ODI Specialists XI

[Minimum qualification: 30 Tests or less in a career or (if currently playing) little chance of exceeding 30 Tests]

1. Nick Knight (England) – The stylish opener with a certain flair deserves to be remembered as one of England’s best one-day players, playing at a time when the English were struggling to make an impact. However, his reputation seems destined to be marred by his stuttering Test career.
2. Upul Tharanga (Sri Lanka) – Tharanga, an aggressive opener, has formed successful partnerships with both Sanath Jayasuriya and Tillakaratne Dilshan. At the age of 31, he has managed to already play nearly 200 ODI’s but has flitted in and out of the Test side for a career of just 23 Tests.
3. Darren Lehmann (Australia) – Given his marked impact as the coach-saviour of the Australian national side, people might forget one day that he was an excellent strokemaker in the one-day format. Blocked from the Test side during Australia’s dominant reign in the 1990s, Lehmann could only establish himself in the side after the age of 33.
4. Andrew Symonds (Australia) – After being barred from the national set-up after a series of off-field issues and falling out of love with cricket, Symonds’ international cricket career ended in 2009 at a time when he was producing peak performances in all formats. However, he left the one-day arena with a formidable record as a belligerent batsman, electric fielder and handy bowler.
5. Brendan Taylor (Zimbabwe) (wicketkeeper) – Putting his county duties above his international duties for Zimbabwe due to financial reasons, Taylor looks unlikely to add to his tally of 23 Tests, which would have been more if Zimbabwe had been available for Test cricket. However, he is likely his country’s best batsman since the Flower brothers.
6. Michael Bevan (Australia) – Regarded as the best finisher in the history of one-day cricket, Bevan had the ability to both save an innings after an initial collapse and force the issue at the end of an innings with a boundary blitz. While you might point towards MS Dhoni and Michael Hussey as possible betters, it should be noted that Bevan was the one who invented the style these two would later adopt.
7. Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) (captain) – The ballistic batsman in Shahid Afridi – in his first ODI innings, he swung his way to a hundred off thirty-seven balls – often overshadows the cunning legspinner in him. With nearly 400 wickets in 398 matches, his cricketing brains were much more evident in his bowling than his batting.
8. Ajit Agarkar (India) – A Indian bowling all-rounder with serious batting talent – in his brief Test career, he hit a Lord’s Test century – will always draw comparisons to the great Kapil Dev. While he didn’t quite live up to these standards, he enjoyed an extensive one-day career with nearly 300 wickets in less than 200 matches.
9. Brad Hogg (Australia) – The wily left-arm unorthodox spinner had big shoes to fill after the unexpected omission of Warne for the 2003 World Cup. With his tongue sticking out and a ball thrust into his hyper-active hands, Hogg ended up starring in two unbeaten World Cup campaigns for the green and gold.
10. Nathan Bracken (Australia) – It was unfortunate that the left-arm swing bowler’s career ended right when the modern Twenty20 phenomenon was taking off with the IPL: his control over his variations would have outfoxed many a heaving batsman, providing him with T20 riches and fame.
11. Shane Bond (New Zealand) – In an injury-stunted career, Bond’s fragile body could only really withstand the strains of one-day internationals. When he could get on the park, his bowling was destructive: against the top-ranked Australians, he took 44 wickets in 17 matches at an average of just 16.

Why five-day draws make cricket special

After any game of a team sport, the most common question asked is “Who won the game?” In almost any other sport, there is a definitive answer (for a definition of the word “definitive, refer to this video). In football, there is the answer that it was a draw, where the scores were tied. However, in the case of football, the game has an upper limit of 120 minutes. Given that the non-result in football seems to turn people off the sport – particularly Americans – the idea of a 5-day, 30-hour match ending with no result would surely boggle the mind of every Tom, Dick and Harry of the non-sport-following community.

Greatest Test XI of the 2000’s

1. Matthew Hayden (Australia) – The left-hander was a domineering presence at the top of the order, combining with Justin Langer to produce the most prolific opening partnership of the decade. Although sometimes criticised as a “flat-track bully”, his record speaks for itself, particularly in India where he scored 1888 runs at 59.
2. Virender Sehwag (India) – Defying logic and conventional technique, Sehwag scored boundaries as if they were a constituent part of his life force: his career strike-rate of 82 is the highest among all batsmen with more than 2000 Test runs. It is not as if his approach restricted his ability to score copious amounts of runs, as illustrated by his two Test triple-hundreds.
3. Ricky Ponting (Australia) (captain) – As probably the most distinguished batsman of the decade, Ponting will lead both the batting order from first drop and the team as captain. His record is remarkably consistent with batting averages of at least forty against all opposition.
4. Sachin Tendulkar (India) – A near-deity in the gaze of the Indian population, Tendulkar scored his runs with a subtle imperiousness which led to comparisons with Don Bradman – even Ponting said that he was the greatest after the Don.
5. Brian Lara (West Indies) – Lara, most well-known outside of cricketing circles for his record Test innings of 400, had the ability to take possession of a match with a boundary-laden innings. Against the dominant Australians, he produced some of his top performances with 9 centuries in 31 matches.
6. Jacques Kallis (South Africa) – Apart from the ultra-talented Garry Sobers, Jacques Kallis is perhaps the only other Test all-rounder with a near-infallible record: he averaged fifty with the bat and thirty with the ball in an extensive career. Although he didn’t dominate the headlines with spectacular performances, he is widely considered a giant of the modern game.
7. Adam Gilchrist (Australia) (wicket-keeper) – Revolutionising the role of the Test wicket-keeper, Gilchrist was one of the best batsmen in the world and he did this all from the number seven position. His natural game, summarised as “see ball, hit ball”, produced 17 hundreds in a 96-match career.
8. Shaun Pollock (South Africa) – A resourceful lower-order batsman and incredibly persistent seam bowler, Pollock is a constant in any list of the top Test cricketers of the 2000’s. With a batting average of 32.31 and bowling average of 23.11, his statistics eclipsed that of the great all-rounders of the 1980’s, but, like Kallis, is not spoken of in the same breath.
9. Shane Warne (Australia) – Reconstructing his game after consistent issues with his shoulder and time out of the game due to his infamous diuretic situation, Warne managed to take wickets at a prolific rate again in the 2000s. His ability to out-think the opposition batsmen more than made up for the loss of his variations such as the flipper.
10. Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) – Partnering Warne in the most deadly spin combination that history will never see, Murali and his 800 Test wickets was certain to be in such a side. With only Chaminda Vaas providing him adequate bowling support, Murali took it upon himself to win many a match for Sri Lanka
11. Glenn McGrath (Australia) – Accurate beyond belief, McGrath’s game plan is sometimes oversimplified by casual spectators. Although it is indeed true that it was centred on a nagging line and length, he had a very astute cricketing intelligence to back it up: the fact that he remembers all of his 563 Test wickets speaks to a savant-like bowling mind.

Record Watch (August)

Monthly update on upcoming Test records/milestones and ones achieved last month

As the Test series roll on, record and milestones tumble for players from all sides. While these might seem like statistical oddities, they often say quite a lot about the longevity of a player or the rapidity of their rise.

CPL 2016 Team of the Tournament

1. Johnson Charles (St Lucia Zouks) – Charles, an incumbent opener for the reigning World T20 champions, has muscled his way through CPL 2016, topping the run tallies with 410 runs. With the highest number of fifty-plus scores in the competition, he has been a key member in the St Lucia Zouks’ late season resurgence.
2. Hashim Amla (Trinbago Knight Riders) – Although his season has tapered off towards the second half, his elegant style of run accumulation has produced a sum of 363 runs at a respectable strike-rate of 124.74. Although at the age of 33 he still has a few more years of international cricket, he looks well set to pursue a post-retirement career as a hired T20 gun.
3. Chris Lynn (Guyana Amazon Warriors) – Although it probably would have been preferable to the Australian Test set-up for Lynn to participate in county cricket, refining his red-ball skills, experience against quality opposition in foreign conditions is always good for Australian batsmen. His ability to adapt his game to West Indian pitches bodes well for the future.
4. Colin Munro (Trinbago Knight Riders) – The left-hander from New Zealand has the ability to inject dynamism into any T20 line-up: he is the owner of the second fastest T20I fifty off 14 balls (second to Yuvraj Singh’s mutilation of Stuart Broad’s bowling in 2007). This CPL season has seen his first T20 century, which he scored off 65 balls.
5. Shane Watson (St Lucia Zouks) – Collecting 283 runs and 12 wickets in 10 matches, he has certainly satisfied the Zouks’ expectations of him for both bat and ball. Although his bowling form was simply a continuation on from IPL 2016 where he was a leading wicket-taker, his batting signalled a return to form as he capped off the season with four consecutive 30-plus scores.
6. Nic Pooran (Barbados Tridents) – Pooran, a future star for the West Indies, has showcased his ball-striking ability with 217 runs at an exclamatory strike-rate of 197.27. Although he will only turn 21 in a couple months and has plenty of time to develop, the West Indies might turn to him, given Ramdin has fallen out of favour with the selectors.
7. Dwayne Bravo (Trinbago Knight Riders) – Bravo, the leading wicket-taker of the competition with 19 wickets in ten innings, combines his skilful bowling with some handy ball striking. The fact that he has topped the wicket tallies of so many IPL’s and CPL’s demonstrates just how capable his bowling intelligence is, given that he doesn’t have express pace or a potent ability to move the ball.
8. Sohail Tanvir (Guyana Amazon Warriors) – The canny quick has returned to top form, bowling economically and incisively for Guyana. Given Pakistan’s poor performance in the 2016 World T20 which prompted much soul-searching, Sohail Tanvir’s potential return to Pakistan colours is on the cards.
9. Sunil Narine (Trinbago Knight Riders) – Unlike Saeed Ajmal, Narine has demonstrated an ability to adapt to a new bowling action. Although his bowling is not quite up to the impossible standards he set himself, he managed to take his 13 wickets at the very restrictive economy rate of 5.35.
10. Dale Steyn (Jamaica Tallawahs) – Although American fans would be disappointed to not see him in Florida due to his required appearance at a South African awards presentation, he illustrated that he isn’t just potent with the red ball: compared to his supreme Test record, his Twenty20 stats are merely human. 12 wickets at 14.66 in 7 innings are certainly adequate for Steyn’s standards.
11. Adam Zampa (Guyana Amazon Warriors) – A potential bolter for future Australian Test squads, Zampa has developed his spin bowling skills considerably since donning the green and gold colours at the start of 2016. Although he isn’t the next Warne by far, he has demonstrated remarkable control for a young leg-spinner.