Wallace. But it is in the area of wicketkeeping, more than any other, that West Indies have slipped from their pinnacle of the 1980s. They have young fast bowlers who offer something to work on – Nixon McLean, Franklyn Rose and Mervyn Dillon are the ones selected for South Africa. They now have a wrist-spinner too, like all strong Test sides, in Dinanath Ramnarine. There is even a rookie batsman on the tour in Daren Ganga, who may be able to triumph over the poor pitches which have prevented so many of his contemporaries from emulating the strokeplay of the previous generation. But wicket-keeping, thanks in large part to those same pitches of low or uneven bounce, remains a weakness.

Since Jeffrey Dujon retired, the West Indian selectors have tried a wicketkeeper who can keep wicket but cannot bat (except on one crucial day against England) in David Williams; one who can bat but cannot keep wicket without dropping clangers in Junior Murray; and another who wasn't very good in either sphere, Courtney Browne. For their tour of South Africa the selectors – now under the new chairmanship of the former Test wicketkeeper Mike Findlay of St Vincent – have reverted to Murray (why are most Murrays wicketkeepers, and Butchers batsmen, and Pringles medium-pacers?) and Ridley Jacobs, the Antiguan keeper/bat who served in the one-day internationals against England. Murray has the talent – on occasion for the Windwards he would stand up flamboyantly to Winston Davis – but as with other modern keepers, the more he has had to concentrate on his batting, the less consistent his keeping has become. (Being one of the few Windward Islanders who can score any runs, he has to bat as high as No. 5 for them.) By the time he was recalled for the Antigua Test against England in place of Williams, Murray seemed nervous and hesitant. It is a great shame for West Indies that, in their period of transition, their traditional source of wicketkeepers has dried up.

 R. K. Nunes 4 Tests, all as capt, 3 as wk 245 runs at 30.63 HS 92 v Eng, Kingston 1929–30 ct 2

 I. Barrow 11 Tests, 10 as wk 276 runs at 16.23 HS 105 v Eng, Old Trafford, 1933 ct 17, st 5

 F. C. M. Alexander 25 Tests, 18 as capt 961 runs at 30.03 HS 108 v Aust, Sydney, 1960–61 ct 85, st 5

 TO THE POINT of Dujon's retirement in 1991, Wolmer's School in Kingston, Jamaica, had turned out five West Indian wicketkeepers who, between them, had played in almost half of their Test matches, 137 out of 290. It would be surprising if any other single source has been so productive in the history of international cricket. Yorkshire has produced plenty of slow left-armers, Bombay many an Indian batsman, and Barbados a host of fast bowlers, but not from the same school.

The first of them was Karl Nunes, the first West Indian captain and wicketkeeper too, who led their 1928 tour of England. The story goes that Learie Constantine didn't like him and used to whip in his throws from cover with extra vigour. No less pertinently, Nunes was primarily a batsman and only filled in behind the stumps as the touring party economised by not taking a specialist keeper. One dismissal in the three Tests rather confirms as much.

The second was Ivan Barrow who, like Nunes, batted more than he kept. The story here is that at Old Trafford in 1933, when Barrow and George Headley were approaching their hundreds against England, Headley slowed down to allow his fellow Jamaican the honour of being the first West Indian to score a Test hundred in England ( Headley had already made a bagful at home). Barrow kept wicket in ten of his 11 Tests.

 Gerry Alexander was the third of the line, and perhaps the best behind the stumps that West Indies had seen to that time. A versatile man, who is credited with having done more than anyone to stop the advent of rabies in Jamaica, Alexander still practises as a vet in Kingston. `It just so happened that I kept wicket at school, a mere coincidence. Somebody had to go behind the wicket.' He was not inspired therefore by the legacy of Nunes and Barrow, though he was by Don Bradman, who told him to concentrate on his leg-side strength when batting on the 1960–61 tour of Australia, and to forget about his off-side failings. Besides hitting a hundred against Australia, and averaging 30 in Tests, and being the most successful captain West Indies had had until then, and a fine robust wicketkeeper, Alexander also deserves to be remembered for standing aside in favour of Frank Worrell, when the Establishment would have preferred him to continue as captain, being brown not black.

For Wolmer's was never the leading school in Kingston for the white elite, more the No. 2 school for the middle class that was brown and is now black as well. Another alumnus is Allan Rae, the former opening batsman for West Indies, and everything else in some administrative capacity or another.

Thanks, Don after advice from Bradman, Gerry Alexander reaches his only Test ton, at Sydney in 1960–61

In Rae's time the school had 240 pupils and some fine buildings in central Kingston, thanks to the generosity of its founder, John Wolmer from Kent, a gold-dealer who dies childless and left his fortune to establish the school in 1729. According to Rae, it was one particular master from England, CV Cuthbert, who built the strong cricket tradition from 1918 onwards. Cuthbert made sure there was not simply the opportunity for all the pupils to play cricket, but that they all did so, if not in matches for the school then in games between houses or forms. By the 1950s the government was also employing the best of the island's cricketers – Headley himself, Alf Valentine, Jackie Holt – to go round the schools and coach the youth and offer the right word at the right time.

Shortly after Alexander came Jackie Hendriks, but yet again there was no direct link or connection. `It was entirely coincidental,' says Hendriks, who as president of the Jamaican Board had to clear up the mess when the Kingston Test was abandoned in January. `When I was 14, I saw Godfrey Evans keep at Sabina Park, and I wanted to dive around like him.' That was in 1948, when MCC toured under Gubby Allen.

Fifth in the line at Wolmer's was Dujon. `My father kept in one game for Jamaica but he was mainly a batsman. I kept wicket because I just didn't like fielding.' (Please imagine the lilt and smile with which these words were spoken.) The school outfield was rough in The Dooj's day, although the pitches were true enough for him to become one of the most delightful batsmen of our time. Still, it was something of an aesthetic loss when, after two Tests as a batsman, Dujon took over the gloves for the remainder of his 81-Test career, albeit an essential component in the West Indian supremacy.

Best of them all? Jeff Dujon catches Mike Atherton off Curtly Ambrose at Headingley in 1991

 AND NOW the outfield is as rough as ever and the pitches aren't much cop either. There is only one ground as well, because the school has had to build on most of its land as the number of its pupils has expanded from 240 to 1400. The field has to be used not only for cricket from January to May but for athletics at the same time, and for football and hockey in their seasons. The masters in charge of cricket are PE teachers, not men whose lives may have been sadly one-tracked but who nevertheless communicated their enthusiasm for a game to several generations. The old school buildings were consumed in a grievous fire a few years back, and with them their records and photographs of distinguished old boys, including their five West Indies wicketkeepers, who can no longer look down from faded walls to inspire the present.

Mr Barnett, the headmaster, says that of the pupils who come to Wolmer's from primary schools in Kingston `the majority haven't played cricket, only a few have had exposure'. A new initiative by Carib Cement is starting to bring cricket back to the primaries, yet it is still a startling statement which does not bode favourably for West Indies' future. Resources and facilities are not what they used to be either. Cricket competitions are held among the secondary schools in Kingston but, according to Mr. Barnett, `a couple of schools each year pull out because they don't have the money'. The government still employs a few of the island's leading cricketers as coaches but they seem to be more concerned with their own careers than the pupils; and old boys no longer turn up to watch and encourage as they once did.

Wolmer's does have a promising wicketkeeper among its present pupils, one who has kept for West Indian age-group sides: Carlton Baugh, whose place at the school, largely fee-paying, has been funded by Kingston's socially conscious Melbourne Cricket Club. But he now wants to bat and bowl legbreaks. The cost of kit, which has to be imported, is almost prohibitive, especially once the IMF has done its work and devalued Third World currencies. An additional handicap is that umpires have to be paid, by the home school, to stand in inter-school matches in Kingston. That should make one grateful for umpires who stand for free, even if they cannot do more than count to six.

Given the creeping lack of space in Kingston – half of Jamaica's 2.5 million people are sandwiched between the Blue Mountains and the sea – football has a head start which is being turned in to runaway proportions. The football clinics which Wolmer's runs in the school holidays are far more popular than the cricket ones. Football can be played in the street without costly equipment or elaborate preparation. And next to the school's sole sports ground a new basketball court has been laid out, so that everyone who has watched the coverage beamed from the United States can try his or her hand at this new sport. No Wolmer's pupil has yet gained a basketball scholarship to the States, but it can only be a matter of time. A survey carried out among schoolchildren in Antigua showed that basketball was their most popular sport, because of the financial rewards it might offer.

The fight by the West Indian Board and governments to recapture the soul of its youth for cricket, the one unifying force in the region, has not begun a moment too soon.

 J. L. Hendriks 20 Tests 447 runs at 18.63 HS 64 v India, Port-of-Spain, 1961–62 ct 42, st 5

 P. J. L. Dujon 81 Tests, 79 as wk 3322 runs at 31.94 5×100, HS 139 v Aust, Perth, 1984–85 ct 267, st 5 (WI record)

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd