English cricket team in West Indies in 1934-35

The English cricket team in the West Indies in 1934–35 was a cricket touring party sent to the West Indies under the auspices of the Marylebone Cricket Club for a tour lasting two-and-a-half months in 1934–35. The team played four Test matches against the West Indian cricket team, winning one match but losing two – the first series defeat of an English cricket team side by the West Indies.

The team comprised 14 players, but less than half of them were regular Test players. It "could scarcely be regarded as representative of the full strength of England", Wisden Cricketers' Almanack reported in its 1936 edition coverage of the tour. By contrast, the West Indies side had developed since its disappointing tour of England in 1933. In Martindale, Constantine and Hylton it had a trio of high-class fast bowlers, and Jackie Grant was an experienced captain not given to the eccentricities that the England captain Wyatt inflicted on his team.

The team consisted of 14 players, including two wicketkeepers. The party was:

Of the 14, only six had appeared in the Test matches against the Australians in the previous English cricket season. These six were Wyatt, Ames, Farnes, Hammond, Hendren and Leyland. Harbord had not played any first-class cricket in 1934 and only a dozen matches in the previous five years, Townsend did not play for a first-class county side, though he had had some success for Oxford University, and Farrimond was Lancashire's second-choice wicketkeeper, though he had played Test cricket in South Africa in 1930–31. In the event, Harbord and Farrimond played only four matches each on the tour.

The 1933 West Indies team in England lost two of the three Test matches by an innings, and won only five first-class matches across a hot and sunny summer. The tour was disappointing: "The team did not play as well as we in this country had been led to believe they would", wrote Wisden in a critical report. Exceptions to the criticism of the team included captain Jackie Grant, batsman George Headley, who had averaged 66 runs per innings in making 2320 first-class runs in the season, and fast bowler Manny Martindale, who took 103 wickets at less than 21 runs apiece.

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