West Indies' legend batsman Basil Butcher passes away

Basil Butcher, the stylish former West Indies batsman, has died at the age of 86, Cricket West Indies announced on Tuesday.

Butcher, born in Guyana, had a batting average of 43 from 44 tests for West Indies in the 1950s and 60s.

He scored seven centuries, with perhaps his most famous innings coming against a Fred Trueman-led England attack when he scored 133 at Lord’s in 1963.

Butcher’s highest test score, an unbeaten 209, came against England three years later in Nottingham.

Butcher, whose father worked at a sugar estate, was attracted to cricket from a young age.

“We had nothing else to do,” he once said in an interview. “My back fence eventually became the fence for the community centre ground. All I had to do was jump that back fence and I was in the community centre ground at the sugar estate.”