The West Indian cricket team toured England in the 1923 season. The team played 28 matches between 19 May and 5 September 1923 of which 20 were regarded as first-class. This was the 3rd West Indian tour following those of 1900 and 1906.
The early weather was disappointing and little useful practice was possible before the tour started. 3 of the first 5 matches were lost but the remainder of the tour was much more successful and only 4 of the remaining 23 matches were lost.
Because of the early poor results and the lack of representative matches public interest was rather limited.
George Challenor was by far the best batsman scoring twice as many runs as any other player at an average of over 50. He scored 6 of the 8 first class centuries scored by the team and 2 of the 3 in minor matches.
George Francis led the bowling with 82 first class wickets at an average of just over 15. George John, Cyril Browne and Victor Pascall also made useful contributions with the ball.
The fielding was generally regarded as of high standard with Learie Constantine's cover point fielding being particularly commented on.
The performances of the team were sufficiently well regarded by the experts of the time to pave the way for West Indies to be accepted into membership of the Imperial Cricket Conference and thereby attain Test Match status with effect from their next tour of England in 1928, in particular their reduction of a powerful H D G Leveson-Gore XI to 19-6 when requiring only 28 runs to win in the final match of the tour at Scarborough.
Touring team
1923 West Indies Team
Harold Austin seems to have taken a large part in organising the tour after the 1922–23 Inter-Colonial Tournament in September 1922. He seems to have selected the Barbados, British Guiana and Trinidad tourists. Little was known of the Jamaica players and they were allocated just 3 places.
The 16 players that made up the team consisted of:
Despite being 17 years since the last tour, two of the tourists, Austin and Challenor, had been part of the 1906 team. Learie Constantine was the son of Lebrun Constantine who had toured in 1900 and 1906. Victor Pascall was the uncle of Learie Constantine.
R.H. Mallett was the manager. Austin was chosen as captain and Nunes as vice-captain.
The professionals Francis and John were black as were Browne, Constantine, Holt, Pascall and Small amongst the amateurs.
Preliminaries
Except for the Jamaica representatives the team sailed on the steamship Intaba, which left British Guiana on 9 April and, sailing via Trinidad and Barbados, reached Southampton on 30 April. The Jamaican players had arrived two days earlier.
The players practised at Lord's and practice matches were arranged including a match against the Indian Gymkhana but the weather was very cold.
Matches
Status
Of the 28 matches 8 were not regarded as first-class. These were the matches against Durham, Northumberland, Cheshire, Wiltshire, Lord Harris's XI, Dublin University, Northern Cricket Union, and Norfolk. These are shown in italics below.
Of the 20 first-class matches played, 6 matches were won, 7 were lost and 7 were drawn. In all matches 13 were won, 7 were lost and 8 were drawn.
Post Tour
Except for Jamaican players the team returned on board the steam ship "Ingoma" departing Southampton on 9 September and arriving in Barbados on the 21st.
Averages
The following averages are for the 20 first-class matches only.
