Keith Boyce

Keith Boyce
Personal information
Full name
Keith David Boyce
Born(1943-10-11)11 October 1943
Castle, St Peter, Barbados
Died11 October 1996(1996-10-11) (aged 53)
Speightstown, Barbados
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm fast-medium
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 137)19 March 1971 v India
Last Test31 January 1976 v Australia
ODI debut (cap 1)5 September 1973 v England
Last ODI20 December 1975 v Australia
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1964–1975Barbados
1966–1977Essex
Career statistics
Competition Tests ODIs FC LA
Matches 21 8 285 165
Runs scored 657 57 8,800 2,441
Batting average 24.33 14.25 22.39 17.81
100s/50s 0/4 0/0 4/46 1/7
Top score 95* 34 147* 123
Balls bowled 3,501 470 44,087 7,841
Wickets 60 13 852 268
Bowling average 30.01 24.07 25.02 16.05
5 wickets in innings 2 0 35 3
10 wickets in match 1 0 7 0
Best bowling 6/77 4/50 9/61 8/26
Catches/stumpings 5/– 0/– 215/– 44/–
Medal record
Men's Cricket
Representing  West Indies
ICC Cricket World Cup
Winner 1975 England
Source: Cricket Archive, 17 October 2010

Keith David Boyce (11 October 1943 – 11 October 1996) was a cricketer who played 21 Tests and 8 One Day Internationals for the West Indies between 1971 and 1976. He was a member of the squad that won the 1975 Cricket World Cup.

Boyce was the first man to take eight wickets in a List A match; he achieved the feat when he took 8–26 for Essex against Lancashire in 1971. No other player dismissed eight batsmen in a one-day innings until Kent's Derek Underwood claimed 8–31 against Scotland sixteen years later.[1]

Boyce's finest moment in Test cricket came in the First Test of the 1973 tour of England, when he scored 72, and took 5/70 and 6/77 in a 158-run victory. His highest Test score of 95 not out came in his penultimate Test, at Adelaide in January 1976.

Boyce had been recruited for Essex by Trevor Bailey. In the first innings of his Essex debut against Cambridge University in 1966 he took 9 for 61, which turned out to be the best bowling figures of his career. In that innings, Boyce's future West Indies teammate Deryck Murray scored 58 (not out) in the university's total of 127.[2] Boyce's highest innings of 147 not out came against Hampshire at Ilford in 1969.[3]

In 1974 Boyce was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year. Following an injury, he returned to his home island of Barbados, where he suffered several personal setbacks. He was married twice, and had two daughters.[4] He died from the effects of chronic cirrhosis of the liver, while sitting in a chair at a pharmacist's in Speightstown, Barbados, on his birthday on 11 October 1996.

  1. ^ "Seven or More Wickets in a ListA Match". CricketArchive. Archived from the original on 8 May 2010. Retrieved 3 June 2007.
  2. ^ "Essex v Cambridge University 1966". Wisden. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  3. ^ "Essex v Hampshire 1969". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  4. ^ "Obituary: Keith Boyce", The Independent, 22 October 1996