Dravid wicket spurred spinner Martin

Jun 15, 2011 |

North Sound (Antigua)

Tags:

West Indies leg-spinner Anthony Martin, who produced a career-best spell in his team's win over India in the fourth ODI, said bowling to Rahul Dravid five years ago led him to believe that he could have a career in international cricket.

"There was this practice game against India in 2006. Dravid hit my first ball for a four and was gone off the second, caught in the slips," remembers the leg-spinner whose 4/36 led to India's 103-run loss in the fourth one-dayer here on Monday.

"I remember telling myself: Hey, here is this batsman who I watch thrash international bowlers all over the world on television. If I can pick him, I can play international cricket'."

"It was also a game where I took Virender Sehwag's catch. The man just stood in the middle and didn't want to leave the pitch. I ran around the stadium in celebration."

A firefighter by profession, Martin's story is one of triumph over adversity as a debilitating injury once almost finished his budding career.

"I represented Leeward Islands in under-15 cricket as a paceman in 1998. But then I suffered a serious injury and damaged my back.

"Since I love this game so much, I started bowling off breaks. Now my Antigua Under-19 coach told me the team has two good off-spinners. So I turn to leg-spin. I always used to bowl a couple of deliveries of leg-spin in the nets as a sort of warm-up. I knew something about it so started working on it."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/79633" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b727a2f5d2763215fb9ea57a13a92c27" value="form-b727a2f5d2763215fb9ea57a13a92c27" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87152453" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>