Black History Month: Danny Livingstone

Daintes Abbia 'DANNY' LIVINGSTONE (1959-1972)
Born 21 September 1933, St John’s Antigua
Died 8 September 1988, Antigua
Left Hand Batsman, Occasional Wicketkeeper

299 First-Class Matches, County Cap 1961
Batting: 12,660 runs, average 27.94, 16 centuries, 65 half-centuries
Highest Score 200 v Surrey at Southampton 1962
Bowling: One wicket, average 68.00
Best Bowling 1-33 v Surrey at the Oval 1968
Catches: 240, Stumped: 2

54 Limited Overs Matches
Batting: 1044 runs, average 25.46, 5 half-centuries
Highest Score 92 v Lincolnshire at Southampton 1966

Daintes Abbia, known as ‘Danny’ Livingstone was born in Antigua, one of the Caribbean Leeward Islands in 1933. He was educated at the Grammar School, in Antigua but also at the Collegiate School, Toronto as he began a somewhat circuitous trip to become the first Black West Indian cricketer to play for Hampshire. At around the same time that Roy Marshall was joining Hampshire, Danny Livingstone moved to London and joined the RAF to complete two years of National Service.

While serving there, he played a single match for Warwickshire 2^nd XI against Worcestershire 2^nd XI and he must have made something of an impression as a cricketer in the RAF; in 1955 he played for them against LC Steven’s XI at Eastbourne, a match that included a number of first-class cricketers on each side. When he completed National Service he returned to Warwickshire and played a full season for their 2^nd XI in the Minor Counties Championship, finishing with an innings of 55* against a strong Yorkshire 2^nd XI but it was not enough. Warwickshire felt they had too many promising batsmen and were concerned that Danny played “too many strokes”. It was the West Indian way!

He spent 1958 playing club cricket in London but at the start of the following season, a long and unusually hot English summer, and while Roy Marshall was passing 2,000 runs for Hampshire, Danny came for a trial in the nets, impressed and began playing for the Club & Ground and 2^nd XI sides in the first year of the 2^nd XI competition. He did well and in early July made his first-class debut against Oxford University at Bournemouth. It was a modest debut but he top-scored in the first innings with 37 before returning to the 2^nd XI. There were very few Caribbean cricketers playing in English county cricket in 1959; along with Danny and Roy Marshall at Hampshire were Donald Ramsamooj (Northants), Carlton Forbes (Nottinghamshire), Ron Headley (Worcestershire), Peter Wight (Somerset), and Laurie Johnson (Derbyshire), all of them obliged to set aside any chance of Test cricket for the relative security of the English professional game, although in 1973, after a change in regulations, Ron Headley came into the West Indian touring team in an emergency.

1960 was an unhappy season for English cricket. The weather was poor throughout and the Test series against the all-white South African tourists was one-sided. The visiting South Africans were the first to meet protests from those who objected to the regime in their homeland, not least as a consequence of the murder in Sharpeville just a few weeks earlier by South African police of 69 Black protesters. Within ten years South African tours were cancelled until 1994.

Meanwhile in early May 1960, Danny Livingstone made his County Championship debut against Lancashire at Southampton and in his first innings was bowled for 16 by England’s Brian Statham. He ended that season with 551 runs at just over 20 runs, not yet the kind of return that would establish him in the number four position that had caused Hampshire difficulties post-war but 1961 was rather different. Danny was the only man to play in every one of Hampshire’s matches, 32 in the Championship plus games against Oxford University, the Australians and Yorkshire at Scarborough in late September. That last match was Hampshire, the Champions against Yorkshire, Runners-Up, after Hampshire had clinched their first-ever county title, beating Derbyshire at Bournemouth on 1 September 1961 when batter Bob Taylor was caught off the bowling of Peter Sainsbury by Danny Livingstone. It was a great triumph.

Danny scored 1,643 runs that year at 28.32, and was awarded his county cap. In the following year he went better, scoring 1817 runs at 37.08 including what would remain his highest innings of 200 against Surrey at Southampton when he shared a ninth wicket partnership of 230 with Alan Castell which is still a record for the county.

In June 1963 he played for Hampshire when Frank Worrell’s wonderful West Indies side came to Southampton and against his fellow ‘countrymen’ he scored 151 before he was bowled by Garry Sobers. Hampshire led the tourists by 147 on first innings, challenged them 212 to win and when this exciting game ended, West Indies were 126-9.

There were other fine days. In 1967 he scored 120 against Middlesex at Lord’s while Roy Marshall made 153; three years later in the same fixture, the pair of them scored centuries again and their 4^th wicket partnership of 263 was for some years a Hampshire record. Like Roy Marshall, Danny also played in the early years of limited-overs county cricket and when his career ended in 1972 he had passed 1,000 runs in the shorter form with a best of 92, one of five half centuries. But his main contribution came in the first-class game where his record of 12,660 runs for the county - mostly in the years of uncovered pitches - has him in 22^nd place in the list of Hampshire’s all-time run scorers. He did occasionally when the need arose perform well as a stand-in wicketkeeper and while he only took one first-class wicket, it was of the great England batter Ken Barrington on his final appearance.

In what was generally the way back then after ten years as a capped professional he was awarded a benefit in 1972. The Hampshire-born journalist and broadcaster John Arlott wrote a tribute to Danny in the 1972 Hampshire Handbook, describing how the “thoughtful” young man had adapted his approach to the demands of professional batting six days-a-week, while still able “to put together a brilliant attacking innings” when circumstances required it. He added: "All his captains and colleagues would consider Danny Livingstone a model player and companion. Immaculate to the last detail of his dress on or off the field, he is courteous, quietly spoken, steady, dignified and temperate. He has never been slow to enjoy an evening out or the general dressing room humour."

Danny returned to Antigua when he retired from playing, and worked for the government as Director of Sports. While there, he married and was the father of five children. He captained the Antiguan cricket team briefly and managed Leewards and Combined Islands sides. Sadly Danny died in Antigua just a couple of weeks short of his 55^th birthday in September 1988.