My Favourite Cricketer: Victor Trumper by S.A. Rennie

My Favourite Cricketer sees the teams at Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch invite the best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us who their favourite cricketers are - and, more importantly, tell us why they stand out.  Today's submission is by S.A. Rennie of Legside Filth.  You can find Legside Filth on the web at www.legsidefilth.com, or on Twitter at @legsidefilth

I never saw my favourite cricketer play; he died 56 years before I was born. But like a cricketing Alexander the Great he left behind him a legacy of achievement, literature, and myth, and changed the face of batting forever.

It could have been my first reading of Arthur Mailey’s recollection of bowling to him in club cricket, with its famous last line (“I felt like a boy who had killed a dove”). It could have been my first viewing, in the Lord’s museum, of that iconic photo by George Beldam of Trumper jumping out to drive, taken at the Oval when Australia played Surrey in July 1902. Whatever triggered it, my obsession became total and all-absorbing. I read everything I could about the man, spent a fortune on books and ephemera and bitterly rued the impossibility of time travel, because unlike Harold Pinter with Len Hutton, I never saw Trumper in his prime, and it was another time - a time when a batsman could successfully break the shackles of orthodoxy, could have stories told about his greatness as a human being and as a cricketer. That fascinated me just as much as the man.

Courtesy: arcadia.com

If Trumper were a superhero, he’d have been rocketed to Earth as a baby from the planet Krypton to crash-land behind Charles Trumper’s boot factory. It is believed he was born in Sydney in 1877, but no record of his birth exists. There is a theory that he was the illegitimate son of an Auckland chambermaid, adopted into the Trumper family through a cousin of his mother’s. Like Phar Lap, he could be another hero New Zealand might claim for its own.

His accomplishments glow like an illuminated manuscript amongst fusty tomes. 300 not out against Sussex at Hove on his first tour to the “mother country” in 1899; first man to score a century before lunch on the first day of a Test match, at Old Trafford in that damp but glorious annus mirabilus of 1902; 335 in 180 minutes for Paddington against Redfern in 1903; that last, poignant hurrah at Lancaster Park where he contributed 293 to a record 8th wicket partnership of 433 with Arthur Sims for a touring eleven against Canterbury. That was in 1914; fifteen months later he was dead from kidney disease. News of his passing knocked the Great War off the front pages, and thousands of Sydneysiders lined the streets to watch his funeral cortege on its way to Waverley Cemetery.

My Favourite Cricketer: Justin Langer by Glenn Mitchell

As part of our continuing series, World Cricket Watch and Balanced Sports invited Glenn Mitchell, sports broadcaster and mental health advocate, to write about his favourite cricketer, Justin  Langer.  Glenn's website is glennmitchell.com.au and he tweets @mitchellglenn

I clearly remember standing in the middle of a rain-soaked Sinhalese Sports Club in September 1999 as the third and final Test of the Sri Lanka-Australia series came to a very wet conclusion and the hosts on the precipice of a historic 1-nil series win.

Beneath the light drizzle that day I had a chat with Justin Langer near the heavily covered pitch.

Like many of the Australian batsmen during that ill-fated series, Langer had struggled for runs, scoring just 51 in four innings. Those lean performances took his then 23-Test career aggregate to 1261 runs at an unflattering average of 33.

Having taken almost six years to compile those numbers, Langer’s long term place in the team looked precarious – in fact, his short term viability at Test level looked decidedly uncertain.

As we were chatting, I asked him what his goals were for the future. He looked me straight in the eye and said he wanted to play 100 Test matches.

I smiled back, but behind the smile I was thinking that such an ambition was more than likely a quixotic dream, the misplaced desire of a young man who loved the sport and with it, representing his country. In short, I doubted his future while Langer believed firmly in his.

History will indicate that one of us got it right and I am happy to state that it wasn’t me.

Book review: Game for Anything - Gideon Haigh

If Bill Simmons is the everyman sportswriter full of pop culture, in-jokes and homer-isms, then Gideon Haigh is his antithesis. You read Simmons as he thinks aloud, a man down at the bar with his mates. However, he's just self-aware enough to know that because he monopolises the conversation he should fling jokes about to keep his audience engaged. There's obvious research, but done on the sly; he's no stat-geek, but muses on feel and zeitgeist.

Haigh, deliberately and with culture incomparable, compiles cricketing words that evokes a history professor's magnum opus. Immaculate research, mirrored by thoughtful prose. Simmons' raison d'etre is entertaining learning. For Haigh, it is the reverse. And they're both brilliant.

Cover image courtesy: tower.com

Haigh's compendious “Game for Anything” released in Australia his collected writings for publications such as Wisden Asia and the now-defunct periodicals The Bulletin and Wisden Cricket Monthly. It features several learned insights into periods of the game about which I, a studious and informed cricket fan, knew very little. Each essay is structured magnificently, being economical yet descriptive; each word is steeped in context. That he quotes an assortment of historical figures from Jardine Machiavelli to Mark Waugh exemplifies his remarkable reading range.

In fact the stand-out point of Haigh's work is just that – his research. Articles are based not around his palpable love of the game, it's correct spirit and statutes; his writing is revolves around a prescient “angle” and why it emerges as such a story from a multi-textured background.

There are elements of whimsy as well: he defines his favourite cricketer as the English batsman Chris Tavare, decries the rise of park cricket sledging and, most beautifully of all, develops delicate snapshots of cricket history. These short trips are, unlike the footage that comprises most of our memories, full-colour and high-definition – he makes Bradman more than ridiculous numbers and grainy footage of a fourth-ball duck.

Perhaps what's most remarkable about his text is how easily he makes just the right words fit together on paper. Despite obvious labour over books, newspapers, journals and microfiche, Haigh's words appear with economic precision – as if he has the most severe of editors. When writing for a mass audience using such a scholarly approach, Haigh is to be praised and respected for balancing intellect with ease of reading. Characters like Lawrence Rowe, Richard Wardill and characteristics such as gambling are all treated with the same laconic, precise respect. A memorable example was my favourite essay from Game for Anything, concerning the late-19^th century Australian captain Harry Trott and his commitment to Kew Asylum.

If you learn about politics from a book by a political master, you learn about cricket from Haigh – far more than from any other writer today. His words lack Roebuck's flair but also his occasional florid tones. He analyses the game from a removed, scholarly position; writing not because he loves the game (although he does) but because he feels it has stories to tell. In the prologue, he encourages young writers to do likewise.  

It's so utterly characteristic of Haigh - a book of cricket essays where his opinions are so subtly obvious yet with only this one proclamation.  Highly recommended.

For a different perspective, the SMH also reviewed this work.

My Favourite Cricketer: Hansie Cronje by Purna Hassan

In our series "My Favourite Cricketer" we've invited the best cricket writers and bloggers to divulge why certain cricketers emerge as their favourites.  This week, Purna Hassan of Cricket Minded and @cricketminded takes the stand

I fell in love with cricket because of Hansie Cronje and the team he captained. My Dad introduced me to cricket and as he was an avid fan of India, I followed his passion. It was only at age eleven when began to grasp the concepts of the game and realized cricket's meaning differs between countries.

Courtesy: wikipedia.org

In India, it was religion bordering on fanatic levels. In West Indies, cricket was an aura that had stunned the world. In Australia, it evoked a chase between a wild animal and its prey. In South Africa, it was an avenue for a country to step up and etch their place on the map. In the 1997-1998 Test match between South Africa and India, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock captured my attention, Jonty Rhodes made me clap rowdily and Hansie Cronje – he simply demanded my respect.

He wasn’t as flamboyant as a batsman could be. In fact, his batting numbers are far below what he should have achieved. But I have no complaints. Hansie was too busy being a leader, instilling faith in players that had been overlooked for years because of the unfortunate state of their country. Hansie was too busy being there.

I am trying here to express what he represented, for his team and his country. I'm not South African, but do come from a country that has always struggled to rectify the overblown, deeply concentrated negative images displayed for so long in the media. Hansie was put in charge of such a team at the tender age of 24; despite relative youth, he never showed any greenness. Hansie feared no one, or if he did, I never saw it. His confidence, ego and intensity were, in my opinion, exactly what the new era Proteas needed. After all, this team had defend every single outburst (racial or otherwise) which would have been termed ‘part of the game’ for others. The world was watching and Hansie and co. had to prove that South Africans were capable of much more than just apartheid.

His greatest power lay in the knowledge that he was there to play cricket. His love for the game resonated in his eyes and his smiles. He could have a good time on the pitch even when times were hard. He was a prankster and I fondly remember his banter with Jonty and the then young Jacques Kallis (ed: I could have sworn Jacques Kallis was born at age 32 with bat in hand).

Allan Donald was his go-to man, Pollock the newcomer of distinguished lineage. Herschelle Gibbs marked the role of restless youngster to perfection and Dave Richardson his reliable old sage. Even as a young man, Cronje instinctively knew how to handle, utilise and shuffle his pack. I can’t remember a single instance where his decisions on the field were questioned by his team-mates; when those choices were dubious or cost them the game, Hansie was the first to admit his mistakes and the quickest to learn from them (alas, apart from the choking). He was in every sense a leader.

It was little wonder that South Africa quickly rose to the top of the international game. Talents like Gibbs, Boucher and Ntini flourished from the nutrition provided by Hansie and coach Bob Woolmer. The results began to evolve as they won the Asia Cup – their only ICC trophy – in Dhaka. I remember as he held the trophy; I was watching with tears in my eyes. All he said was ‘It’s heavy, but I don’t want to put it down’.

In the 1999 World Cup, South Africa were the hot favourites. It was there that I saw the first signs of my captain's weakness. Hansie took the field with an ear-piece to communicate with Woolmer, a move he later paid for. South Africa’s previously impressive top order began to rely more on Lance Klusener's WMD finishes. In the excitement and amid a remarkable run of “Zulu” form, the otherwise perceptive Hansie Cronje let his team play; he should have united the team and reminded them of their duties.

Personally, I loved it. Klusener is and will always be my 1999 World Cup hero, but in there is no way Allan Donald should have been the man at the other end with Zulu when the likes of Kirsten, Gibbs, Cullinan, Kallis, Cronje and even Pollock came before. I thought the 1999 World Cup semi-final was the first and last time the Proteas would break my heart.

And then came Cronje-gate.

Image courtesy: wn.com

I distinctly remember the day Hansie confessed his crimes. I was leaving for a vacation and woke up early to start my travels. I picked up the newspaper – it's first page featured a huge picture of Hansie crying and the headline “Match-fixing scandal rocks the Cricket world”. To say I was devastated is an understatement. Till then, I had vehemently defended Cronje, strongly believing the allegations to be a set-up. Anyone and everyone who loves cricket was shattered by the revelation but for me it was more personal: it was the ultimate and immutable demise of my hero.

I was disgusted that he had persuaded team-mates to join him and shocked by the tremendous flaw that the match-fixing scandals revealed in a man I respected. It pained me to see what he had reduced his cricket to, to what he had reduced himself. Those are the only emotions I recall from those days – betrayal and an overwhelming sadness. Even still I couldn’t bring myself to hate him, rather I was grateful when he stepped aside and accepted his bans with grace. I couldn't bear to see him stoop lower.

Cronje broke my heart a third time with his untimely death. It's indicative of the man that sometimes I feel he's still alive, on an island and living it up. In these times, he's grinning from ear to ear as only Hansie can.

It's probably pretty plain that I forgave him quickly. His incredible betrayal could not taint the memories he had given me over the years and neither could it stain his leadership and passion for the game. Hansie Cronje may have changed cricket forever with his misguided activities, but for me it doesn't detract at all from the confidence he provoked in the Proteas and, by extension, his gift to the cricket world.

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My Favourite Cricketer: VVS Laxman by Minal of Granger Gab

We've invited some of the very best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us why certain players stand out for them above all others.  This week, Minal of Granger Gab and The Sight Screen writes of the most stylish Indian of them all, a man whose nickname was the ultimate compliment: VVS Laxman.  Minal tweets @granger_gab, and we really suggest you follow her.

 As much as we love to deny it, we all have a secret crush - the one we adore but won’t admit because it would mean sharing loyalties with our one true love. My favourite cricketer has always been and will always be Rahul Dravid. When the Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch team asked me to pen a piece for this series, I saw that Rahul was already spoken for, and thought it best to write about my secret cricketing crush – the Very Very Very Special Laxman.

In fact VVS Laxman is the secret crush of every Indian fan. He is the guy that unites the Tendulkar, Dravid and Dada fans alike. VVS the last of the Fab Four to hit the scene - his batting - exquisite, beautiful , elegant - a delight to watch; one that could tempt many a staunch supporters of any other cricketer to commit infidelity when it came to this man.

After witnessing the birth of two future batting stalwarts at Lords 1996, India wasn’t quite prepared for the sublime batting that would put her in a trance for the next 16 years.

November, 1996 Motera – Ahmedabad Vs South Africa

On a devilish pitch, probably one of the worst test wickets, a young man of 22 held fort in the second innings to get 51 after India has conceded a small lead of 21 runs. No Indian batsmen had got a 50 in that match barring this young lad. When I was watching him bat, the teenage me turned to my dad and asked “Papa since when did the rules allow a batsman to bat twice in the same innings, why is Azhar playing again?” Laxman reminded me of Azhar then– still does; the silken grace, the wristy shots on the on-side, the gift of impeccable timing. These batsmen from Hyderabad seemed to be blessed with a batting style as delectable as the Biryani from that land.

But sadly as has been the case with Indian cricket, a permanent place in the packed middle order was always going to be tough. Ganguly came back from his injury and VVS found himself out of the side in the 3rd test of that series. VVS was later asked to open and he never really succeeded in that position; but his affair with Australia started at that very position. In the 99-00 tour VVS wove his first spell of magic on the Aussies at Sydney. He decimated the Aussie attack single-handedly. His 167 in a team total of 261 was intoxication at its best – even today while revisiting the innings you will drown in the beauty and wide array of strokes on display - the ease in his batting, the delicacy of his wrist play. As a friend once said, “Sachin is God, but there are strokes that Laxman plays at times, which Sachin would only dream of.” I have never dared to debate with him on this point.

Post this series and the one at home against South Africa, Laxman put his foot down and refused to open. He went back to the domestic grind, scored big hundreds and forced the selectors to consider him as a middle-order bat. After a year, Laxman came back to the Indian side and the rest as they say is history. VVS’s 281 Vs Australia in 2001 still gives me goosebumps when I watch the VCD of the match. He was the only one who put his hand up in the first innings – getting 59 in a team total of 171 and the last man to be out. Trailing by 274 with the test and series loss looming large, VVS walked in at number 3 and scripted a miracle along with Rahul Dravid. What he achieved with that knock did not merely amount to an Indian victory to be stored in cricket’s record books, with it he restored the shaken belief of a billion Indian fans. In that one knock, he truly reflected the attitude that John Wright and Ganguly were trying to build into this team – to make them world beaters; he showed that his team was not the one to give up, had the courage to conquer all demons and withstand all attacks. That knock laid the first brick to India’s success in test cricket – of achieving the Numero Uno position. In that one knock – Laxman weaved his magic forever on us.

My Favourite Cricketer: Graham Dilley, by James Morgan of The Full Toss

Last year, the cricket world mourned the loss of Graham Dilley, who passed away after a short battle with cancer. James Morgan, co-editor of The Full Toss, penned the following piece which he has been kind enough to submit for our series "My Favourite Cricketer".

As a lifelong Worcestershire fan, Graham Dilley is a cricketer who has always been close to my heart. He joined Worcs in 1987, at the same time as Ian Botham, in what was my first season as a junior member at New Road. It was a special time for the county – and a special time in my childhood.

Some of my fondest memories involve spending summer days under the chestnut trees at the county ground, watching that great Worcs side which won back to back championship titles in 1987 and 1988. Dilley often used to field in front of us at long leg. I know I was just ten years old at the time, but he seemed taller than a giraffe.

Dilley wasn’t quite a great fast bowler – like so many of England’s best seamers, injury put paid to that – but he was an extremely useful one. He was pretty quick, moved the ball away from the right-handers, and played a part in two of England’s greatest Ashes triumphs. I’m referring, of course, to his defiant half century alongside Botham at Headingley in 1981, and his starring role in Mike Gatting’s series success down under in 1986-87.

From a personal point of view, however, it was Dilley’s success at Worcs that I will remember the most. He was the spearhead of what was possibly the best county bowling attack of the modern era: Dilley was joined by Neil Radford, Ian Botham, Phil Newport and Richard Illingworth. All of them represented England at one point or another, albeit not at the same time. Perhaps only the Lancashire side of the early nineties could match them.

Dilley, of course, was the best of the lot (Botham had lost a bit of pace by 1987). He took an almighty run up that made Allan Donald’s approach look like an off-spinner’s, reared his left leg horizontal in his delivery stride, pounded his leading boot into the turf, and followed through like a wind powered turbine. It was a great sight to behold. When the ball was taken behind the stumps by Steve Rhodes, usually standing nearer to the sight-screen than the stumps, the ball made an almighty thud.

Unlike some of county cricket’s other big names, Dilley always seemed happy to sign autographs at the end of the day. He was a gentle giant – and he possessed one of the best 80s blonde mullets outside of A-Ha. When I heard about Dilley’s sudden death in October 2011, it was a bolt from the blue.

Sports fans in Worcester were particularly upset at Dilley’s premature passing because his son, Chris Pennell, is captain of Worcester Warriors, the city’s premiership rugby team. Somehow, somewhere – probably at that great fast bowlers’ union in the sky – you sense that Graham is still following the Warriors’ progress, and cheering his boy on.

You can read more at The Full Toss, or follow James on Twitter @thefulltoss

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My Favourite Cricketer: Michael Vaughan, by Max Benson of Test Match Sofa

Max Benson, of Test Match Sofa, explains why Michael Vaughan is his favourite cricketer.  Max tweetst at @sofa_maxb.

Northern batsmen aren’t stylish. Northern batsmen are Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Atherton and Paul Collingwood. They are grafters and men of toil, hell-bent on building an innings by any grim means necessary.

All stereotypes are rooted in truth, but my favourite cricketer goes against that particular grain. He possessed a heavenly mix of balance, exquisite timing and sheer class at the crease - creating at will a thing of true beauty each time he unfurled a cover drive or square pull. Indeed, this smitten writer may well go to the grave believing there to be nothing finer in this life than a Michael Vaughan cover drive.

Born the wrong side of the Pennines it was fortunate that Yorkshire accepted him in 1993, just after relaxing their part-admirable, part-ludicrous rule that allowed only players born within the county to be considered for selection. It was Doug Padgett, a veteran of over 500 First Class games for the county who persisted in bringing Vaughan to the club. The thought of him enjoying the career he did with a red instead of a white rose on his chest sends a chill down many a Tyke’s spine. Never mind those that did get away before common sense prevailed.

I first saw Vaughan play for Yorkshire in a one day game at North Marine Road, Scarborough, in 1999. He top-scored with an understated 41, taking the Tykes to a seven-wicket win against Leicestershire, but it was the following summer where he began to shine on a bigger stage.

The first Test match I saw live was at Headingley in 2000. The famous two-day Test against the West Indies, in fact, as luck would have it.  ‘’Don’t expect them all to be like that,’’ my dad felt obliged to caution the ten-year-old me, beaming after Caddick and Gough had dismantled the tourists for 61 in their second innings and a deliriously boozed-up army of nuns and Elvises stormed the field from the old Western Terrace.

Amidst the chaos and tumbling wickets that day, one man personified calm. Vaughan’s expertly crafted 76 took England to what proved to be a match-winning score of 272. Graeme Hick had stayed with him for a neat half century of his own, but it was Vaughan who steadied the ship so ably from 93/4 in front of his expectant home crowd against the aging yet undiminished brilliance of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.

His coolness under pressure was paramount in the decision to award him the England captaincy in 2003, the year in which he all-too-briefly topped the world batting rankings after racking up 633 runs and three centuries in yet another Ashes defeat Down Under. Allied to his superb man management skills and, somewhat paradoxically, his one-of-the-lads mentality; the decision to hand him the reigns was undoubtedly the right one.

The England side had improved steadily under Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain, four years on from when the latter was booed onto the Oval balcony after defeat to New Zealand left England bottom of the Test rankings in 1999. Central contracts helped transform a ragged and insecure bunch of county players into a cohesive unit, and Vaughan was the perfect man to take them to the next level.  He dealt instinctively well on a personal level with the self-destructive Andrew Flintoff and the fragile Steve Harmison, while his on-field demeanour and tactical nous made him by far the best all-round leader in world cricket at the time.

The defining moment for Vaughan’s captaincy came as he led his country in probably the greatest Test series of all time against the Aussies in 2005. Prising the urn from the enemy for the first time since 1987, a rollercoaster series captured the imagination of a football-orientated English press and public like never before.

But Vaughan was fallible, too. His batting suffered, perhaps inevitably, with the strains of captaincy and his final dozen innings or so for Yorkshire in 2009 were painful to watch as the magic – or at least the eyes and joints - appeared to have gone for good. We’re all human. We all get old.

He had always suffered more than most with injuries. The summer of 2006 was a complete write-off, as was the following winter’s whitewash in Australia, all due to a chronic knee problem. A serious hamstring injury followed, and Vaughan was cruelly destined never to regain the magic that had graced county and country for nigh on a decade.

That only adds to the reasons for him being a ‘favourite’. He played on for as long as possible because of a love and deep respect for the game, yet knew to bow out without losing too much dignity on the field. And besides, who would be so heartless as to deny such a player a bit of extra grace to play out a few more innings on the county circuit as the curtain came down on a sterling career? Well, Yorkshire, probably.

In a media-saturated world now awash with anodyne quotes straight off a script from most of our sportsmen and women, Vaughan’s departure from the England captaincy couldn’t have been further from the catatonic norm.

His tearful farewell in full glare of the world’s media was fantastic proof of his boyish love of the game. To see an Ashes-winning gladiator reduced to tears spoke volumes for his sincerity as a player and pride in his country. It was a single moment encapsulating what sport really is: blood, sweat, tears and hyperbole.

Vaughan embodied much of what I believe is great about the game we love. He could ooze style and class when at his work and read the game beautifully with a sound tactical mind. Most striking is that he remained ‘one of the boys’ – a hideous phrase - and someone whose raw passion and enthusiasm we simple fans could relate to. I, and I suspect many others, wanted to share a pint with him – the ultimate compliment for a Yorkshireman. No one in their right mind wanted to drink with Boycott.

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My Favourite Cricketer: Stuart MacGill, by Kristian Gough of The Wrong 'Un

Snoop Doggy Nott my favourite...

As both a legspin fetishist and amateur practitioner, I would more likely pick Snoop Doggy Dogg as my favourite cricketer than a batsman or seamer and to me MacGill represents the leggie's leggie and my personal favorite.  

Warne was too freakishly accurate to be considered a 'real' leg spinner, real ones dish up at least one four-ball every few overs.  And he didn't even have a googly to speak of, relying instead on straight balls to surprise Ian Bell. Anil Kumble …don't get me started on him, he barely even spun it. 

No, MacGill is the leggie for me because he had all the traits of the club leg spinner - huge booze collection, poor fielder, genuine number 11 and ability to bowl one long hop every eight balls. He was a club pie-chucker given super powers after drinking a radioactive vintage bottle of Barossa Valley Shiraz. I swear there is a video of him on YouTube spinning a ball from square leg to point while glowing luminous green. 

He bowled the old fashioned leg spin style I love: tossing the ball up, moving the batsman across the crease toward the on side opening him up - then bang!  A googly, or if he thought it was expected, a big side-spun legbreak which often got slapped to cover point. Effective or not, this attacking style gives captains or selectors palpitations.

I like him as much for his unconformity and outsider status as his brilliant wrong ’un and massive-turning leg break. He never really fit the mold of an Aussie cricketer. A brooding, intense figure, he once fell out with the entire county of Devon while playing English minor counties cricket because they dared play for 'fun'. He was banned several times for discipline, read 24 novels on a tour of Pakistan barely speaking to team mates and famously has 3000 bottles wine in his cellar.  

It is of course impossible to even consider MacGill without the shadow of Warne, toasted cheese sandwich in hand, looming over him.  But try if you can. 

Close your eyes and imagine a world where Shane Keith Warne (MacGill's middle names are Charles Glyndwr) hadn't been born. A cricketing “It's a Wonderful Life” where Mike Gatting was remembered as a decent player of spin and Daryl Cullinan as the tenth best South African batsman to play Tests. In this fantasy world, Stuart MacGill takes 650 wickets and is remembered alongside Benauld, Grimmett and O'Reilly as one of Australia's greatest leggies.  

No really, he would have been. MacGill has a Test strike rate of 54, astonishing for a slow bowler and in fact the best in modern cricket. The myth that he was inaccurate and expensive are of course overstated - a Test economy rate of 3.2 is hardly cannon fodder.

Image courtesy: cricket.com.au

Even in his latest incarnation as a fortysomething Twenty20 gun-for-hire, he has reminded us of that skill. Even turning up rusty, in a batsman-friendly format bowling against teams containing slogger extraordinaires he has held his own, bamboozling the young ‘uns with his wrong ‘uns and going at 6 and half an over.

So all raise a glass of something complex to Stuart MacGill, an old fashioned leg spinner who refused to fit in.  While limited opportunities meant he never became what he could have been, he still notched up performances and a record that most of Aussie spinners can’t hope to match.

Here’s one of his finest.

 Kristian runs the excellent blog "The Wrong 'Un" and tweets at @iamthewrongun. We highly recommend you take a look at both.

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My Favourite Cricketer: Anil Kumble, by Rishabh Bablani, the Cricket Nerd

In our series "My Favourite Cricketer", we invite the best writers and bloggers to tell us why the look upon a certain player more fondly than others.  Today, Rishabh Bablani of The Cricket Nerd describes one member of the "600 Club", Anil Kumble.

The lasting image of Indian cricket in the 1990s is that of a young Sachin rising to prominence, fulfilling the prophecies that had marked him as a demi-god early on.

However, only a few months after the Test debut of India’s greatest batsman, another young man began his Test career; a man who was India’s steadiest, most consistent bowler in the 90s; the man who would eventually become India’s highest wicket-taker.

If you’re thinking of Venkatapathy Raju or Atul Wassan, stop. I’m speaking of Anil Kumble, one-third of the 600-wicket club – alongside fellow leggie Shane Warne and fellow Beethoven-lover (I cannot confirm that) Muttiah Muralitharan.

My own fascination with Anil Kumble can’t really be attributed to any one thing in particular. Entering my teen years was like waking up from the Matrix; I was suddenly aware of cricket and decided I liked it. India had been beaten in the World Cup final a few months earlier, and now they were playing the champions in their backyard. I didn’t know many of the players, so I was free to make my own judgments without being influenced by reputation.

I saw Kumble running in to bowl over after over, seemingly every day, with the bouncy run-up and the skillful release from high above his wiry frame. I got to see plenty of him in my first full Test series, because he bowled in excess of 40 overs in four out of the six Australian innings, for a total of 24 wickets, the mastermind behind India’s closest attempt yet at winning a series in Australia. His 8-141 in Sydney is one of my favorites, and is unfortunately hard to come by.

It was easy for me to relate to him. Like him, I started playing cricket attempting to be a fast bowler (I never got past slow-medium full-tosses), before becoming a legspinner. And like him, I was a colossal nerd. And I don’t mean he looked like a nerd just because he once wore glasses three sizes bigger than Daniel Vettori – he was the real deal, as you can see in this picture below.

http://www.desipad.com/cricket-pictures-wallpapers/62094-anil-kumbles-career-pictures.html

His relatable geekiness is the result of being a keen student – he succeeded in becoming a mechanical engineer before he played Test cricket. As didn’t turn the ball a great deal, he presumably puts his finely-tuned mind to the task, seeing every batsman as a Physics quiz, asking question after question until he found the answer. He found the smallest chink in a batsman’s technique and worked on it until he took the wicket. Aiding him was his arsenal of deliveries – the stock leg-break, the wrong ‘un and probably several different kinds of flippers.

courtesy: cricinfo.com

His strongest attribute, though, is considered to be his never-say-die attitude towards bowling – which helped him and his team when they most needed it. If the first half of his career ended perfectly with his classic 10-74 against Pakistan in 1999, the second half began with injury and the rise of another spinner, Harbhajan Singh. With his position under threat for the first time in his career, Kumble bowled despite the pain of a broken jaw in the West Indies in 2002, and then developed his bowling to much greater effectiveness – the noughties yielded 355 Test wickets, a vast improvement on the 264 wickets in the previous nine years.

The numerous prolific years since 2002 led to him eventually leading India in 2007, two months after his entertaining maiden Test century against England. It was a short transitive phase, with the captaincy expected to pass to MS Dhoni at the end. Nevertheless, Kumble led well, and India won a home series against Pakistan for the first time in 27 years and his diplomacy was vital during the controversy-filled tour to Australia.

Age and injuries set in again in 2008, unfortunately, and by then he was well past his best (though he would come back strongly in the IPL). He retired mid-series in the home Tests against Australia (who I notice have been mentioned quite a few times in this piece).

I knew the retirement was coming and had even secretly hoped for it when he was going wicketless.  I couldn’t bear to see this shadow of who had been such a great bowler. When it came, I wept anyway. Not openly, of course, but with the minds’ eyes of my mind’s eyes.

He ended his career at the right time, when the Indian candle was burning bright, when they were on the road to the World number One ranking, when it was right for young players to be given their trials for the future. With Anil Kumble gone, India cannot be sure of winning even on a turning track because they have no one as good to exploit it. It’s clear that he wants to be a part of the behind-the-scene improvement in Indian cricket, but if the board cannot do whatever it needs to to retain his services, they do not deserve success.

I leave you with one of the best things I’ve ever watched, a profile of him from 1995, when he was with Northamptonshire. 

Exit strategy: He bowled approximately 55,000 deliveries in international cricket, around 6000 more than Sachin has faced. 

Rishabh can be found on Twitter @cricketnerdist 

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My Favourite Cricketer: Chris Pringle by Mykuhl of Cricketgeek

We've scoured the web for the best cricket writers and bloggers to contribute to our series "My Favourite Cricketer".  Today, Mykuhl from the splendid Cricketgeek tells us why he thinks of Kiwi spearhead Chris Pringle most fondly.

As a child I enjoyed playing cricket, and to a lesser degree watching cricket.  I think what I enjoyed most about watching cricket was that normally it was something I did with my dad.  There were a few incidents as I was growing up that made me fall in love with the game.  Firstly when Hadlee dominated Dean Jones in Australia – I remember standing outside, watching through the window as all my older cousins, my father, my uncles and my grandfather crowded around the TV at my grandfathers house. The electricity in the air was contagious.

The next incident was the 1992-93 world cup. When Martin Crowe chose to open the bowling with Dipak Patel against Australia, and it actually worked, and when I was allowed to go to one of the games at Eden Park and saw Mark Greatbatch hit a six onto the roof.  Both of these really captured my attention.

But the ultimate incident that did it for me was in the next season. 1993-1994 the World Series Cup – Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.  My family were on holiday at Mt Maunganui, and in the little sun room at the front where I was sleeping there was a television.  This was still in the days where sports was broadcast free-to-air, and almost every night there was cricket on.  The performance of one player was a big part of why I still love cricket today.

Chris Pringle took at least one wicket in every match in that tournament.  He actually managed this in 26 matches in a row from March 1993 until October 1994, in the process playing against every Test-playing nation of the time. I believe that the whole story of Pringle is one of the greatest in cricket.

Image courtesy: cricwaves.com

The start

 He started off his international career after only playing 3 first class games.  New Zealand were touring England, and he was over there playing some minor league cricket.  He decided to turn up to the game to see if he could get some free tickets off some of the Auckland players that he knew. He got more than he was expecting. At first they asked him if he could help them out by bowling in the nets.  Then Martin Snedden got injured, and Pringle got told that he was playing. 

After 27 overs New Zealand were in trouble. Gooch and Smith had put together a big partnership, for the 2^nd wicket, and England were 118/1. Pringle was watching Gooch bat and thought he saw a weakness. He asked the captain for the ball, and got him with a slower ball straight away. He ended with figures of 2/45 (Hadlee got 2/45).

It is a Boys Own tale – just out of school, turns up to the ground, gets to play for his country and outperforms (probably) the greatest bowler his country has ever produced.

The skills

Despite being only just over medium pace, and not really doing much with the ball, he managed to have career ODI stats very similar to Waqar Younis (Avg, rpo, sr; Pringle 23.87, 4.45, 32.1; Waqar 23.84, 4.68, 30.5) . He did it by finding weakness in batsmen’s techniques and then exploiting them.

He was not built like a fast bowler, he looked like the guy that comes to fix your telephone. In fact, the first time he ever set foot inside a gym was after he had already been picked for Auckland. He had to get some of the other players to show him how to use the equipment. And perhaps this was why he was such a good bowler. He couldn’t rely on physical ability so he had to learn to think.

One of the most memorable moments was in 1991 where Australia needed 2 runs to win off the final over. Bruce Reid was batting, and all he needed was a single to tie the score. Pringle had the ball. He bowled the over of his life to the bewildered Reid, who eventually tried to sneak a single off the last ball, and was run out for his trouble, giving Pringle a final over maiden and New Zealand a win by 1 run. Pringle’s figures of 1/34 off 10 hardly told the story of his excellent performance.

On the way to a ground in Australia he noticed that there were billboards for the movie Predator outside the ground. They featured Arnold Schwarzenegger with camouflage paint on his face, looking like a warrior. Pringle got some zinc and painted similar marks on his face before coming out to bowl. Anything for an advantage.

His approach worked, and he became the most reliable wicket taker in One Day internationals in history. Here is the table of the top 10 most reliable wicket takers:

 

Player	Innings bowled	Innings with at least 1 wkt	Wickets	Hit rate
C. Pringle	64	54	103	0.844
B. Lee	201	169	357	0.841
P. Patterson	58	48	90	0.828
S. Bond	80	65	147	0.813
K. Mills	129	104	192	0.806
M. Muralitharan	341	274	534	0.804
A. Donald	162	130	272	0.802
T. Alderman	65	52	88	0.800
M. Ntini	171	136	266	0.795
M. Sami	81	64	118	0.790

The controversies

Over the 5 years of his tragically short career he was involved in more incidents than most players are in 15 years. Before long he was just too much of a public relations disaster, and NZ Cricket couldn’t cope any more.

There were sex scandals, concern about his weight and fitness, fall outs with coaches and captains, ball tampering and even a drugs scandal. He made Flintoff, Ryder and Cronje look like beginners.

Even his cricket brain got him in trouble. He figured out that something was going wrong while he was on tour to Pakistan in 1990. The balls seemed to have some strange marks on them. Martin Crowe and him decided to fight fire with fire.  They got a bucket full of balls and experimented with ways of tampering with them.  They devised a method of scratching the balls using a bottle top, to make them swing like crazy. They tried it out in the third match, and much to their surprise, the umpires didn’t care. One of them even commented to him that at least both teams are cheating equally now. Pringle took 7 wickets, but his place in the record books will forever have an asterisk, due to being the “bottletop bandit” test.

He was also involved in the marijuana scandal in South Africa in 1994. He says that he was only in the room telling the others not to smoke it. I heard from a number of sources that he was blamed by the management for it, and his reputation never recovered.  A good friend of mine was a net partner to one of the players involved, and he has privately confirmed Pringles story, saying that there were no players from outside Northern Districts except Stephen Fleming involved. In a way it was nicer to believe that he was involved, and that his success was in spite of such excesses.

There were also rumours of a number of sex scandals, none of which are worth repeating, but Pringle comments on a couple of them in his book.

Overall his story is one of a great talent that was only realised briefly. One of the best thinking bowlers of all time, was also one of the greatest wasted talents. He thrilled us, but like some other potentially great players like Rodney Redmond or Vinod Kambli, he did so too briefly. It would be interesting to see if he would have kept succeeding if he had managed more than 62 matches. Would the batsmen figure him out, or would he keep finding ways to break batsmen down. This intrigue is part of the reason that Pringle is my favourite cricketer.

(Ed: There is now an English cricket team named for the portly Kiwi, who won the England Champions' League in Last Man Stands Cricket).

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