Famous Cricketers No 94 - Alfred Lewis Valentine

Introduction Alfred Valentine remains the finest left-arm spin bowler thus far produced by the West Indies and one of the greatest of all bowlers spawned by the island of Jamaica. He combined with Trinidad’s Sonny Ramadhin to embarrass the best of England’s batsmen in the memorable summer of 1950 and has been immortalized in that famous calypso, Cricket, Lovely Cricket , produced by Lord Beginner in celebration of the West Indians’ first Test victory at Lord’s. He was the first West Indian to capture 100 Test wickets and finished his career with 139 in 36 Tests. His 475 wickets in 125 first-class matches long remained a Jamaican record. But he has suffered from benign neglect at the hands of journalists and historians ever since his retirement from first-class cricket in the early 1960s. This is the same fate that has befallen the majority of West Indian heroes whether athletic, intellectual or political. It is a curious fact that while there is a healthy abundance of Caribbean prose and verse, there is a woeful shortage of Caribbean non-fiction. Such fine cricketers as Gerry Alexander, Basil Butcher, George Challenor, Robert Christiani, Jeffrey Dujon, Lance Gibbs, John Goddard, Larry Gomes, Gerry Gomez, Herman Griffith, Alvin Kallicharran, ‘Mannie’ Martindale, Deryck Murray, Seymour Nurse, Sonny Ramadhin, Richie Richardson, Andy Roberts, Collie Smith, Joseph Solomon, Alfred Valentine and Everton Weekes are all still awaiting a sympathetic biographer of some kind. This would hardly have been the case had they been born in England or North America. English and American scribes treat their national heroes with much greater reverence, loudly singing the praises even of those with modest skills. Apart from an article which appeared from my pen in the Spring 2003 issue of The Journal of the Cricket Society , Valentine’s career has not received any detailed treatment. There is the odd brief sketch of his accomplishments in various ‘Who’s Whos’ of Test cricketers and there is a fairly sizeable piece in Wisden 1951 when Valentine was an automatic choice as one of that authority’s ‘Five Cricketers of the Year’. Otherwise one searches in vain for information on this excellent bowler. This monograph, then, is meant to fill an obvious void in cricket literature. 4