Those little friends of mine

Here's some very rare footage of them practising in the nets in 1950 - note the obligatory white captain. As the commentator says, they look good enough to give England a run for their money.

It was these two, Ramadhin and Valentine, that did the damage, giving rise to the calypso 'With those two little friends of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine.' In 1990 Arlott looked back at the tour and remembered:

Gradually during the tour two raw West Indian youngsters, both bowlers, Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, had become acclimatised to English conditions. To call them surprise selections almost flattered them at the start of the tour. They had played two first-class matches apiece before they arrived in England, and their elder team-mates conceived it a duty to teach them to sign their autograph on board ship coming over. They were both slow bowlers and they celebrated their birthdays within three days of each other at the start of the tour. Ramadhin, 21, slight, a bare 5ft 4ins tall and of Indian extraction, was a right-arm spinner who, so observation confirmed, spun the ball rather as SF Barnes had done: turning his offspinner from the inside of the right forefinger; the legbreak, from the middle. Few - if any - though could read him and, from the outset, he proved something of a problem to English batsmen. 

 

Alf Valentine, 20, strongly built, with immense stamina, heavy-footed and rather ponderous, bowled rather mechanical slow left-arm. Jack Mercer of Glamorgan had coached him in West Indies and exhorted him to spin the ball as much as he could: he did so, yet retained a somewhat automatic length. Immediately before the first Test, which was to be played at Old Trafford, Valentine took 13 Lancashire wickets for 67 runs and assured himself of a Test place which, until then, was by no means certain. England, thanks mainly to an innings of 104 by wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans, well supported by a dogged Trevor Bailey (82 not out) won the match by 202 runs. Valentine, however, took 11 wickets and Ramadhin four. Thus their places were ensured for a quite unique Lord's Test.