Jasu, the original Patel that tormented Australian batsmen and made them wary of off-spinners
Sitting on a comfortable chair in his office, Rajesh Patel, 74, makes an authoritative assessment of Steve Smith’s Australian team. “If my father was around and bowling to them, the Aussies wouldn’t have scored these many runs,” he says. If you are Jasu Patel’s son, you have the right to ridicule the visiting Aussie batsmen.
It’s been more than six decades since he played the last of his 7 Tests but Jasu Patel remains a storied name in Indian cricket. The 1958-59 series against Australia where he got 14 wickets in a Test — 9 of them in an inning — to pull off Indian cricket’s most-intriguing heist proved to be his last. He was no mystery spinner, he was a conventional off-spinner but he had an air of enigma around him.
For cricket fans of a certain vintage, that includes Rajesh, the mem...