Tony Becca

Three of the greatest cricketers of the past 50 years or so have been Tony Greig, Ian Chappell, and Michael Holding, one was from England via South Africa, one was from Australia - the grandson of Aussie legend Victor Richardson, and one was from the West Indies.

One was an all-rounder, one was a batsman, and one was a fast bowler, all three are now commentators. Recently they were gathered on CricInfo's Round Table for a discussion on the impact of unorthodox cricketers on the game, how they are developed, and for what that is worth, I agree with everything they said - and especially so as a West Indian who is longing, not so much for another great batsman, but more so for a spin bowler of class.

Mystery spinners

Recently, Sri Lanka's new mystery spinner, Ajantha Mendis, destroyed India in the final of the Asia Cup with figures of six for 13 off eight overs, and that performance brought back memories of great mystery spinners like Sonny Ramadhin of the West Indies, Jack Iverson and Johnny Gleeson of Australia, and Abdul Qadir of Pakistan - bowlers who bowled different kinds of spin and who were difficult to pick.

According to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain of India at the National Stadium in Karachi on July 6, India's batsmen, born and bred on spin, simply could not read Mendis.

The question put to the three was this: how did people like Mendis develop their skill?

According to Holding, one of the reasons is because they are not forced to change their style - because they come from areas or regions where they are not over-coached; and according to Chappell, it is because they come from the "country", from the rural areas where there are less coaches than there are in the cities.

According to Greig, apart from coming from the "country", from the rural areas, they also, generally, come from the less sophisticated cricket countries - from places like India, Pakistan, the West Indies, and Sri Lanka.

One afternoon while coaching Wolmer's years and years ago, George Headley, the master batsman who became a legend, in explaining his hesitation in demanding that a bowler grips the ball a certain way or that a batsman stands a certain way in his stance, said that he was a coach who did not like to change people's style - people's way of playing the game.

According to Headley, the batsman who was not coached, apart from confusing a young player, apart from robbing him of the enjoyment of playing the game, if he changed people's style, if he attempted to do so, all spin bowlers, for example, would be the same, there would have been no Ramadhin, and batting would have been easy.

Although I respect the need, and the importance of coaching, I have never forgotten those words.

Holding, the Jamaican express, did mention something else which led to the development of unorthodox players, and once again I fully agree with him.

'Bowl fi bat'

In the past, when coaching was less, even in the cities, young boys used to play every where there was an open space, they used to play 'bowl fi bat', they used to play on 'pitches' which were unprepared - on "pitches" off which the ball shot along the ground or flew past the batsman's throat.

They used to play without pads and without gloves not to mention without a "box", with dozens of fielders scattered everywhere - around the bat and out in the deep, the batsman had to learn to protect his wicket - to play the ball on the ground from the moment it left the bat, and in order to get a bat, a bowler had to try everything - slower delivery, faster delivery, off break, leg break, googly - and to disguise everything.

On top of that, in order to get a bat, those who did not bowl - and they were few of those, had to be able to catch, close to the bat or out in the deep.

Coaching is good, it is necessary, and there is no question about that.

Too much coaching, however, coaching which takes away the natural style of a player, cannot be good, and that, may be, is the reason why the West Indies, the team that produced the likes of Headley, Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes, and Clyde Walcott, Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Conrad Hunte, Basil Butcher, and Seymour Nurse, Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, and Jeffrey Dujon, have not produced a great batsman since Brian Lara, definitely not so since Shivnarine Chanderpaul in 1994, and why, in spite of the lack of opportunity afforded spin bowlers, the West Indies have not produced a spin bowler worth his salt since the 1950s when Alfred Valentine and Ramadhin, out of the blue, and Lance Gibbs burst onto the scene.

Difficult to pick

"Most of our batsmen couldn't pick him", said Dhoni of Mendis after the magician's display under the stars in Karachi. "We had never played him before. We had only seen videos, and you can visualise and all, but he was difficult to pick out there in the middle. We never had any real reply against him.

"It was like you were playing something else, and the ball was something else.

"I won't really blame the batsmen," said the captain who had insisted on one extra batsman in the line-up because of Mendis. "We simply couldn't pick his deliveries."