Roy Gilchrist was the 22nd, and youngest, son of a Jamaican sugar plantation worker. He started his cricket career as an off spinner but once he abandoned that and began to bowl fast he quickly found his way through club cricket and into the full Jamaican side. Gilchrist was not troubled by his rapid elevation and at the end of his first season he had done well enough to earn selection for the trial matches that had been arranged to assist the selectors in picking the West Indies side for the 1957 tour of England and, at a time when West Indian fast bowling reserves were nothing like they were to be in years to come, he impressed sufficiently to earn a place in the tour party.
Gilchrist did not enjoy a particularly successful tour of England, taking no more than 37 wickets at just over 31 runs apiece, but he still did enough to earn selection for each of the four Test matches for which he was fit and, while he took only ten wickets at more than 46 runs apiece, he was an important member of the side, Wisden describing him as “menacing by virtue of his genuine pace and ability to produce a bouncer as venomous as any sent down by the opposition”.
In the following West Indian season Gilchrist played in all five Test matches against Pakistan taking 21 wickets in the series to be the leading wicket taker on either side. In 1958/59 he was an automatic choice in the party that toured India and then, for a return series, Pakistan, and he enjoyed great success in the four Tests he played against India finishing with 26 wickets at just over 16 runs apiece. He did not, however, complete the tour, as he was sent home before the team moved on to Pakistan for deliberately bowling beamers.
At 24 Gilchrist’s Test career was over and by 1962 he had played his last game for Jamaica as well. Somewhat oddly, in view of past hostilities, and the unusual nature of such a move being made, Gilchrist did have one last season of First Class cricket in, of all places, Hyderabad, before leaving the First Class game completely. The Indian authorities, with no fast bowlers of their own, were keen to expose their batsmen to pace and no doubt remembering past triumphs Gilchrist was recruited.
In 1963, his First Class career over, Gilchrist produced a hard hitting autobiography entitled “Hit me for Six”, in which he candidly admitted being at fault for bowling beamers in India and saying that he was sorry for what had happened. He also said, in the introduction to the book, that he was a reformed character, but sadly for him that proved not to be the case.
Gilchrist, who knew no other way of earning a living, continued with his cricket and played as a professional for various clubs in the Yorkshire and Lancashire Leagues, always terrorising opposing batsmen and playing with great success, but his temper was to cause him considerable further difficulties.
In 1967, following an argument with his wife, Gilchrist was charged with causing Grievous Bodily Harm, the incident having culminated in Mrs Gilchrist sustaining a four inch burn on her left cheek from a red hot iron. Fortunately for Gilchrist his wife stood by him despite his behaviour and on his plea of guilty Manchester Crown Court placed him on probation for 3 years.
Unfortunately the Probation Order was not to be the end of the matter as just over a year later Gilchrist brandished a knife during the course of an argument with a spectator at a cricket match and was, remarkably by the standards of English sentencing practice in the 21st century, merely fined for the charge of Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm that he faced as a consequence. However that conviction did, regrettably for Gilchrist, place him back before the Crown Court Judge who imposed the Probation Order and there was no such leniency on this occasion as Gilchrist was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.
Following his release from prison Gilchrist continued to ply his trade in the leagues taking more than a hundred wickets each season until 1979. Tales of his aggression towards opposing batsmen and his unstinting use of the bouncer followed him until the very end.
Unable to make a significant living in England after his retirement from cricket Gilchrist returned to his native Jamaica in 1985. Sadly by this time his health was deteriorating and he suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for a number of years prior to his death in 2001, at the age of 67.
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