Development of the Test captaincy of West Indies

This is a chronological list of defining events in the Development of the Test captaincy of the West Indies cricket team.

H.B.G.Austin, President of the new West Indies Cricket Board of Control, assumed captaincy of the first Test-playing tour of England in 1928. However, at the age of 50, he was to stand aside before the tour.

Karl Nunes appointed captain instead for inaugural West Indies tour of England. "Leadership was a white function. So in the economy, so in cricket."

M.C.C. Committee member Mr R H Mallett, 70, was charged to act as West Indian team manager, as he had done in 1906 and 1923.

The West Indies Board named different captains for the four Tests against touring M.C.C. from the colony where each match was played, including 42-year-old Nelson Betancourt who was the choice in Trinidad for his sole Test appearance.

R.H.Mallett, about to return to England after managing the 1929–30 MCC touring party, met the West Indies Board and recommended G C 'Jack' Grant as captain for the Australian tour, even though Grant had no experience of captaincy and had never played in West Indies before. In his biography Grant confessed "I was younger than all of the sixteen players, save three; and most of these sixteen had already played for the West Indies, while I had not. Yet I was the captain. It could not be disputed that my white colour was a major factor in my being given this post."

"A policy at the time was to choose a nucleus of six players for the Test team and then complete the eleven with others from the 'home' territory," wrote Michael Manley. This is a bit of an exaggeration – a nucleus of seven or eight perhaps, because team selection was now in the hands of the West Indies Cricket Board rather than the colony where the Test match was played.

Jack Grant was heavily engaged in education in Grenada but was retained as West Indian captain for the 1933 tour of England and for the visit by MCC in 1934–35.

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