The only international cricketer in the world who was hanged after being accused of murder- who and why?

Cricket News Desk.. If Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan being accused of murder is not sensational news then what is? Whether the allegations are true or false will be decided in the court, but one thing is certain that Shakib is not the first cricketer to be accused of murder. The list includes Khalid Latif (accused of murdering a Dutch MP), Navjot Sidhu (road rage case in 1988), Montag Druitt (most notorious criminal cricketer) and Mohammed Shami (wife of Hasin Jahan also accused in various cases). However, there is another story which is actually about murder and in which the cricketer also received the biggest punishment for murder – the only Test cricketer to die by hanging. It is a very touching story which also shows how unfortunate they were.

This was West Indies fast bowler Leslie Hilton, who played a total of 6 Tests for West Indies in two series in 1934-35 and 1939 (record: 16 wickets at an average of 26.12). He could not escape trial for the murder of his own wife and was sentenced to death. He was hanged in Kingston in 1955 and is the only cricketer to be hanged for murder. This is where the story ends but when we look inside we realize what fate had written for him?

Cricket has seen the mysterious death of Bob Woolmer, Ben Stokes' drunken brawl and the storm of match fixing, but nothing can match the euphoria of Hilton, who was born on March 29, 1905, in a poor family who did not remember what his father was like. He was not much older when he was 3 years old, his mother also left him when he was 13 and in such a situation his elder sister raised him. He gave up his studies and got a job in a tailor's shop at an early age and then became a dock laborer. He played cricket in his spare time and joined the Jamaican team as an all-rounder and played a total of 40 first-class matches from 1926 to 1939.

Many books say that his poverty kept him away from the West Indies team, but he finally joined the team as a fast bowler in the 1935 series against England, which West Indies won. After this, West Indies stopped playing Tests and he was also ignored. Finally, he toured England in 1939 but his peak was over. When he returned, he retired. Many books on West Indies cricket say that he deserved to play more than 6 Tests.

Now comes the second part of their story. Hilton fell in love with Lurline Rose, the daughter of a Jamaican police inspector. He was from a big and rich family so no one knew them but they got married in 1942. It didn't take long before the fights started but Leslie persisted. A son was born in 1947. Lurline was a fashion designer and often travelled to New York for work. So in 1951, Leslie started living with Lurline's mother to take care of the child. In 1954, Hilton received a letter from New York that mentioned his wife's affair with a man named Roy Francis.

This matter just became a problem. After initial denial, the wife finally accepted the relationship. She promised to break it off but neither did they end the relationship nor did Leslie's doubts ever go away. Eventually Leslie also gets a love letter. Although he could not read it, there was such a fight over it that Leslie, in a fit of anger, fired 7 bullets at her. He had some panic in his mind due to which he had bought a revolver a few days ago. He himself called the police but it is also alleged that he did not take his injured wife to the hospital otherwise she could have been saved. The case started in the court in October 1954. Vivian Blake was their captain in the Jamaican team and he was their lawyer. He was also accompanied by Noel Nethersole, a member of the West Indies Cricket Board.

There are different reports available about that case. In some books it is written that he had claimed that while trying to shoot himself he missed the target and his wife got shot. So why were 7 bullets fired – there is no answer to this. This shows that the lawyers did not help him fully. Even the lawyer could not tell the court the truth that there was no intention to kill, but he fired the shot in anger. If this was proved, then at least he would have been saved from hanging. Due to poverty he did not pay any fees to his lawyers and the lawyers who worked for free only completed the formalities. So the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death on October 20, 1954.

No one at the time looked at his hanging with sympathy – on the contrary, they considered him guilty of bringing disrepute to cricket. That is why when Wisden wrote about his death in 1956, it did not even mention how he died. It was written about many years later. In some books, he was described as stubborn and illiterate. There are many stories of his clashes with cricket officials.

In January 1955, the Supreme Court of Jamaica dismissed the appeal against the verdict. By now sympathy for him had begun to pour in, but despite public support his hanging was not commuted. On the morning of 17 May there was a large crowd outside the St Catherine District Jail and inside Leslie was hanged and buried in the prison premises. There was so much sympathy for him that during the Test against Australia in Barbados Jamaica's Jake Holt fielded very poorly and dropped catches.