Rangy Nanan chose a profession that merited little attention in the era of raw pace © Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

"For every fast bowler that played for West Indies between 1976 and 1986, there was a spinner whose ambitions of playing international were finished." Elquemedo Willett would know. One who represented West Indies in five Tests between 1973 and 1975, Willett's career came to a premature halt mainly because of West Indies' focus on pace, pace and nothing but pace. Willett's not complaining; in fact he doffs his hat to the great fast bowlers who made West Indies an invincible force. But maybe it's worth sparing a thought for an entire breed who took up, in Willett's words, a "useless profession".

The list of spinners who played only a handful of games for West Indies, in that era, is endless. Raphick Jumadeen (12 Tests), Inshan Ali (12), Imtiaz Ali (1), Derick Parry (12), Albert Padmore (2), Clyde Butts, Willett, Rangy Nanan

Nanan's case is instructive. A prolific domestic wicket-taker, he got his only chance when West Indies toured Pakistan in 1980-81. He had a good time in the tour games - including snapping up 6 for 48 in an innings against the Governer's XI at Sahiwal – and made his debut on a shirt-front at Faisalabad. On a surface, which Dennis Lillie once termed as a bowler’s "graveyard", he returned impressive match figures of 4 for 91. "It wasn't all about performance," he says reflecting on those times. "We needed to understand that, irrespective of how we did, there was always a chance of not playing in the next game. That was how good the fast bowlers were. It was unfortunate. Had I played fifteen years earlier or fifteen years later, things would have been different."