Pedro Collins

As a fast-medium bowler, Pedro Collins has bowled alongside genuine pacemen like Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop, but without the kind of stamina required to sustain long spells. Collins was a keen footballer before he fell into cricket, and his left-arm bowling follows the lineage of Bernard Julien and Garry Sobers, and he finds enough swing into the right-hander to cause the best batsmen difficulty. In November 1998 he took three wickets in 11 balls for West Indies A against India, a spell which led to his Test debut against Australia the following March. For a long time after that, he was best remembered for an injury of the cruellest kind, when a Jason Gillespie delivery trapped a testicle outside his box. He worked on his fitness, though, and he returned to the side in 2001-02, with a higher arm action and an extra yard of pace. He took just nine wickets in West Indies' series victory over India, but claimed the prize scalp of Sachin Tendulkar on three occasions. He struggled on India's flat pitches, though, before terrorising Bangladesh in 2002-03. What followed was a less-than-enchanting outing against Australia, and Collins didn't play for close to a year. But he returned to take on England in March 2004, and within six balls, removed Michael Vaughan, before taking three more wickets, to herald a successful return to the side. After a spell out of the side which saw him miss the World Cup and the 2007 tour of England, he was recalled to the West Indies squad for the Twenty20 World Championship and soon after he signed a two-year deal with Surrey as a Kolpak player. His international career was further thrown into doubt when he pulled out of the subsequent series against Sri Lanka in order to fulfil his county contract.
Vaneisa Baksh March 2008