John Gleeson

Australian spinner John Gleeson captured the hearts of cricket romantics everywhere as he bamboozled batsmen with his odd grip, borrowed from another mystery spinner, Jack Iverson. But his opponents soon found out that, as with most magic tricks, there was nothing untoward going on behind the scenes. As a result, Gleeson cut a fairly impotent figure at Test level - he had a strike rate of a wicket every 95 balls - although he did take five-fors in successive Tests against West Indies in 1968-69.