OldieLegend Replies:YoungZimCricketFan wrote:Can someone throw more light on the famous “Zimbabwean Spin Quartet”?
Yes, when you talk of “Spin Quartet”, you remember the legendary Indian combination of Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagavat Chandrashekar, Srinivas Venkataraghavan and Bishan Singh Bedi. But after their reign came to an end, there was seldom an opportunity for teams to develop such a potent spin attack, obviously due to the emergence of batting friendly wickets, rules and regulations and also due to the lack of quality spinners. Yes, there were a few gems, like Muttaiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Ajantha Mendis, but no country could produce another “Spin Quartet”, until the end of 2008. Yes, that was when Zimbabwe unleashed Prosper Utseya, Raymond Price, Graeme Cremer and Keith Dabengwa – all at the same time into T20s and ODIs.
Utseya, the offie, was nick-named “Dots” and “Scrooge” for his obvious run controlling abilities in fast paced cricket. He handled the burden of captaincy along with this all important task of stemming the run flow, and came out victorious. Although he later developed into a determined batsman, his bowling abilities could never be questioned.
Price, the left arm spinning legend, if anything, was “Scroogier” than Scrooge himself. He took the average economy rate of all spinners in ODIs to a new low, all by himself. He ended up as a Zimbabwean and world cricket legend, not to mention winning the prestigious “ZCF Player of the Year” award 3 years in a row
.Cremer, the leg spinning genius, waited for an eternity to get a chance to show his talent to the world, and when he finally got it, didn’t he shine? He was the first in the history of Cricket to get a wicket in his first over in both T20s and ODIs. Just goes to show how eager he was to get into action. The rest, as they say, is history.
And Dabengwa, the occasional left arm spinner. Well, what can we say about him? He was one of the most hated Zimbabweans at one point of time, for his non-performance and continued presence in the playing eleven, but transformed himself into a crowd puller towards the end of his career
. If you need more info about any of these greats of the modern day “Spin Quartet”, please feel free to drop a mail
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