Thank You Ridley
Wed, Dec 8, '04
When, at age 28, Ridley Jacobs was handed his first West Indian cap, it was the end of a wait that had seemed interminably long. Prior to this, he had been a consistent performer for his regional team the Leeward Islands. However, the selectors? insistence on playing musical chairs with Junior Murray and Courtney Browne played a major role in his delayed entry.
He did not cover himself in glory in his first ODI series vs New
Zealand and had to wait until the 1998 tour of South Africa for his
first Test cap. However, on that ill-fated tour, Jacobs topped the
batting averages with a display of the grit and determination that
would become his trademark. 
He lacked the flamboyance of Viv Richards or Richie Richardson, countrymen from an era past. But, with quiet efficiency on that 1998 tour, Jacobs was the lone shining light. As his more illustrious teammates Brian Lara and Carl Hooper struggled to cope with the pace of Allan Donald, Jacobs was often the difference between total embarrassment and respectability with his fighting knocks.
Three years later, when the South Africans toured the Caribbean, Jacobs recorded his maiden test century (113 at Kensington Oval in Barbados), the first century made by a West Indian against South African.
Since then, he has been a fixture on the West Indies team with 65 tests yielding 2577 runs at an average of 28.31, complete with 3 hundreds and 14 fifties.
In 147 ODIs, he has scored 1865 runs at an average of 23.31 and a top score of 80*. His value as a lower order batsman in an increasingly fragile tail can not be overstated. One only needs to remember his stand at the ARG with Brian Lara who went on to make a record breaking 400*.
As a test wicketkeeper he has snared 207 catches, second only to Jeffrey Dujon's 265 and pulled off 12 stumpings, the most by any West Indian keeper.
Inevitably, the pressures of being the only wicketkeeper tour after tour took a toll on his body and his form and glovework slipped. By his own admission, the rigours of keeping wicket almost single-handedly for six years took a toll on his knees. So it was hardly surprising when he had to return home from the English tour after having had surgery to his knees in Manchester.
Jacobs' future as an international player seems rather uncertain. What is certain though is that as a player he gave nothing but his best to the West Indian cause. Whether or not we see him again in maroon, we acknowledge his contribution and say thanks for a job well done.