LONDON, England (CMC) – Highly-rated teenager Josh de Caires, the great-grandson of a former West Indies Test player and son of an ex-England captain, has signed a three-year contract with English county side Middlesex.
The 18-year-old de Caires is the son of former England captain Michael Atherton, now a commentator and chief cricket correspondent of The Times of London, whose wife Isabelle is the great granddaughter of Frank de Caires, who was born in what was then British Guiana – now Guyana – in 1909.
“Josh is a very talented top-order batsman with good pedigree,” Middlesex head coach Stuart Law said.
“We look forward to working with him over the coming years and helping in his development as a player and a young man,” added Law, an Australian, who formerly coached West Indies.
Josh’s great-grandfather Frank was a right-handed middle-order batsman, who made 80 and 70 in the first Test played in the Caribbean, when England were the visitors to Barbados in 1929-30, but he played only three Tests, however, the last of them in Jamaica in the same series.
de Caires toured Australia later that year but did not play in any of the Tests. In all, he made 232 Test runs.
The new contract will see young de Caires remain a Middlesex player until at least the end of the 2023 season and through his time at university.
A product of the Middlesex Academy, de Caires first represented Middlesex at Under-14 level, hitting an unbeaten 90 on debut against Essex Under-14s in 2015. He made his second XI debut in 2017 at the age of 15 and last year scored a Second XI Championship century against Hampshire.
His father, Atherton, now 52, played 115 Tests for England before retiring in 2001, having compiled 7 728 runs and finishing with an average of 37.69.
Having replaced Graham Gooch as England captain after the fourth Test of a home series in 1993 against Australia, Atherton’s first tour as captain, to the West Indies in the winter of 1993–94, was not a success as England lost 3-1.
It proved to be a series of highs and lows for England.
England were bowled out for 46 in the second innings in Trinidad but then roared back to win the fourth Test in Barbados, thanks to two centuries from Alec Stewart, before Trinidadian Brian Lara compiled a world-record 375 against them in the drawn fifth Test at the Recreation Ground in Antigua,.
For his part, Atherton was the leading English batsman on the tour, scoring 510 runs – including two centuries – at an average of 56.67.
