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?? I was just reading an article about a promising one in England that Warne had approved of.

In reply to VoopsandOut

Hayden Walsh and Carriah.

In reply to Larr Pullo

Cariah is more an occasional bowler to me.

The scouts should be going to Berbice in Guyana and in rural Trinidad and they will certainly find some good prospects there.
I do not think we realized how important a leggie is especially when he has the google.

In reply to Dukes

He's considered an all rounder.

In reply to Larr Pullo

66 matches and 51 wickets and you are touting him as a leg spinner???

In reply to Dukes

He plays for TT that has a lot of bowling options so, as a function of that fact, his options will be more limited. Remember Imran Khan is also considered the front line leg spinner.

In reply to Larr Pullo

R U just arguing for arguing sake??
It is not as if Imran is even remotely considered for WI duty.

Imran is such an interesting case

He has the numbers of a top class leggie but when you see him bowl he does look on the ordinary side (sadly the same with permaul)

Bowling numbers in the West Indies show the plight batting more than the brilliance of the bowlers most of the time

In reply to Dukes

I'm not arguing. The author of the thread asked who are our leggies given the importance of a good leggie in cricket. I gave him the name of two who have possibilities. Imran of course is a bit long in the tooth.

In reply to VoopsandOut

Given the recent success of leg spinners in T20 cricket it is hard to understand why there aren't more of them. You would think some youngster would see it as a great path to success and work their tail off to perfect the art

Imho we haven't had a quality leg spinner since Ramnarine. No disrespect to the Bishoo and Walsh fans but they ain't it.

Imho we haven't had a quality leg spinner since Ramnarine. No disrespect to the Bishoo and Walsh fans but they ain't it.

In reply to Logic

you forget badree?

hes the best t20 legspinner WI ever had

Cariah is a part time bowler at best

Imran Khan has taken wickets regularly at every level of domestic cricket. He’s a much better leggie than Cariah.

I don’t think Imran Khan is international quality. Obviously the selectors don’t either. but he’s in the mould of Nikita Miller in that he’s invisible to selectors.

There’s a young leggie called Javelle Glen from Jamaica. His bowling isn’t all that, but he has tons of positive attitude. It’s kinda infectious.

The reality is, our leg spinner/ Chinaman resources in the region are severely lacking

I agree that young bowlers in the WI should probably consider that the path to recognition may well lie in leg spin if you cannot bowl fast as we seem to have endless orthodox left arm spinners and even right arm off spinners. Is the problem that we do not have coaches who can assist development of young bowlers in that direction? That article I read said that Warne had two basic deliveries, flipper and leg spinner but no googly. If correct, it just shows that if you work really hard even with limited talent you can reach to the top. Bishoo was criticized a lot for not having a googly bt it appears that if his stock balls were bowled well enough, he may not have needed one. That was evident at least from the Pakistani series when he was the best bowler and his initial series when he was named one of the young cricketers of the year. His issue seems more to have been mismanagement than lack of natural talent. A real pity.

bulli from jamaica is one hope

what ever happened to Damion Jacobs? I think he had even made it to A Team and then seems to have disappeared

In reply to conman
I did forget Badree but when I spoke about quality leg spinners I was thinking more of the longer form of the game. Even though T20 should be the catalyst to encourage the art ultimately it's in test cricket that I would like to see a leggie emerge. Doubt Badree would have been effective beyond 4 overs.

In reply to Logic

We will never know about Badree in the longer format as he has retired but his example should have been one for younger players to follow.

In reply to Logic

Are there any prominent leggies in the Test arena right now?

There are more than a few in the limited overs formats but i cant think of any for test

As a matter of fact cricket is currently going through a fast bowling renaissance (there is only one spinner in the top icc test bowlers rankings), a leggie seems unnecessary in the current age, pace men are already striking and taking wickets, leggies usually come in as the second hammer and can take the pressure off, so having a leggie might be a bigger risk than its worth

In reply to VoopsandOut



his FC numbers arent very good

very limited but

In reply to conman

Rashid Khan

5 test matches

An absolutely insane 34 test wickets at an average of 22.35

A wicket every 45 deliveries

Small sample size yes…….but he also plays for Afghanistan. He can’t help that they don’t play much test cricket.

Opposing batsmen everywhere happy about that.

In the U19 trial matches they had about 8 wrist spinners.. Think two of them were left arm chinaman.. The best out of the lot was a youngster from T&T, think his name is Dass.. Up to now ah can't understand how he didn't make that U19 squad.. Instead the useless selectors went for a bunch on finger spinners who can't even flight or spin a ball.

Talent is there but CWI and the regional boards don't know what to do with it or how to develop it.

the conclusion seems to be that we need coaches to encourage and be able to assist young legspinners in their development. That seems to be lacking. WI has produced great batsmen, keepers, pacers, allrounders and one great off spinner. We have not even produced a top class leg spinner as yet in almost 100 years of test cricket.

In reply to VoopsandOut

Please define “top class leg spinner”

Has England ever produced a “top class leg spinner”? How many years they playing test cricket?

What about New Zealand?

South Africa?

In reply to VoopsandOut

Incorrect, Inshan Ali was voted the sixth best international leg spinner by Wisden a year ago.

In reply to Overthrow

Inshan Ali was not a leg spinner

In reply to Overthrow

Do you have a link for this?

His numbers are ordinary and never really made that much of an impact

How did wisden include him on anything?

In reply to imusic

A lefty arm googley/chinaman bowler. As a right hander he would be classified as a leg spinner.

In reply to conman

https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/inshan-ali-51103
I would not call these Test numbers ordinary.

In reply to Overthrow

Calling a test average of 47 and a strike rate of 107 ordinary is being polite

and no he never was a wisden top anything it seems

In reply to Overthrow

WHAT!!!!!!!!!

Inshan Ali played 12 test matches,7 of which were at the Queen's Park Oval.He took 29 wickets there.
He played 1 match in Australia at Brisbane,1 at the Oval in England and 1 at Sabina Park and 2 at the Kensington Oval
At the 4 test grounds outside T&T he averaged 1 wicket per match for more than 100 runs.
With that record it is difficult to imagine him being the 6th best international wrist spinner.
Mebbe Rawle Lewis is the 7th best International wrist spinner!!!!!!!

In reply to Dukes

Look at the test team’s head played on. Very fewer could field with the lot of drops catches. I suffered through a lot of it as a spectator.

In reply to Overthrow

Yes a terrible fielding team consisting of fredericks, greendige, richard, kallicharran, lloyd and garner is the reason ali didnt do better.......

Inshan Ali was special.

He was also his own worst enemy

That said……he played at a time when a series meant 5 tests

Often those 5 tests were at Sabina Park, Bourda, QP Oval for 2 tests, and Kensington Oval.

The selection policy at the time was a core of 7 or 8 players

And make sure to play at least 1 Jamaican at Sabina, 1 Guyanese at Bourda, 1 Trini at QPO, and 1 baje at Kensington.

Often…..no matter how the player(s) from the home territory did, they would be dropped for the next match

Noriega played in 4 of the 5 tests against India in 1971. He took 17 wickets at an average of 29 with 2 five wicket hauls.

He never played again for West Indies.

In reply to imusic

I suspect you were not around in 1971 to understand the reasons why Jack only played those 4 test matches.Also his competition at the time in 1971 was injured with a bad right middle finger which required surgical intervention resulting in a spectacular season in England later in 1971.