Background
He was the younger brother of Learie Constantine, who represented West Indies in Test matches. His father Lebrun and uncle Victor Pascall also played representative cricket for West Indies and Trinidad. Constantine"s father, Lebrun, was the grandchild of slaves, who rose to the position of overseer on a cocoa estate in Cascade, near Maraval, where the family lived when Elias was born.
Constantine"s mother, Anaise Pascall, was the daughter of slaves.
Constantine grew up with his family in Cascade on the estates for which his father was overseer.
Career
Lebrun was famous on the island as a cricketer who represented Trinidad in first-class cricket and toured England twice with a West Indian team The family were generally happy and frequently practised cricket together under the supervision of Lebrun and Victor Pascall. By 1932, Constantine had followed his relations into the Trinidad cricket team
He made his first-class debut against Barbados on 16 January in the Inter-Colonial Tournament, and scored 30 in his only innings.
In the following season, he played in one of the matches against the Marylebone Cricket Club which was touring West Indies. They opened the bowling together when their team fielded.
When Trinidad batted, they were reduced to 42 for six before the brothers came together and added 93 runs, of which Elias made 37. The match was eventually drawn.
During the Trinidad Test match, played shortly afterwards, Constantine was chosen as twelfth man purely because of his reputation as an outstanding fielder.
In the first 11 years of his career, he only twice passed fifty in a first-class match, and he bowled infrequently. Even so, Learie Constantine hoped that Elias would be chosen for the 1939 West Indies tour of England. Elias even paid his own expenses to travel to the trial matches in Trinidad, but was not selected for them and he did not make the tour.
Constantine did not play any first-class cricket between 1936 and 1939.
His best performance came in 1944, when he scored his only first-class hundred. He hit 139 runs against British Guiana, hitting five sixes.
He continued to play for Trinidad until 1949. All but one of his first-class games was played for Trinidad.
In total, he scored 895 runs at an average of 27.12 and took 24 wickets with his medium-paced bowling.
He died in Trinidad on his 91st birthday on 22 May 2003.
