The racist spin of the 'Chinaman'

The term 'Chinaman' depicts not just a left-arm wrist-spinner, but the latent racism that originated it. It's time the ICC takes steps to bowdlerise the word from the cricketing lexicon.

In cricket, wrist spin delivered by a left-arm bowler is termed 'Chinaman'. The story goes that on one of the MCC’s colonial era Test tours to the West Indies, Walter Robins (who later went on to become England’s Chairman of Selectors in the 1950s) was out stumped against Ellis Achong, a slow left-arm finger spinner, when he bowled a wrist-spin delivery as a variation. Robins failed to notice the change from the hand (that the ball was being spun with the wrist and not the fingers, a fairly obvious change) and was stumped. On his return to the pavilion, Robins is said to have remarked “Fancy being done by a Chinaman!” There is some dispute about whom he said this to. One version of the story has him saying this to Learie Constantine, the great West Indies all-rounder of that era. Another version of the story has him saying this to the Umpire.