“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.” – Albert Einstein
In Cricket, we have witnessed many mysterious things happening on the field of cricket. Be it a magical delivery, or an out-of-the-box cricket stroke, Cricket has never been short of unearthing the unpredictable.
Spin bowling is an art and many nuances of it are still a mystery for even the pundits. In its long illustrious history, the gentleman’s game has witnessed some great spinners over the years who have made their mark with some exemplary performances. Apart from the traditional lot, the game of cricket has also seen some outrageously mysterious spinners who took the cricketing world by storm with their quirky deliveries.
Let us have a look at some of those mysterious tricksters who have made their presence felt through the ages
Note: We haven’t included the name of Jack Potter who was probably the inventor of the ‘doosra’ as he didn’t play a single international game.
1. Bernard Bosanquet
Probably, the inventor of the ‘googly’, the ball that turns the other way for a leg-spinner, Bernard Bosanquet wrote about his invention: “Somewhere about the year 1897 I was playing a game with a tennis ball, known as `Twisti-Twosti.' The object was to bounce the ball on a table so that your opponent sitting opposite could not catch it... After a little experimenting I managed to pitch the ball which broke in a certain direction; then with more or less the same delivery make the next ball go in the opposite direction! I practised the same thing with a soft ball at `Stump-cricket.' From this I progressed to the cricket ball.”
Notably, the first public recognition of the delivery was obtained in July 1900 when playing for Middlesex against Leicestershire at Lord's, Bosanquet flummoxed a left-hander with that ‘special’ delivery which bounced four times.
The man himself wrote that the first time it was bowled against the Australians at Lord's in 1902 when he had two overs and saw two very puzzled Australians return to the pavilion. He also added that the first googly ever bowled in Australia, in March 1903 when the Australian great Victor Trumper was batting on 40. Trumper played two conventional leg-breaks to cover with consummate ease but saw his middle stump uprooted in the next ball which was possibly the ‘wrong-one’.
More than a useful all-rounder, Bosanquet played 7 Tests for England in which he picked up 25 wickets at an average of 24.16. According to him, some of the most memorable performances of his career came in the First Class cricket when he took five wickets in each inning in three consecutive matches against Yorkshire, six in each versus Nottinghamshire, and seven in each against Sussex.
Six feet tall, Bosanquet used to deliver the ball over from a great height and he went on to master one of the most talked about deliveries in the world cricket which was later sharpened by a generation of leggies.
2. Ellis Achong
The West Indian bowler of Chinese decent was the inventor of left-arm leg spin bowling and since then the style of bowling has been christened as ‘chinaman’. Initially an orthodox left-arm spin bowler, Ellis stunned a batsman with a delivery bowled with a wrist spinner’s action.
Also being the first cricketer of Chinese extraction to play Test cricket, Achong appeared in six Tests for the West Indies and took only eight wickets at 47.25.The left-arm leg spin is an unusual breed and it was Achong who unfurled it first.
3. Jack Iverson
A fast bowler when at school, Jack Iverson took no part in cricket for twelve years afterwards and then came into the reckoning after developing a strange way of spinning the ball.
Gripping the ball between his thumb and middle finger, he was able to bowl a wide variety of deliveries, including off-breaks, leg-breaks, and googlies, without any remarkable change of action.
He first made headlines in cricket in 1949-50 when he took 46 wickets for Victoria at an average of 16.12. In the following autumn against W. A. Brown’s team in New Zealand, he snapped up 75 wickets in total and in the next Australian season, he was chosen for his country to play against England in the Ashes.
The Ashes turned out to be a juggernaut for him as he bewildered the English batsmen with his bagful of tricks. He took 21 wickets at an astounding average of 15.73 in that series and made his name instantly. However, during the fourth Test at Adelaide he suffered an ankle injury when he trod on the ball and after that he played only one game in each of the next two seasons.
Then he left the gentleman’s game forever and faded into obscurity.
4. Clarrie Grimmett
One of the most accurate spinners of all-time, Grimmett perfected the ‘flipper’ like no one did and made it one of the key weapons in his arsenal. With an immaculate line and length, the leg-spinner worked extensively on his accuracy and reaped benefits of that perseverance throughout his entire career.
His 29 wickets in England in the 1930 series created a record and it was widely accepted that his bowling was at least as important to Australia as was Bradman's phenomenal batting. Grimmett played 37 Tests for Australia and picked up 216 wickets at an average of 24.21.
Grimmett’s records in First Class cricket are a token of his consistency- 1424 wickets in 248 First Class matches at an average of 22.28.
The man, who was revered for his unbelievable control, was called for a no-ball only once in his life.
5. John Gleeson
Another Australian spinner with an unusual grip like Jack Iverson, John Gleeson’s career took an entirely new turn when his mystery was unraveled by the batsmen.
However, his career started on a positive note when he impressed the likes of Richie Benaud with his unusual bowling. Gleeson himself acknowledged the influence of Iverson, “The first time I saw it was a photograph in a 1951 Sporting Life magazine. I would bowl with the same grip with a tennis ball in backyard cricket, with a jacaranda tree as the wicket. It was quite natural for me to bowl a legspinner even if it looked like an offspinner - it was basically a reverse wrong'un: looks like an offspinner but is a legspinner.”
Gleeson, who made his debut against India at Adelaide in 1967, started on a promising note but soon faded away as his opponents broke the mystery code.
Despite promising to reach the unprecedented heights, the mystery bowler finished with 93 wickets in 29 Tests with a strike rate of 95.2
6. Sonny Ramadhin
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
7. Bhagwath Chandrasekhar
One of the major names amongst the famous spin quartet of India, Chandrasekhar brandished his fastish leg-spin which rattled the best in the business. A superb performer, Chandra was one of India’s biggest match-winner overseas with 42 wickets in 5 Tests.
He once admitted that he even didn’t know what he was going to ball. His sharp googlies, venomous top-spinners and leg-breaks-all bowled at near medium-pace with a whipping action made him the one who could produce magic out of nothing.
On tracks which didn’t offer spin, Chandra went on to take 6 for 38 at the Oval to give their first series victory in England in 1971 and he also played a major part in India’s first win down under, taking 12 for 104 in Melbourne.
Even the swashbuckling Viv Richards admitted, “It took me a long, long time to come to terms with Chandra. He was the most teasing bowler I ever had to face, and I never quite knew whether I was in charge or not. That was his greatness. His ability to lure opponents into a false sense of security was deadly. How is a batsman supposed to dominate such a man? How can he build his own confidence when he does not know whether the bowler is faking or not? ... To this day he probably remains the one bowler for whom I have most respect. He could do things with the ball that seemed supernatural.”
8. Ajantha Mendis
It surely has to be the story of a bowler who saw his graphs declining at a pace which only Virender Sehwag can emulate with his thunderous batting.
The mention of Virender Sehwag is no aberration as he was the only one who could pick the maverick Sri Lankan spin bowler in his early days when he used to terrorise the other batsmen with his bagful of tricks.
Flicking the ball with his fingers, much like the original mystery spinner, Jack Iverson, and the other practitioner of the "Iversons", John Gleeson, Mendis stunned the world with his deadly carom balls His Iversons came with a new name, the "carrom ball", taken from the way the striker is flicked in the popular board game in the subcontinent. Mendis broke the back of the formidable Indian batting line-up in the Asia Cup final in 2008 to script a memorable win for his side.
Mendis started with a bang in the longest version of the game as he took eight wickets in his first Test and 26 in his first series, two more than Alec Bedser's record for a three-match debut series.
However, his mystery faded way soon than it was expected as the prodigy Mendis failed to take over the mantle from Muralitharan as the leading Sri Lankan spinner after the veteran retired. He found no place in the Test team and was left to ply his trade in the shorter formats where he had decent success.
Mendis, who holds the record for the best figures in a T20I innings, saw his limited-overs career in jeopardy as well as he was left out of the Sri Lankan team far too often.
Once thought to be the emerging star of world cricket, Mendis now plies his trade in domestic cricket and will have to come up with something really significant to earn a place a back in his national team.
9. Sunil Narine
Sunil Narine a mystery spinner, caught the eyes of the West Indies selectors by taking all ten wickets in a trial match and received a call up to the Trinidad & Tobago squad in January 2009. With umpteen tricks up his sleeve, Narine announced his arrival in the international cricket in 2011 and he led West Indies to their maiden T20 world cup title in 2012 with his versatile assortment of carrom balls, knuckle balls, and skidders.
He was one of the chief architects of the Kolkata Knight Riders' two title victories in 2012 and 2014 and he continued to prosper in the shortest format of the game for his national team as well. However, he didn’t do to well in the Tests and he was left to ply his trade in the shorter formats.
Narine ran into serious trouble with his bowling action in the Champions League Twenty20 2014 and he was banned for the final under controversial circumstances. Then another setback came when Narine was withdrawn from the West Indies squad, who were due to play the hosts in a limited-overs series of five ODIs and a T20 in October that year.
The bowler himself withdrew from the squad named for the 2015 World Cup, citing the need to keep working on his bowling action and lost a year due to that. Though he made a comeback toward the end of November, he again was called for a suspect action.
After remodeling the action, the bowler marked his return in IPL 2016 and performed decently. He also earned a recall to the national side for the tri-series featuring South Africa, Australia, and West Indies and he didn’t disappoint.
Does he still have the same sort of enigma with this remodeled action? the question started doing the rounds and he certainly made a strong statement by taking 6 wickets against South Africa which helped West Indies clinch a 4-wicket victory.
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