In front of a packed Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad and Tobago fought their way to a 27 run victory over Jamaica in the first semifinal of the 2015 Caribbean Premier League. With each six struck or wicket claimed, the telecast was quick to cut to the partisan Port of Spain crowd in an attempt to capture their rapturous celebration. Yet, of the thousands in attendance, one in particular stood out amongst the rest: Trinidadian off-spinner Sunil Narine.
Narine—whose Guyana Amazon Warriors will play the winner of this contest on Saturday—was not participating in the night’s action. However, the mere sight of the controversial bowler at Trinidad’s most famous cricket ground was enough to remind me of Sonny Ramadhin—the original Trinidadian mystery spinner.
There’s not much footage of Ramadhin, but the clip above (at 0:21) shows him bowling to Bob Simpson during the first Test of the West Indies tour of Australia in 1960—a series some believe to be the greatest of all time. Much like Narine, Ramadhin was known to have a suspect action. In fact, long after his retirement, Ramadhin admitted to chucking for the greater part of his career. I guess it’s only cheating if you get caught—something Ramadhin managed to avoid as he racked up 758 wickets over the course of his first-class career.
From Hyderabad to Hove 