“We want Ramadhin on the ball, bring him on the ball and all them wickets will fall.” – King Radio
Sonny Ramadhin’s passing is not merely about the death of a great spin bowler, he is the last representative of the 1950 team to England. That is the team which marked the arrival of West Indian cricket on the stage, equal to England and Australia. Recognition and respect for us as being fully human, surely on the field of sport, followed.
Learie Constantine and George Headley in the 1920s-1930s signaled the individual brilliance of West Indians in batting, bowling and fielding.
The 1950 team inclusive of Ramadhin and Valentine, Worrell, Walcott, Weeks, Christiani, Stollmeyer, Goddard (captain) and others lifted West Indian cricket to a permanent place amongst the major cricketing nations of the world.
Thereafter, the West Indies became integral to the schedule of England and Australia.
The 1950 triumph against “massa” – the ruling planter class and on English cricket greens was the forerunner to West Indian cricket reaching an apogee. The “Beyond the Boundary” emergence from that 1950 team accounted for the first statesman of West Indies cricket, and unarguably amongst the greatest of West Indian leaders on and off the field – Frank M.M. Worrell – the first black man to have been appointed fully as captain of a West Indian team.
Such a phenomenal happening took place in a West Indian society still governed by race and class considerations; to send a black man as captain first to Australia, which at the time still had laws that isolated non-whites to the margins, and then the coup de grace, have a black man lead the West Indians onto the English fields and to meet the British Queen, were occurrences which went completely against the colonial status quo.
When Test cricket fell into the doldrums in the late 1950s, saddened by a pedestrian world (James) Worrell, a senior player in the 1950 team, with his Australian counterpart, Richie Benaud, remodeled and revived the old game. The West Indian victories in England in 1963 and against Australia (1965) marked the culmination of the sweep from 1950 to us becoming the undisputed world champions: “Australia, yuh loss de West Indies is boss, de trophy belongs to us,” King Sparrow boasted about West Indian supremacy.
Back to Ramadhin, the uncelebrated 20-year old from the sugar cane fields of Trinidad (discovered by Barbadian former inter-colonial player Clarence Skinner – Stollmeyer – and his 20-year old spin twin, Alfred Valentine, humbled the great English batsmen of the time: Hutton, Washbrook, Edrich, Yardley and others; so bemused were they, that they employed the then legal tactic of padding away Sonny’s off-breaks pitched outside of the off-stump.
Ramadhin was the first of the modern breed of mystery off-spinners, as he mixed his stock ball turning from off–to leg with the leg-spinner turning from leg to off. He caused pandemonium amongst the English batsmen unable to read his both-ways turn.
Historic too about the Ramadhin/ Valentine spawned-victory of 1950 over England was that it gave the freedom and permission to the great Lord Kitchener, guitar in hand and with a band of West Indians, to register in calypso, liberation in cricket from the bondage of slavery and colonialism. They marched onto the field at Lords singing and dancing in celebration of the triumph over the over-lords of our past. “The audacity of these West Indians,” must have stuck in the throat of the stiff upper lip.
While 1950 was not the first association between calypso and cricket (that dates back to 1926 – Atilla the Hun – Nasser Khan) Kitchener’s triumphant dingolay onto the field at Lords and subsequently, Lord Beginner’s “Those two little pals of mine –Ramadhin and Valentine” locked-in the calypsonian, the recorder of history, into a long embrace with cricket.
Ramadhin’s passing, in these times when West Indies cricket is lower in status and capability than it ever was, gives West Indians players, supporters, administrators and others an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of nationhood, of success and innovation all of which form elements of our heritage.
Through his transition, Sonny is telling our young cricketers that they have a history to be proud of; to young and yet- to be proven players, he and his pal, Alfred Valentine, are saying that they carry within them the West Indian capacity for conquest though lacking in experience.
Ramadhin also led Indo-West Indians to a place in their cricket teams as the first cricketer of East Indian heritage to be a permanent and valued team member of the West Indies cricket team. He opened the door for Kanhai, Solomon, Butcher, Kallicharran and a number of Indian spin bowlers to lodge themselves into West Indian cricket teams. He was effectively saying there is talent, stamina – he bowled 43 overs in the first innings and 72 overs in the Second Test at Lord’s in the 1950 series versus England amongst us. It was one of his most significant statements of commitment to the West Indian cause.
Farewell Sonny and thanks to the team of 1950 for making us whole.
