How 'Big Jim' Cornwall made it to the big time

Rahkeem Cornwall started out as a batting allrounder, switched to bowling spin, and now is one of West Indies’ leads in that department – despite being the heaviest person to play Test cricket

Aishwarya Kumar26-Sep-2019The day Virat Kohli got to North Sound, Antigua in July 2016, he went around the stadium asking for a particular local bowler – six-foot-five-inch, 308-pound offspinner Rahkeem Cornwall.”Is Rahkeem available to bowl a few overs to me during nets?” Kohli was heard to enquire, according to former West Indies cricketer and Cornwall’s mentor Kenny Benjamin.Cornwall, then 23, had puzzled Kohli with his spin and bounce during a three-day tour match between the WICB President’s XI and India in St Kitts the previous week. Kohli took several balls on his gloves and pads before a low-flying one caught him in front. Cornwall went on to pick up five wickets in the innings.Perfectionist that he is, Kohli wanted to spend time working through Cornwall’s bowling before the Tests, and the big offspinner spent hours bowling to Kohli before that series. Cornwall remembers thinking, “Man, now I understand why he is so good. He works on every little kink he comes across.” It was practice and had no consequences, but if you ask Cornwall, it might as well have been the biggest cricketing moment of his life.”Kohli is a quality player, so I was thinking I had to be at the top of my game 100% of the time, to try and be competitive all the time,” Cornwall recollected in early September this year, at the tail-end of India’s tour to the West Indies.Trainers and coaches were confident Cornwall would make his Test debut back in 2016. It was such an easy decision, Benjamin said. But it would take another three years for that to happen. Three years that involved dealing with weight issues, low self-esteem and rejection after rejection.***The first thing you notice about Cornwall is his size. People around him call him Big Jim, Mountain, Jimbo and Big Man. At 6’5″ and 140kg, he is the heaviest recorded international cricketer, overtaking the 1920s Australian captain, Warwick Armstrong, who weighed 139kg.”I love the way the ball falls out of my hand,” Cornwall says and smiles. For a person who is shy – sometimes painfully so – his eyes light up when he talks about spin bowling.At age seven, he would accompany his uncle, Wilden, who was then a professional cricketer, to the club every day. “He would spend a lot of time with me and a couple of other youngsters, even during the holidays,” Benjamin says. “He is always on the cricket field. Always.”Cornwall’s first Test wicket was Cheteshwar Pujara, arguably India’s best player of spin•Getty ImagesAfter primary school, Cornwall decided to take time off and work as an electrician part-time. But he was happiest when he was on a cricket field. He made it into the Liberta Black Hawks club’s senior team at age ten, one of the youngest to do so.Cornwall can’t imagine life without spin bowling now, but he did not set out to be a spinner, not until about seven years ago.”He always was a batsman. So Rahkeem was a batting allrounder. He started batting, really, first,” Wilden said. He even used to keep wicket for the club teams. Though he bowled spin in nets and during practice sessions, that was just something he did on the side.His physical transformation came in handy. At 12 he was the shortest player in the side, around 5’5″. Benjamin would poke fun at him: “You’re half the size of everyone else on the team.” At 13 he was the tallest, having shot up more than a foot in a few months’ time, according to both Benjamin and Wilden. He was suddenly able to use his height to good advantage in his bowling.In 2012, Kent arrived in Antigua for their pre-season warm-up games. Their coach, Jimmy Adams, invited Liberta to play a few matches against them. Cornwall had bowled spin to his club team-mates and they hated playing him; he was like a puzzle no batsman on the island could solve, Wilden, who was then head coach of Liberta, says.ALSO READ: Being consistent over long periods a challenge I enjoy, says Rahkeem CornwallCornwall duly foxed the Kent players as well. Sam Billings and Robert Key were spellbound as they watched him rap the pads of their batsmen through the first day in one game. At the beginning of day two, Adams called a special meeting with his team to discuss their plans for tackling Cornwall.Key was so impressed with the teenager, he suggested he come to the UK to begin intensive training there. But Cornwall, who had never left the islands, was too overwhelmed by the idea. He stayed put. He would train hard where he was, he decided.He began to put in the hard yards, building up his ability to bowl and bowl, till he could send down 30-40 overs a day, pitching hundreds of balls in the same area.Even before Kohli came looking for him, he began to be pegged as the next big spin bowler out of the Caribbean.***Cornwall is currently under the guidance of a special team (including a nutritionist, strength-and-conditioning trainer, and coach) appointed by Cricket West Indies to work on his fitness. Jimmy Adams, now looking at Cornwall from his position as director of cricket for the WICB, says that the team of specialists that has been working with him over the past two years has been able to help him prepare for international cricket. “Given the challenges faced, the focus has been a holistic one, which has incorporated physical, psychological and lifestyle support.”