Sonny Ramadhin, mystifying West Indies spinner, dies at 92

Sonny Ramadhin, who has died at the age of 92, was one of the West Indies' finest spin bowlers and, in tandem with Alf Valentine, fashioned a series win in England in 1950 which became lodged in calypso folklore.

"They complemented each other perfectly," said the late West Indian cricket writer, broadcaster and historian Tony Cozier.

"Ramadhin, cap on, sleeves buttoned down to the wrists, presented mysteries which no English batsman unravelled for the entire summer."

Sonny Ramadhin, who took 158 wickets in his 43 tests, was born in St Charles in Trinidad on Mayday 1929.

Just 19, the 5 foot 4 inch (1.62m) offspinner was selected for the 1950 tour on the strength of two matches for Trinidad against Jamaica in which he took 12 wickets.

When he travelled to England it was his first trip outside Trinidad and the first time he had bowled on grass rather than matting.

Ramadhin and fellow spinner Valentine bowled over 1 000 overs each on the tour, taking 258 wickets between them. In the tests, the left-arm spinner Valentine, a month older than his spin partner, took 33 wickets to Ramadhin's 26.

The powerful West Indies batting line-up which included the 3 Ws – Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott – did the rest.

Ramadhin, who had just turned 20, was primarily an offspinner but could also bowl a leg-break with no discernible change of action.

He had a bustling run and was unerringly accurate – he conceded just 1.97 runs per over during his test career.

'THOSE TWO PALS OF MINE'

He made his debut in the opening test, becoming the first of many East Indians to represent the West Indies.

He took two wickets in each innings as West Indies struggled on an underprepared pitch at Old Trafford, slipping to a heavy defeat. They hit back immediately, in the second test at Lord's where the spin twins grabbed cricketing immortality.

After West indies made 326 in their first innings, Ramadhin took five wickets for 66 runs to skittle England for 151.

Set 601 to win, England showed greater defiance, when Ramadhin bowled Cyril Washbrook for 114, the game was all but over.

Ramadhin bowled 72 overs in the innings and finished with 6-86 – 11-152 in the match – as West Indies secured a crushing 326-run win.

The West Indian immigrants in London, recently arrived on MV Empire Windrush, celebrated as much as the folk back home with the calypso musician Lord Kitchener writing "Victory Calypso", honouring "those two little pals of mine/Ramadhin and Valentine".

In the third test at Nottingham, Ramadhin sent down 81.2 overs in the second innings – Valentine bowled 92 – and took 5-135 as West Indies cantered to a 10-wicket win.

At The Oval he played second fiddle to Valentine, who took 10 in the match, as West Indies won by an innings and 56 runs to seal the series, although England allrounder Trevor Bailey remembered it differently.

"Although Valentine took 10 wickets in the match, for me it was the silent Ramadhin who got us," he wrote some years later.

"He was hardly known in the West Indies at the time, less so in England. He was shy and sensitive, considering he was an Indian in a team full of white and black men.

"We had never faced someone like that, bowling from that position and at that pace, who turned the ball on a good wicket."

Ramadhin continued to prosper until his return to England in 1957 when he bowled 98 overs in the second innings – 129 in the match – as Peter May and Colin Cowdrey padded him away during a marathon partnership of 411.

Their tactics of kicking the ball away prompted a change in the lbw law but effectively finished Ramadhin. On the 1960-1 tour to Australia Frank Worrell dropped him for the third test, preferring Lance Gibbs.

Ramadhin never played for the West Indies again.

Ramadhin joined Lancashire in 1964. He was the county's oldest surviving former player at the time of his death.

His son-in-law Willie Hogg and grandson Kyle Hogg both played for the county.

"Sad day - great innings grandad," Kyle Hogg tweeted.