Bruce Pairaudeau

Who is Bruce Pairaudeau?

Bruce Hamilton Pairaudeau was a West Indian cricketer who played in 13 Tests between 1953 and 1957.

Bruce Pairaudeau was a bespectacled right-handed batsman, often used as an opener, whose career never quite fulfilled its early promise. Picked for his first first-class match for British Guiana before his 16th birthday, he scored a century in his third match aged 16 years and five months. But opportunities for first-class cricket were rare in West Indian cricket at this stage, and Pairaudeau came to England in 1950 to play Lancashire League cricket with Burnley.

In late 1952, he returned to British Guiana and did well enough in two first-class matches to be drafted into the team for the First Test against India in January 1953. Batting at No 6, Pairaudeau scored 115 and put on 219 for the fifth wicket with Everton Weekes. For the remaining four Tests in the series he was promoted to open the innings and, though he made only one score of more than 50, he finished the series with 257 runs at an average of more than 32.

The following winter against the England tourists, though, he was picked for only two of the Tests, scoring 71 in the second match but failing in the fourth, and when the Australians toured in 1954-55, he was not chosen at all.