Roland Butcher is the latest pioneer featured in our Hidden Figures online series, running in Black History Month, bringing to life stories of sportsmen and women you may never have heard of
As a young boy growing up in Barbados, it was only natural that Roland Butcher should dream of one day striding out at the Kensington Oval to play Test cricket.
In 1981, he achieved that dream, but with a twist. The man who had first picked up a bat in the rural parish of St Phillip in Barbados wasn't wearing the maroon cap of the West Indies, he was playing against them. And in doing so, he made history - the first black cricketer to play in a Test match for England.
"My vision was always to be a professional and international cricketer but at the time, obviously, you thought it would be for the West Indies because you had no idea how your life would pan out. While I was in England, I still maintained the ambition to play international cricket.
"When the opportunity came to play for England, it was a straightforward decision because by that time I'd settled in England, I was married, I had a son. My future was very much in England and obviously the opportunity to play international cricket was something I'd wanted for so long. Naturally I took the opportunity."
Butcher arrived in the UK aged 13 in 1967 and his path towards international cricket could have been derailed when he was introduced to his other great sporting passion, football. But after being asked to make up the numbers when Stevenage Cricket Club's third XI found themselves short, he was soon back on track.
"I reluctantly played. I didn't do a great deal. Scored about a dozen runs and took a couple of catches but they obviously saw something to ask me to play again the next week," he said.
Butcher was in the first team just a few weeks later before he'd even turned 15 and spent the next two summers with Gloucestershire's youth squad. It was when he was invited to join the MCC's young professionals programme in 1970 that he first came to the attention of Middlesex. He signed a professional contract with the county in 1974 and stayed there for his entire professional career.
As he steadily built a reputation as an attacking middle order batsman on the county circuit, he caught the eye of the England selectors. The call eventually came for the One-Day series against Australia in 1980, though it seems he was the last to know.
"On the day of the selection, I was at Lord's practicing. Nothing was said to me," Butcher explained. สูตรบาคาร่าฟรี ป๋าเซียน
"After we finished training, I'd gone to lunch and received a call from my wife and she said 'is it true you've been selected for England?' I said 'no, I haven't heard anything'. She said 'my boss has told me he's heard on the news that you've been selected to play for England'.