Alf Valentine West Indies (WI)
Batting style	Right-handed batsman (RHB)
Bowling type	Slow left arm (SLA)
	Tests	First-class
Matches	36	125
Runs scored	141	470
Batting average	4.70	5.00
100s/50s	0/0	0/0
Top score	14	24*
Balls bowled	12953	33828
Wickets	139	475
Bowling average	30.32	26.21
5 wickets in innings	8	32
10 wickets in match	2	6
Best bowling	8-104	8-26
Catches/stumpings	13/0	45/0
Test debut: 8 June 1950 Last Test: 18 April 1962 Source: [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... For more coverage of cricket, go to the Cricket portal. ... Image File history File links Cricket_no_pic. ... Cricket batsman A batsman in the sport of cricket is a player whose speciality in the game is batting. ... In the sport of cricket there are two categories of bowler: pace bowler and spin bowler. ... Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... First-class cricket matches are those of at least three days length in which both teams have two innings each, and which involve either international teams or the highest division of domestic competition. ... Batting average is a statistic in both baseball and cricket measuring the performance of baseball hitters and cricket batsmen, respectively. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... An innings, or inning, is a segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably baseball and cricket – during which a side takes its turn to bat. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... In the sport of cricket, the term stump has three different meanings: part of the wicket, a manner of dismissing a batsman, and the end of the days play (stumps). Part of the wicket The stumps are three vertical posts supporting the bails to form a wicket at each... June 8 is the 159th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (160th in leap years), with 206 days remaining. ... 1950 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... April 18 is the 108th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (109th in leap years). ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Alfred Louis Valentine (born 28 April 1930 in Kingston, Jamaica, died 11 May 2004 in Orlando, Florida) was a West Indian cricketer in the 1950s and 1960s. He is most famous for his performance in the West Indies' 1950 tour of England, which was immortalised in the Victory Calypso. April 28 is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 247 days remaining. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Location of Kingston Kingston (population 600,000) is the capital of Jamaica. ... May 11 is the 131st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (132nd in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Skyline of Orlando at night, from across Lake Eola The city of Orlando is the county seat of Orange County, Florida. ... West Indies cricket team shirt (ODI, 2004) The West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as The Windies, is a national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of the Caribbean countries: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and... The English cricket team is a national cricket team which nominally represents England and Wales, but is a de facto United Kingdom team. ...

The 1950 tour

The West Indies toured England in 1950. They had a good batting line-up including the "three W's" (Clyde Walcott, Everton Weekes and Frank Worrell), but they were unusually short of bowlers. They took two young spinners, 20-year-old Alf Valentine and 21-year-old Sonny Ramadhin, who had only played two first-class matches each. Valentine in particular was a surprising choice as he had only taken two wickets in those matches at an average of 95, but somehow he had caught the eye of the West Indies captain, John Goddard. Clyde Leopold Walcott (born 17 January 1926 in St. ... Everton de Courcy Weekes (born 26 February 1925, Pickwick Gap, Westbury, St Michael, Barbados) was a West Indian cricketer. ... Sir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell (born 1 August 1924, Bridgetown Barbados, died 13 March 1967, Kingston, Jamaica) was a West Indian cricketer and Jamaican senator. ... Bowler - a type of hat Bowler - ten-pin bowler Bowler - cricket player This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Spin bowling, sometimes known as slow bowling, is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. ... First-class cricket matches are those of at least three days length in which both teams have two innings each, and which involve either international teams or the highest division of domestic competition. ... This article is about the cricket term. ... Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket. ...

Valentine did not impress in the first few matches of the tour, and was not certain to be in the Test team, until in the final warm-up match before the Tests he took 8 for 26 and 5 for 41 as the West Indies beat Lancashire by an innings and 220 runs. Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. ... Lancashire County Cricket Club is a first-class cricket club based at Old Trafford cricket ground, Manchester. ... The result in a game of cricket may be a win for one of the two teams playing, a draw or a tie. ...

He justified his selection for the Test side when in the first innings of the first Test, he took the first eight wickets, five of them before lunch on the first day. He finished with 8 for 104 in the innings, and 11 for 204 in the match off 106 overs. He was the first bowler ever to take eight wickets in his first Test innings, a feat which has only been achieved twice more as of 2005. An innings, or inning, is a segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably baseball and cricket – during which a side takes its turn to bat. ... In the sport of cricket an over is a series of six consecutive balls bowled by a single bowler. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

England won that match, but in the second Test, at Lord's, the West Indies recorded a 326-run victory, thanks to Clyde Walcott's 168 not out in the second innings, and to the bowling of Ramadhin (11 for 152) and Valentine (7 for 127). This was West Indies' first ever Test victory in England, and it was commemorated in the famous Victory Calypso: The Mound Stand The Grand Stand Match in progress The Media Centre at Lords Cricket Ground This memorial stone to Lord Harris is in the Harris Garden at Lords There is a small practice ground behind the media centre at the Nursery End. ... Not out is a term used on cricket scorecards to signify that a batsman has not been dismissed when the innings is finished. ...

Second Test and West Indies won

With those two little pals of mine

Ramadhin and Valentine

The West Indies' success continued as they won the third and fourth Tests to record a series victory, Valentine taking five wickets in the third Test and ten wickets in the fourth Test. He bowled 92 overs in the second innings of the third Test, then a Test record. In all, Valentine took 33 wickets in the series at an average of 20.42. He bowled a massive 422.5 overs, conceding only 1.59 runs per over.

In the tour as a whole, Valentine bowled 1185.2 overs in 21 matches. He took 123 wickets at an average of only 17.94, conceding only 1.86 runs per over. He took five wickets in an innings ten times, including an analysis of 13.2-9-6-5 against Kent. With this record, it was no surprise when he was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1951. In the sport of cricket, a bowling analysis (sometimes shortened to just analysis, especially in the phrase innings analysis) usually refers to a notation summarising a bowlers performance in terms of overs bowled, how many of those overs are maidens (ie with no runs conceded), total runs conceded and... Kent County Cricket Club is an English county cricket club based at Canterbury, Kent. ... Wisden Cricketers Almanack 2005 The Wisden Cricketers of the Year award is made annually in the pages of the Wisden Cricketers Almanack yearbook. ...

Later career

Valentine's career never quite reached the spectacular heights of the 1950 tour again. In purely statistical terms, the 1950 warm-up match against Lancashire was his career-best first-class match, and his first Test was his career-best Test match. In the West Indies' next Test series, in Australia in 1951-52, he took 24 wickets in five matches; and when India visited the West Indies in 1953, he took 28 wickets, again in five matches. In 1954 he became the first West Indian to reach 100 Test wickets, in only his 19th Test. But in his last 20 Test matches, from 1954 to 1962, he only took 46 wickets at an average of 40.63. He was still an effective containing bowler, conceding only 2.06 runs per over in those later years, but he didn't have the attacking effectiveness of his dramatic debut.

After his last Test, he served as the national coach of Jamaica.

Personal

Valentine was married twice. He had four daughters with his first wife, Gwendolyn, who died. He moved to Florida with his second wife, Jacquelyn, where they fostered dozens of children whose parents were in prison. He died in Orlando, Florida in 2004, aged 74. State nickname: Sunshine State Official languages English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville (largest metropolitan area is Miami) Governor Jeb Bush (R) Senators Bill Nelson (D) Mel Martinez (R) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 22nd 170,451 km² 17. ...

See also

• Sonny Ramadhin
• West Indian cricket team
• Victory Calypso

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References

• Obituary from Cricinfo
• Obituary from Wisden
• Obituary from The Washington Post
• Player Profile: Alf Valentine from Cricinfo
• Complete first-class record from CricketArchive
• Wisden cricketer of the year citation
• Best bowling on debut from Cricinfo
• Fastest to 50 wickets from Cricinfo
• Fastest to 100 wickets from Cricinfo
• Most balls bowled in an innings from HowSTAT!
• Lyrics of the Victory Calypso