9 mystery spinners through the ages

6. Sonny Ramadhin

Sonny Ramadhin( L) with his spin-bowling partner Alf Valentine (R)

The first East Indian to represent West Indies, Sonny Ramadhin received a surprise call-up to the West Indies side for their historic tour of England in 1950. With no identifiable change of action, Ramadhin bamboozled the batsmen with his sheer ability to spin the ball both ways.

Ramadhin could bowl right-arm off-breaks and leg-breaks and he recorded exemplary figures of 11 for 152 in Lord’s to help West Indies win their first ever Test at the Mecca of cricket. His pairing with fellow spinner Alf Valentine scripted many wins for the West Indies side as the two bowled in tandem to outclass the opponents.

The man who bowled his off-breaks with the middle finger down rather than putting it across the seam, finished with 158 wickets in 43 matches at an average of 28.98.

Ramadhin’s enigma was somehow stalled by English batsmen Peter May and Colin Cowdrey who put on 411 for the fourth wicket in the second innings of the first Test at Edgbaston as the two batters found a way of tackling the menace. While May chose the way of counterattacking, Cowdrey used the ploy of padding up to nullify the threat of the spinner. Ramadhin never recovered from that amalgamation of attacking and ‘ultra-defensive’ tactics as he faded away.

But his enigma still holds a place in the books of cricket history