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Sonny Ramadhin, revered West Indies spin bowler who made a habit of taking England apart in the 1950s – obituary

Sonny Ramadhin, the West Indian bowler who has died aged 92, had, like his fellow spinner Alf Valentine, only played two first-class matches when he was selected for the West Indian tour of England in 1950; together, however, the two newcomers sent the home side crashing to defeat.

Topical Press/Getty Images Sonny Ramadhin in 1950 - Topical Press/Getty Images

In the four Tests that summer they took 59 wickets between them. Valentine was marginally the more successful, with 33 wickets to Ramadhin’s 26; over the tour as a whole, however, he was 13 short of Ramadhin’s tally of 135 victims.

Furthermore, it was Ramadhin who was chiefly responsible for the West Indies’ first win in England, in the second Test at Lord’s, when he took 11 wickets for 152 from 115 overs, 50 of them maidens. Supporters celebrated with a calypso about “those two little pals of mine, / Ramadhin and Valentine”.

Ramadhin, who had East Indian ancestry, carried the greater air of mystery. Only 5ft 4in in height, he usually bowled in a cap, keeping impeccable line and length and indulging in subtle variations of pace and flight. His greatest asset was that no one (save Clyde Walcott, the wicketkeeper) seemed to know, until it was too late, whether he had delivered an off-break or a leg-break.

Denis Compton remembered a blur of black hand, white sleeve and red ball, which made it impossible to gauge the spin. Ray Robinson, the great Australian journalist, described the action but was unable to solve the conundrum:

“Ramadhin forks his first two fingers, small, lean and damp, over the ball’s seam. He flits across the seam with six lively paces. The ball shoots at the batsman from a one-two-three flutter of black and white, because he flaps his right and left sleeves over before his right hand delivers in its next circle.

Provided by The Telegraph Ramadhin in action c. 1950 - Central Press/Getty Images

“As his hand comes up behind his head, something mysterious happens too quickly for the eye to take in – a half-hint that his elbow bows and straightens. That is Ramadhin’s secret, an essential part of his voodoo rite. The bewitched ball darts from the pitch, mostly whipping back from the off.

“Occasionally Ramadhin releases a slower ball, which looks as though it will be a full toss, but dips late in its flight. Sometimes the slower ball is the sly leg-break, which batsmen have trouble in detecting from his hand, or it may be a retarded version of his off-break. Lynx-eyed opponents take a slightly higher ball as a sign that a leg-break is coming.”

At Brisbane in 1951 Ramadhin baffled the Australian, as he had previously baffled the English batsmen, but afterwards, under a determined assault by Keith Miller, proved less effective. The 14 wickets he took in the series were dearly bought. When he was dropped from the last Test against India in January 1953 it seemed that the mystery might have been solved.

Ramadhin came back with a vengeance, however, against England in the series of 1953-54 in the West Indies, when for the first time he outshone Valentine. He finished with 23 wickets in the Tests, 15 more than any other West Indian bowler. This was cue for another celebration:

“Ram is a magic bowler / He say he climb rope all up in India... / What did de crowd say? / We want Ramadhin on the ball, / We want Ramadhin on the ball, / We want Ramadhin on the ball, / Keep him on de ball”.

Ramadhin maintained his dominance in the first innings of the first Test against England at Edgbaston in 1957, taking seven for 49 as England were skittled out for 186. But in the second innings Peter May and Colin Cowdrey mastered his wiles with a stand of 411.

Provided by The Telegraph With his spin-bowling teammate, the equally feared Alf Valentine, during the 1950 tour of England - Jimmy Sime/Getty Images

Their technique was to thrust the left leg down the pitch and play for the off-break with bat and pad together, in the justified hoped that the umpire would never give an lbw decision when the pad was so far down pitch. The leg break was allowed to pass across the face of the bat.

Ramadhin bowled 129 overs in that match, and in English mythology was never the same again. It is true that his performances in the remaining Tests that season were unimpressive, but he headed the West Indian bowling averages for the tour, taking 119 wickets at 13·98 each.

He held his place in the West Indies Test side for another four years, and bowled well in Australia in 1960-61, before being replaced by Lance Gibbs. He was still baffling batsmen when he played for Lancashire in 1964.

Sonny Ramadhin was born at Esperance Village in Trinidad on May 1 1929. Though his father and mother were both West Indian, one of his grandfathers had arrived from India to work on a cocoa estate. Sonny certainly looked East Indian. His smile struck Ray Robinson as being “like a toothpaste advertisement in a Bombay newspaper”.

There was no history of cricket in the family; Sonny made his first acquaintance with the game at the Canadian Mission School in Duncan Village, where he carried off the Juggernaut Cup for the best batting average. No trace of this early skill remained in later years.

 Provided by The Telegraph Waiting to bat in a game against Cambridge University - Hulton-Deutsch/Corbis via Getty Images

Ramadhin left school at 16 and for a while played no organised cricket, though he took every opportunity to practise with the Palmiste Club in Trinidad. Since no one gave him an opportunity to bat, he concentrated on bowling, quickly discovering that he could turn the ball from the off or from the leg without any change in his action.

Before long he was playing for Palmiste, and responsible for a sudden upturn in the club’s fortunes. A friend recommended Ramadhin to the Trinity Leasehold Oil Company, where a Mr Skinner, who had played for Barbados, encouraged his bowling.

Ramadhin’s growing reputation meant that he was picked for the two trial games before the West Indian tour of England in 1950. He took 12 wickets at 19·25 in these matches, and was duly chosen for England. It was a brave selectorial decision, but not so brave as the choice of Valentine, who had only taken two wickets for 180 runs in the trials.

Eventually Ramadhin would play in 43 Test matches, taking 158 wickets at 28.98 each. In his first-class career as a whole he claimed 758 victims at 20.24. From the early 1950s he played for several seasons in the Lancashire League; and as late as 1979, on the brink of 50, he was still operating in the Bolton Association.

After retiring, Sonny Ramadhin and his wife June, who had a son and a daughter, ran the White Lion pub at Delph, near Oldham, for some years. His wife and daughter both predeceased him, and he is survived by his son. His grandson Kyle Hogg was a fast-bowling all-rounder for Lancashire between 2001 and 2014.

Sonny Ramadhin, born May 1 1929, death announced February 27 2022  

Reference: The Telegraph: Telegraph Obituaries