Amidst the many Olympic and Paralympic athletes and usual array of political arse-lickers in the New Year's Honours List, there were a few deserving cases from the world of cricket. The late Tony Greig may have been beyond the pale as far as the Establishment is concerned, but his predecessor as England captain, Mike Denness, has at least been recognised with an overdue OBE. He played 28 Tests for England, 19 of them as skipper, averaging a creditable 40 with the bat. His 22-season first-class career, including long stints with Kent and Essex, yielded almost 26,000 runs, alongside more than 5,000 in one-dayers. He must be one of the most successful Scottish-born cricketers in history.
MBEs have gone to a couple of recent retirees who have made frequent apparances in my blog: Mark Ramprakash and Robert Croft. Both never quite attained world-class status, despite their prolific run-scoring (Ramps) and wicket-taking (Croftie) in county cricket. The lowly honour is the very least their two decades and more of professional dedication deserves, especially when compared with OBEs and CBEs doled out to gold medallists in their early twenties!
I don't know where the Commonwealth stands in terms of the archaic British honours system but where on earth is the knighthood for Rahul Dravid? This list probably came too soon for Ricky Ponting but I hope we get a chance to greet Sir Ricky come the summer. Perhaps the civil servants are awaiting the full retirement of Sachin Tendulkar before giving out gongs to overseas cricketing legends. 2013 maybe?! Perhaps Andrew Strauss will join them now that he has bidden farewell to Test and county cricket after Graeme Smith et al thumped England.
Others who bowed out without an invitation to the Palace include Aussie run machine Michael di Venuto (although still available for one-dayers, despite this being his least favoured format) and Charl Willoughby, the South African left-arm swing merchant who performed sterling service for several counties, including my own Somerset, albeit only five times for his country.
Less-renowned county stalwarts also merit a mention here. Jonathan Batty was a fine wicketkeeper-batsman for Surrey and Gloucestershire, and was unlucky not to play for England. He tended to be eclipsed by his Surrey colleague Alec Stewart for the first half of his career, but went on to score more than 12,000 runs and claim 1000-odd victims behind the stumps. Will Jefferson was a powerful, very tall left-handed opening batsman but has called it a day at 32 because of a persistent hip injury, rather than the inconsistent performances which often held him back. The somewhat shorter 'keeper, Ben Scott, has also retired at a young age (31). Whilst clocking up more than 100 first-class matches, including a few for the Lions, he couldn't quite hold his own in 2012, and his century for Worcestershire in July will probably prove to be his last.
Congratulations to all of the above for giving us all such pleasure over the years, medals or no medals.
