Derek Underwood's Test Debut — Slow-Medium Left-Arm on Sticky Wickets, 1966

England had been looking for an effective left-arm spinner since Tony Lock's decline. Underwood, unconventional in pace and action, was a different kind of weapon — not a spinner in the classical sense but a unique hybrid who thrived in England's damp conditions.

Underwood had been playing for Kent since 1963 at seventeen — the youngest player to appear for the county — and by 1966 was taking county wickets at a remarkable rate. His action was low and skiddy for a left-arm spinner, his pace closer to slow-medium than true slow, and the bounce and turn he extracted from a damp pitch bordered on the unplayable. Selected for the Headingley Test against West Indies in August 1966, he took wickets in both innings and looked immediately at home in the Test environment. His most famous performance would come two years later at The Oval — where he took 7 for 50 on a sticky pitch to win a Test against Australia — but the Headingley debut announced a bowler who would define England's spin bowling for the next fifteen years.