Ill-health and Death
During the 1988 English cricket season, Slack suffered a number of blackouts on the field or in the nets, but exhaustive tests had failed to identify the cause. One such incident, witnessed by Mickey Stewart, took place during a net session in Tasmania, during the 1986–7 England tour of Australia:
One minute I looked and he was fine the next minute he had passed out and we had to rush him to hospital ... There was no indication that what he was suffering from was life-threatening.
He died at the age of 34 after collapsing during a game in The Gambia.
A popular figure in the game, his Wisden obituary commented on the response to his death:
He was particularly popular among fellow-cricketers, who spoke feelingly of their respect and sorrow when he died. He was mourned, too, in New Zealand, where he coached in five English winters. Slack was buried in his prized England blazer, bat at his side, and as the funeral cortege drove past Lord's, the Grace Gates bore a sign reading "Farewell Wilf".
Read more about this topic: Wilf Slack
Famous quotes containing the words ill-health and, ill-health and/or death:
“... hunger and cold, ill-health and pain are nothing. They pass. The thing that remains is ignorant criticism, well-meaning but futile advice, the contempt of a subordinate, the feelings of the underdog.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“... hunger and cold, ill-health and pain are nothing. They pass. The thing that remains is ignorant criticism, well-meaning but futile advice, the contempt of a subordinate, the feelings of the underdog.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)