Roger Harper entered Queen's College as a gangling twelve year old in 1975. Even then his cricketing talents were so obvious that he was immediately drafted into the College's First XI. That was the year the school's cricketing administrators, for reasons I never quite understood, made the decision to withdraw from the Northcothe Competition, in favor of playing only in the Wight Cup with a supposedly stronger team.

That decision of course meant exposure to League cricket for fewer of the school's cricketers. Combining the previous Northcothe and Wight Cup teams into a single unit for the latter competition also resulted in the availability of more staff members and at least three, "Chalkie" Wailoo, "Oiseaux" Austin and Stanton Seegobin played during the 1975-76 season.

The competition for places on the school team that year was therefore extremely tough. Even I who had finished second in the Northcothe bowling averages the previous season with my gentle medium pacers, found myself at the selectors' mercy, omitted for the first few matches in favor of a four pronged pace attack of Gordon, Boxhill, Rooseveldt and Victor Agard. These guys were for their ages phenomenally quick and as such it was not surprising that the coach "Chalkie" Wailoo initially opted for their pace over my trundlers.

Harps' inclusion in the team as a first-former, quite a unique achievement in QC's illustrious cricketing history, was an altogether different matter. By the time he entered Queen's his older brother Mark, had already made a mark, no pun intended, for himself as a batsman at what was then the West Indies Cricket Board of Control Benson & Hedges U19 Competition and was on the verge of selection to the Guyana national team for the Shell Shield Competition.

I remember clearly the first time I met Harps, or "Stumpie" as he was fondly called. It was at a Saturday morning training clinic that the school's coach “Chalkie” Wailoo had organized with three national players Sydney Matthews, Keith Glasgow and Lonsdale Skinner, the Surrey based wicket-keeper who had returned home. Matthews had brought an extra pair of boots that he was willing to give to any of the bowlers it could fit. The problem was that it a size thirteen and was too big for any of the five front-line bowlers - the previously mentioned four and myself ( by that time I had made it back into the team as a result of having taken 4-17 to help the students demolish the star studded Masters (Staff) XI in the annual grouse match, a game attended by almost the entire student and teaching corps). Roger tried on the boots and to everyone's amusement declared them to be " a little tight".

He didn't actually play too many games for the school, for he was recognized very early by the cricketing brass at the Demerara cricket Club, including Fred Wills and was almost immediately drafted into the club's Case Cup team, which included no less a personage than Roy Fredericks. He made his debut for Guyana in 1980, at age seventeen not surprisingly under Fredericks' captaincy, and went on to represent his country in 53 Shell Shield/Red Stripe Cup matches scoring 2,472 runs at an average of 32.53 per innings. His three Cup centuries included a mammoth 202 against the Windward Islands at Bourda during the 1995 season.

That 1995 match against the Windwards at Bourda, was probably Harper's most memorable for Guyana as he also recorded his best ever bowling figures of 6-24. Altogether, bowling his off-spinners initially in a style which often aroused vivid memories of Lance Gibbs in his heyday, Harper claimed 186 wickets at a measly average of 21.98. He also played 41 regional One Day matches taking 50 wickets at an average of 21.68 and scoring 680 runs at 23.45 per innings.