A legacy lost

It looks like a tree-branch. An index finger that is thick and unfeasibly long. There's a knotty swelling at the joint. "It's not gone down since I stopped playing cricket." It's a finger that has spun out batsmen 309 times in Tests. Tall and lithe is how the Cricketers' Who's Who describes Lance Gibbs. At the Ladies Stand (he's with his wife) at the Bourda Oval, aged 67, he's looking not as lithe, but dignified and authoritative in the way silver hair can make you. He's down from his residence in Miami to catch a few weeks of Test cricket.

Gibbs has left behind a rare and distinguished spin legacy that no West Indian after him has carried forward. It's a matter of role models. "Over the last 10-15 years the emphasis has been mostly on quick bowlers - and the quick bowlers were extremely good. If there are spinners around, the fellows will follow. If there are quick bowlers around, the fellows will follow."

Despite an increasing tendency for the pitches to play slower and lower, Gibbs feels that it isn't easy to take to spin in this part of the world. "Spin bowling is extremely hard work in the Caribbean. I mean if you look at Anil Kumble, he didn't really make a great impression on the first two days. And then again, you say well, are the wickets in India sort of made in the way to accompany the spin bowlers that you've had over the years. But to bowl spin in the Caribbean is extremely difficult.

"Fellows have to be prepared to work hard, they've got to train to put things into practice. I would be the first person to the ground, I would come up here and I'd put a spot on the wicket and I would bowl on that spot. Yesterday, for example, even when you had a 7-2 field, you still find the bowlers straying down the leg side. They have got to get accustomed to putting the ball on a length and a line and bowl within that corridor. And you've got to vary your pace, you've got to do a lot of different things as a spinner. You don't bowl six balls in the same way."

The basics must be mastered, but a lot of the finer nuances can be picked up by the willingness to listen to those who know. "What I would do is, if I'm going to a country, I'd seek some out and talk to them. The first time I went to India, in 1958-59, I sought out Ghulam Ahmed, in England I would seek out Jim Laker, Australia, Ian Johnson. If you can get information from them even before you bowl, it's a plus for you because they know what they are talking about."

Ian Chappell and Colin Cowdrey are two of the best players of spin, though of contrasting styles, that Gibbs has bowled to. "You can't have fellows in front of Ian Chappell. He uses his feet. This is something that batsmen don't do nowadays, they don't go down the track to bowlers. Cowdrey, he used his pad so well, you couldn't get through. Those days the lbw laws were different."

But Cowdrey is not the type of batsman that breaks the spirit. It's the "power player" that a spinner fears most. "Sobers was such a dominant player that I remember a Test match where we were about five wickets down for nine runs. As Sobers walked out, right away, Cowdrey removed a slip and put him at extra cover. The next ball that Sobers played went through the covers. That was dominance. In other words, they were so afraid of him that they were prepared to do things in a different way when he walked to the wicket. The same thing would happen as far as Richards was concerned."

Play for the day is about to start, and Gibbs must take his seat to watch. It's been good to talk to him.

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer with Wisden.com India. His reports will appear here throughout the Test series. Exclusive from Wisden.com/Indian View Watch Current action from West Indies NOW!