One of India's first off-spin wizards

Jasubhai Motibhai Patel was one of India's earliest elite off-break spinners who had set the tone for off-spinners to contribute as champions in the early days.

Former Indian cricketer Jasubhai Patel; Image Source: Public Domain

When you think of legendary Indian spinners, players who truly turned games on their head with their wrists and delivered match-winning performances, the names that most commonly come up are Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, or maybe Ashwin in the light of times. Perhaps you remember Australia's 2001 tour to India where Harbhajan Singh was too good for the best batters in the world, "simply unreadable" was the term being thrown around when he picked 14 wickets in the second game. For most people, that is their first memory of a dominant off-spinner, but it was Jasubhai Patel who confused the hell out of premium batters way back in the 50s and 60s.

Born in a Gujarati family in 1924, he was known as Jasu Patel around the locker room and in the press. A piece of trivia about his bowling action: he fell from a tree as a kid and tweaked his hand which he never fully recovered from, and that is what gave birth to that weird, deceptive-looking, jerky action of his. That jerk drove a lot of traction in the domestic circuit where matches were generally played on matting wickets and his balls spun like crazy.

Decent run in the domestic circuit and eventually rising to prominence in the 1950-51 season meant that an international call-up wasn't far away. An aspect of his domestic career which is unspoken of, is how handy he was with the bat. He didn't quite fill the shoes of an all-rounder but you could rely on him for a few quick runs towards the end. One particularly impressive batting performance was against Holkar in 50-51, when he came in to bat at 167/8 and struck 152 runs. Along with his lone century, he also has 3 first-class fifties under his belt.

After playing for India in the commonwealth games, he finally debuted against Pakistan in the fifth test of the 1955 tour. One test against New Zealand and then two more against Australia read his tally to have 4 games with just 10 wickets.

Aged 35, no one had expected Patel to make a comeback, but destiny had other plans in store. On Lala Amarnath's, then chief of selectors, insistence, Patel was picked in the Indian XI for the second test against Australia in 1959. He went on to pick 9-69 in the first innings and then 5 more wickets in the second to help India win by 119 runs. His figures of 9-69 remained the best ever by an Indian bowler for nearly 40 years until Anil Kumble broke it with his 10-74 against Pakistan. That game went down in history as the 'Patel's Test'.

This was, unfortunately, the only notable moment in what was otherwise, a lukewarm career. He only played two more games after the Kanpur test after which he was dropped from the side for good. The world hadn't seen the last of him, though, as he continued to play Ranji cricket for two more years and ended his career with 254 first-class wickets.

He also created history by becoming one of the first two Indian cricketers to be conferred with the Padma Shri award, along with Vijay Hazare.