Valentine fastest to 100 Test wickets

ORLANDO: Former West Indies spin bowling legend, Alf Valentine, has died at home on Tuesday. He was 74. Valentine and fellow spin bowler Sonny Ramadhin have been immortalised in song through Lord Beginner’s famous calypso, “Those Little Pals of Mine,” following West Indies’ famous “coming of age” Test match and Test series victory over England in 1950. Tall and slim, with sloping shoulders, and always bespectacled, Valentine played 36 Tests, taking 139 wickets at an average of 30.32 runs apiece. The West Indies Cricket Board said in a news release on Tuesday that Valentine’s contribution to the history of West Indies cricket and, indeed, his career went beyond his partnership with Ramadhin.

“From the moment he entered Test cricket at Old Trafford, in the First Test of the 1950 series at the age of 20 with an historic eight-wicket haul in the first innings of the match, until he left the Test scene 12 years later in 1962, Valentine was a wholehearted and committed member of the West Indies team,” the release stated. His team-mate Jackie Hendriks, now a director of the WICB, described Valentine as a superb left-arm spin bowler, who bowled on pitches in the West Indies that were unresponsive to spin at the time. “He was a marvellous team man, a gentleman in all respects with a joie de vivre which endeared him to his colleagues,” Hendriks noted in the WICB statement.

Born April 29, 1930, Valentine came to prominence in that 1950 series, when he was the youngest  member  of the side and played a significant role in helping the visitors secure their first Test series victory in England.  Valentine and Ramadhin were the names on everyone’s lips, after they captured 59 wickets between them in the series with the Jamaican taking 33 wickets at 20.42 runs apiece, including Len Hutton three times. In the opening Test at Old Trafford, he took eight wickets for 104 runs on his first day in Test cricket  — including five before the lunch interval. He went on to a record-breaking performance in the Third Test at Trent Bridge, where he sent down 92 overs in an innings and, in the final match at The Oval, took ten for 160 to sweep West Indies to a hat-trick of wins on the way to a 3-1 series victory.

Valentine was one of the few successes on West Indies’ difficult tour of Australia in 1951-52, when he maintained his high skills to finish as the leading bowler on either side in the Test series with 24 wickets at 28.79 each, including five for 99 at Brisbane, six for 102 in West Indies’ only victory at Adelaide, and five for 88 at Melbourne. After taking eight wickets in two Tests in New Zealand in 1951-52, Valentine was again the leading bowler in the 1953 home series, his first on Caribbean soil, with 28 wickets, and became the first and fastest West Indian to 100 Test wickets when he dismissed Jim Laker in the Third Test against England at Georgetown in 1954. Valentine had 15 wickets at 18.86 in four Tests in New Zealand, but ill health, injury and lack of form restricted his appearances over the next three years until he was the surprise choice for the famous tour of Australia in 1960-61 during which the first tied Test took place.

He captured 14 wickets at 38.07 and was second in the averages to Wes Hall, collecting eight wickets in West Indies’ sole win at Sydney, and found himself at the centre of the excitement in the deciding match at Melbourne. With Australia on the verge of victory, Valentine bowled Peter Burge and Richie Benaud and then seemed to dislodge Wally Grout’s bail. But the unsighted umpire ruled the batsman not out and Australia eventually won by two runs.  Valentine made his final tour for West Indies to England in 1963, but by then Lance Gibbs had overtaken him in the pecking order. Valentine moved to America 26 years ago with his second wife (his first wife, with whom he had four daughters, had died). He had a stroke a few weeks ago while recovering from a back operation, and spent his last days in a wheelchair. (CMC)