Ulric Browne and Cricket Cavaliers

Staff members Tyrell Johnson, Prior Jones, Wilfred Ferguson and Jaswick Taylor represented the West Indies at cricket. In addition Harold Burnett represented Trinidad and George “Happy” Waithe represented Barbados at cricket, William Payne, Hugo “Fomo” Emmanuel and Sedley Joseph represented TT at football while Conrad Braithwaithe was a member of the only West Indies soccer team which toured the UK in 1959. (Another Trinidadian player on this historic tour was Willie Rodriguez).

Noel Lewis and Ian Lambie represented TT at rugby. Everard King was the Trinidad sprint champion and the first local athlete to run the 100 yards in ten seconds, which was quite an accomplishment at that time. Carl Chan was a champion swimmer and represented Trinidad at water polo, while Roderick Aqui won the cross harbour swimming race on more than one occasion. William Payne and Carl Thorpe were table tennis champions of Trinidad.

Anne-Browne-John, captain of the West Indies women’s cricket team and captain of the TT ladies hockey team, was recognised in 2012 as a sports legend of TT.

But one of the most amazing people I have ever met was Ulric Browne. Ulric was the founder of the Customs and Excise Cricket Cavaliers, a team of cricketers who toured many cricket-playing countries.

From 1977 to 1984, he raised the necessary funds and organised cricket tours to most of the then recognised cricket-playing countries in the world, and this he accomplished almost single-handedly.

However the accomplishments of Ulric and the successes of the Cricket Cavaliers are relatively unknown to the public. This touring cricket team was comprised primarily of staff members of the Customs and Excise Division but there were guest players on every tour. From time to time these guest players included well-known cricketers such as Sheldon Gomes, Randy Glasgow, Claude Phillip, Noel Bovell, Gerald Kelly, Lawrence Trim, Stephen Murray, Henry Best, Alex Burns and others.

While Ulric retained the position of chairman of the organising committee, the captaincy of the touring teams varied from tour to tour and included Manohar Ramsaran, who was a Customs and Excise officer and a regular member of the team, and who later became a parliamentarian; Praman Sooknanan and Shodan Mahabir, who were also members of the Customs and Excise staff.

I am not aware of any other privately-organised cricket touring team from anywhere in the Caribbean, or elsewhere in the world for that matter, which has visited and played cricket not only in the various Caribbean territories, including Bermuda, the Bahamas, Guyana and Suriname, but also in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Should you be aware of any similar touring cricket team, I will appreciate hearing from you.

Ulric was planning a tour to East African countries and to South Africa but the plan was aborted because of difficulty in obtaining the required funds. After the 1983 tour to “Down Under”, the Cricket Cavaliers was never resurrected.

Tours made by the Cavaliers from 1977 to 1983:

1977: Antigua, Bermuda, Barbados (tour captain Ulric Browne); 1978: south-west England (tour captain Manohar Ramsaran); 1980: Barbados, Bahamas, New York, Canada, Bermuda (tour captain Manohar Ramsaran); 1981: Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, St Croix, St Kitts, Jamaica (tour capt Praman Sooknanan); 1982: Guyana, Suriname, India (New Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay), Sri Lanka (tour capt Ulric Browne); 1983: Miami, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Australia (Melbourne, Sydney), Tasmania, New Zealand (tour captain Shodan Mahabir).

In organising these tours Ulric received invaluable assistance from the staff of the respective high commissions and consulates in Port-of-Spain, and from the staff of the TT high commissions and consulates in the countries visited. The assistance received from the Australian Cricket Society, the Tasmanian Customs Sports Club, the Auckland Customs Cricket Club and the Hong Kong Cricket Association in organising the matches in their respective countries is to be acknowledged.

Support was also received from commercial houses in TT through the purchase of advertising space in the various tour brochures produced by the Cavaliers. The TT Cricket Board was always notified of an impending tour by the Cavaliers and the foreword of the respective tour brochure was written by the president of the TT Cricket Board of that time.

The inimitable Ulric Browne passed away on January 17, 2008, and after his death this account was written for the benefit of posterity. Those people who had known Ulric will never forget him and his unparallelled accomplishments.

The above information was extracted from the various tour brochures of the Cricket Cavaliers which Ulric had sent to me in December 2007, six weeks before his passing.