As Oscar Pistorious spends his first days in a South African prison after being sentenced to five-years for the culpable homicide of former girlfriend Reeve Steenkamp, we cast our eyes towards the bad boys, killers and controversial of world cricket. LESLIE HYLTON was convicted of murdering his adulterous wife and has the unenviable record of being the only known Test cricketer to have been executed.
Born in Jamaica in 1905 he played 40 first-class games for his native country as a fast bowler, debuting in 1926, and made his Test debut against England in Bridgetown, Barbados in January 1935. In the series against England he played four Tests, taking 13 wickets at an average of 19.30, but had to wait until 1939 before playing the final two Tests of his career, also against England on tour.
West Indies in England 1939
Jamaicans were outraged when West Indies, who could afford only a 15-man squad for the trip, omitted Hylton. They launched a public appeal fund and Hylton made the voyage to England despite the kitty being £400 short on departure. He played the first two Tests, but he’d lost some of his pace in the interim, only took three wickets at 55.66, was not picked again and retired from the sport the same year to work in the civil service.
Jamaica’s Inspector of Police was unimpressed with his daughter’s choice of boyfriend when she met and fell in love with Hylton in 1940. Lurline Rose had to work hard to convince her parents that Hylton was not socially beneath them and finally gained sufficient acceptance to allow them to marry in October 1942. Their son Gary was born in the early 1947.
In the early fifties Lurline went to New York to advance her sewing career where she met and had an affair with a renowned playboy Roy Francis. When an anonymous letter reached Hylton advising him of his wife’s indiscretions he demanded she return home.
Two weeks later Hylton picked her up from the airport, but witnessed a few days later a worker carrying a letter addressed to Francis to the Post Office. Although the staff there would not let him retrieve the letter to read its contents, when he confronted Lurline she eventually confessed that she couldn’t live without Francis, that Hylton was beneath her class and she couldn’t bear to be touched by him, or touch him.
Lurline exposed her naked body to her husband to show him what he would be missing once she had left the following day. Shortly afterwards Lrline lay dead with multiple gunshot wounds.
Hylton was represented by well respected lawyer Vivian Blake and his former Jamaican captain, Noel Netherscole, and testified in front of large crowds and a great deal of public interest, the majority of which was sympathetic to the former sportsman.
He told the court that he was attempting to shoot himself and had missed. Reports are mixed over the number of bullets that were found in his wife’s body, but whether it was six or seven, the jury did not believe that Hylton had meant to take his own life and unanimously found him guilty.
A banner at the Kensington Oval in Barbados read Save Hylton, Hang Holt! Opener, JK Holt, had dropped two relatively simple catches and contributed little with the bat. Hylton was awaiting execution in the Spanish Town District Prison in Jamaica
Hylton appealed but was hanged on 17 May 1955.
Wisden, in their obituary, did not mention the murder or execution. The cricket press were less lascivious on those days.
James Buttler
As the editor of World Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
He is also the presenter of the Cricket Badger Radio Show on Radio Yorkshire every Tuesday evening between 7-9pm UK time.
James was the full-time Media Manager at Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 2007 and 2010.
James is a published author, a writer/video contributor to many cricket publications and a complete cricket badger!
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