West Indian cricket team in England in 1928

The West Indian cricket team that toured England in the 1928 season was the first to play Test cricket. The team was not very successful, losing all three Tests by an innings and winning only five of the 30 first-class matches played.

In 1926, the Imperial Cricket Conference, forerunner of the International Cricket Council, allowed for the first time delegates from India, New Zealand and the West Indies to attend. The three were invited to organise themselves into cricket boards that could, in future, select representative teams to take part in Test matches, which had hitherto been restricted to sides from England, Australia and South Africa.

The West Indian cricket tour of England in 1928 was the first of these new Test-playing ventures, and it was backed heavily by the cricket establishment because of the success of the 1923 West Indian cricket team in England, when the side won 12 matches.

The West Indies team had 17 members, four each from Jamaica, Trinidad (now Trinidad and Tobago) and British Guiana (now Guyana) and five from Barbados. The side was captained by Karl Nunes, who had been vice-captain of the 1923 touring side.

The players were:

All of the 17 players with the exceptions of Neblett and Rae played in at least one of the three Test matches: Neblett later played once for West Indies against England in 1934-35, but Rae, the father of the later Test cricketer Allan Rae, never played in a Test match.

Seven of the 17 – Nunes, Browne, Challenor, Constantine, Fernandes, Francis and Small – had toured with the 1923 touring team, but five years on the batsmen Challenor, Fernandes and Small were unable to repeat their success of 1923, and Francis and Browne were less successful in bowling. Lack of a frontline wicketkeeper – George Dewhurst from the 1923 team did not play in 1928 – meant that Nunes was the main wicketkeeper.

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