This month, we’re looking back on the careers of several black cricketers who made an enormous impact during their time at Middlesex. We continue our series today by shining the spotlight on Paul Weekes…
Paul Nicholas Weekes was born in Hackney on 8th July 1969 and played for Middlesex over a 16-year period from 1990-2006 as a left-handed batter and a right-arm off-spinner.
Weekes made 582 appearances for the Club across all three formats, scoring over 19,000 runs and taking almost 650 wickets – playing a key role.
His finest effort with the bat came in the summer of 1996, when he scored an unbeaten 171 as Middlesex defeated Somerset at Uxbridge in the County Championship. In the same match, he scored 160 – becoming one of a few players to score a century in each innings of a first-class match…
Middlesex came into the game in good form, having won their last three matches.
Somerset won the toss and elected to bat first and this was turned out to be an excellent decision as the Taunton outfit made 485 in their first innings.
In reply, Weekes was 51 not out by the end of day two and made a further 120 the following day as before Middlesex declared on 450/3 – 35 runs behind.
The visitors raced to 258/3 in their second innings before declaring to try and force a result. This left Middlesex needing 394 runs to win in west London and there was almost a stunning victory, but 357/8 was the score when play ended.
Weekes scored 160 from 217 balls and was backed up by Mark Ramprakash, who also struck a century – making 110.
Earlier in the same summer, Weekes produced the best bowling performance of his Middlesex career, taking 8/39 on the final day against Glamorgan at Lord’s to set up a nine-wicket victory.
There were only three players who weren’t dismissed by Weekes, with Steve James provided the most resistance before succumbing to Phil Tufnell, who trapped him LBW.
20-5-39-8 were his final figures, making him the 16th player to take eight wickets in an innings at the Home of Cricket.
This performance was one of five five-wicket hauls that he took during his 16 years at the Seaxes and he also scored 29 centuries with the bat.
His best return in List-A cricket was 4/17, whilst 3/29 was his best effort in T20 cricket.
