Leslie George Hylton (29 March 1905 – 17 May 1955) was a Jamaican cricketer, a right-arm bowler and useful lower-order batsman who played in six Test matches for the West Indies between 1935 and 1939.

He performed well, as part of a trio of fast bowlers that also included Learie Constantine and Manny Martindale, and helped to secure a West Indies victory in the four-match Test series.

[4] When and how he began to play is not recorded; in his book A History of West Indies Cricket, Michael Manley surmises that most impoverished Kingston youngsters learned the game using a coconut branch and a tennis ball.

[12] He kept his place for the second representative game, played at Melbourne Park, and made his mark as a bowler by taking 5 Tennyson XI wickets for 34 runs in the tourists' first innings, and 3 for 53 in their second.

In December 1927 he travelled to Bridgetown, Barbados, to take part in a trial match which would help select the touring party for the West Indies' debut Test series, to be played against England in 1928.

The cricket writer Mark Whitaker believes that race may have been a factor in Hylton's non-selection, on this and later occasions: "[T]he snooty Bridgetown press dismissed him as a 'slinger' and a 'garden bowler'.

His opponents in this match included the England Test veterans Wilfred Rhodes and George Gunn, as well as emergent players such as Les Ames and Bill Voce.

[19] Hylton was also overlooked when the West Indies party to tour Australia in 1930–31 was chosen, likewise when the team to visit England in 1933 was selected.

[22] Close to his 30th birthday, Hylton was at last favoured by the selectors and chosen for the first Test match of the series, to be played at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados beginning on 8 January 1935.

[24][25] The fact remained, however, that [England's] batting was generally at fault, breaking down badly against the concentrated attack of fast bowling represented by Martindale, Constantine and Hylton, a combination described by Wyatt himself as the best of its kind in the world.

In the second Test, played at Port of Spain, Trinidad from 24 January, West Indies gained a comfortable victory; Hylton's bowling figures were 2 for 55 and 3 for 25.

The third match, at Georgetown, British Guiana, was a rain-affected draw, although in the England first innings Hylton achieved his best Test bowling analysis: 13.2 overs, 4 maidens, 27 runs, 4 wickets.

[27] The contribution of the pace trio of Learie Constantine, Manny Martindale and Hylton to the series triumph was considerable; Manley writes that the three "brought the first unalloyed joy to the cricket community of the Caribbean".

Particular anger was directed at what was perceived as the excessive influence of the Queen's Park Club in Trinidad, and the selection of the 18-year-old Trinidadian novice batsman Jeff Stollmeyer, apparently in preference to Hylton.

The chief cricket correspondent of the Daily Gleaner suggested that the four Jamaicans in the party should all withdraw in protest, a view supported by many letters to the paper.

It emerged that one factor behind Hylton's omission was financial; the impoverished West Indies Cricket Board could not afford the cost of another player in the party.

[34] Wisden wrote of his performance in the Tests: "Hylton, a deadly bowler in conjunction with Martindale and Constantine when Wyatt's team were beaten, could not find his form".

[37] The tour ended prematurely when, in view of the worsening international situation, the West Indies team sailed for home immediately on the conclusion of the final Test, abandoning several end-of-season fixtures.

[40] Hylton's status as an international cricketer helped him, on his return home, to get a better-paid job, with the Rehabilitation Department of the Jamaican Civil Service.

To accommodate this, in 1951 the Hyltons moved into the Roses’ home, so that Lurline's mother could take over childcare duties during her absences (her father had by this time died).

[42] In mid-April 1954 Hylton received from New York an unsigned letter, informing him that his wife was engaged in an adulterous relationship with one Roy Francis,[41] by repute a notorious womaniser.

His explanation was that he kept the gun for security purposes; there had been recent burglaries and other criminal activity in the area of the family home, and he was concerned that his ammunition supplies were running low.

In the early hours of the following morning he challenged Lurline, implying that he knew she had written to Francis and claiming, falsely, that he would be allowed to read the letter later that day.

It is unclear whether immediate medical attention could have saved Lurline's life; she was suffering from multiple bullet wounds and died not long after the attack.

[4][49] The case attracted considerable public attention, and noisy crowds gathered at the courthouse on each day of the trial, showing partiality to Hylton by cheering at each appearance of his defence team.

[50] Under Blake's direction, Hylton provided the court with a vivid reconstruction of the bedroom scene in the early hours of 6 May which, the prosecution suggested, was a fabrication.

[2] Shortly before the execution he was visited in the death cell by his former playing colleague Stollmeyer, who described Hylton as dressed in a white gown and looking like a high priest.

With what the cricket writer and commentator Tony Cozier describes as "a ghoulish sense of humour", spectators displayed a banner reading "Hang Holt, Save Hylton".

[53] Hylton's international cricket career was brief, its main impact confined to a single Test series, but was sufficient for later commentators to describe his combination with Constantine and Martindale as a forerunner of the great West Indies pace partnerships of the 1970s and 1980s.

[55] Two years after Hylton's death, the law in Jamaica relating to provocation was changed, so that determining what was sufficient to establish a defence became a matter for the jury rather than a judge's direction.