From world's fastest bowler to lost in the bush, Patrick Patterson's strange journey

Patrick Patterson was once the fastest bowler in the world, and the most feared. His approach to the wicket culminated in a leading leg raised so high that the studs faced the batsman and he “stamped down hard enough to measure on the Richter Scale,” as Mike Selvey once described him. Patterson was supposed to be the successor to the likes of Andy Roberts and Michael Holding; the latest in a long line of heart-stopping fastmen from the Caribbean. He burst on the scene in some fashion, taking 4 for 73 in the first innings of his first Test at Sabina. Such was his pace and hostility that Graham Gooch said later it was the only time on a cricket pitch that he feared for his well being. [caption id=“attachment_937339” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Patrick Patterson bowling in England in1986. Getty Images[/caption] His 28 Tests brought him 93 wickets at a strike-rate of 51.9 but a somewhat disappointing average of 30.90. And then he disappeared. Dropped after West Indies 1992 tour of Australia, he never made it back and faded from public view. The Indian Express went looking for Patterson in Jamaica but found nothing but rumours and stories about his whereabouts. The most common among those is the Patterson was lost to the bush, as they say in Jamaica, drifting away into the wilderness due to drug abuse and destitution. Some say he’s been in a mental asylum, while there are even those who believe that the 51-year-old has now shifted base to the USA. Patterson’s parents tell the paper he does keep in touch with them, but even they are unsure of what it is he does. They think he is in a down-scale community in Kingston, where, in his mother’s words, he does nothing. They also believe he disappeared because he never recovered from the way he was treated by the West Indies Cricket Board. You can read the full story here.