Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

127 In one of these, Spanish Town, Jack came across Alf Valentine, then a slim and awkward left-arm spinner with poor eyesight, but someone who subsequently became the first West Indian to capture 100 Test wickets. Eager to learn more about spin bowling, Valentine spent many hours in the nets with Jack, bowling at times in quite rudimentary conditions, as the youngster learnt to vary flight, pace and trajectory as well as developing immaculate control. Valentine had started as a promising spinner at St Catherine School, but through Jack’s tutelage and the support of George Mudie, the former Jamaican left-arm spinner, Valentine swiftly progressed through junior grade cricket to the first division of the national competition with a reputation as one the finest bowlers on the island. After making his debut as a nineteen-year-old against Trinidad, the young spinner impressed several senior West Indian batsmen and, on their recommendation, the virtually unknown spinner was included in the party to tour England in 1950. Jack was delighted that Valentine won selection for the tour. ‘The lad can really bowl,’ he told his Northamptonshire colleagues and various pressmen as preparations began for the 1950 season, and on several occasions during the summer, Jack took time off from duties at Northampton to see the Jamaican whose selection for the historic tour was an enormous gamble. But Valentine did not let anyone down and he went on to form a fine partnership with fellow spinner Sonny Ramadhin, with the pair being immortalised in calypso classics. Their role in mesmerising the England batsmen during the West Indies triumphant series in 1950 became the stuff of fairy tales as the experienced English batsmen, with solid records and batting in home conditions, became transformed into callow novices by the two young West Indian spinners, neither of whom had ventured outside the Caribbean before the tour started. Valentine began the tour with a five-wicket haul at Lord’s against MCC, followed by a superb 13-wicket return at Old Trafford in the match with Lancashire which saw the left-armer take eight for 26 as he tricked and teased an impressive Red Rose line-up allowing the tourists to record an emphatic innings victory. The following week at Manchester, Valentine took eight for 104 on his Test debut before returning match figures of seven for 127 in the Second Test at Lord’s where, together with Ramadhin, who took eleven for 152, he bowled the West Indies to an historic 326-run victory. The win delighted hundreds of their countrymen at the Nursery End, many recently arrived in the first wave of post-war immigration from the Caribbean, and at the end of the contest, they streamed across the hallowed Lord’s turf, singing along with the guitar- strumming calypsonians, Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner, to melodies that, having been spontaneously composed, went on to become classics with lines: ‘Cricket lovely cricket, at Lord’s where I saw it. … With those two little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine.’ Valentine didn’t play in the match against Northamptonshire at Coaching in the east and west