60: Chris Gayle
After Brian Lara retired, I hoped Chris Gayle would continue the tradition of Caribbean cavaliers and attract young West Indians to the sport. It didn’t quite happen that way. Instead, Gayle’s nonchalant brilliance in Twenty20 diverted his attention away from real cricket towards the lucrative franchise league circuit. Of course he was fabulous to watch, swinging sixes with apparent ease, and I’d have placed him much higher had he not treated his Somerset contract several years ago with such apparent arrogance. A twenty-first century sporting icon nonetheless.
59: Jos Buttler
In my biased opinion, Jos blotted his copybook after being allowed to leave Somerset for Lancashire. Not his fault, I know. He came up through the county ranks as a blazing wicketkeeper-batsman and I had a lot of respect for the teenager’s attitude to the game and spectators when I saw him play at Taunton. I didn’t foresee Jos becoming one of the finest one-day improvisers in the world, though. A frequent match-winner for England in ODIs boasting a strike rate of 120, the third highest on record, leaving the West Country certainly didn’t hold back his limited-overs career.
58: Glen Chapple
Surely one of the greatest redheads never to play Test cricket for England, Chapple was an extremely consistent seam bowler, late-order batsman and captain for Lancashire, leading them to the Championship crown aged 37. He was granted a consolation ODI against Ireland in 2006, during which he was injured, so that was that. I was at Lord’s in ’96 when he took 6-18 to destroy Essex in the Nat West Trophy Final. Nearly two decades later I was willing him to remain fit enough to reach the 1000-wicket milestone in first-class cricket but he retired, stranded on 985.
57: Ricky Ponting
Not the most popular of characters in England but then Aussie captains are never at the top of the Barmy Army’s Christmas card list. A more attacking batsman than Steve Waugh or Allan Border, he accumulated runs for fun in a twenty-year career, leading his country to huge success in Tests and World Cups. Hardly a loveable character, ‘Punter’ nevertheless appealed to me on various levels, notably his reluctance to go down the Twenty 20 pre-retirement route. Instead his final fixtures were for Surrey in the Championship and it seemed to me a noble way to bow out.
56: Mushtaq Ahmed
The roly-poly leg-spinner, only 5 foot 4, is arguably the most successful spinner in the county game since Derek Underwood. ‘Mushie’ was not the best of Pakistan’s world-class crop of spinners in the Nineties but he proved a giant of the County Championship over many years. I saw him twirl for Somerset back in the 1990s but it was at Sussex in 2006 and 2007 where he took a hundred wickets twice in succession, winning titles in the process. Few players are so popular wherever he plays or, as in recent years, coaches.
55: John Lever
Google him and you’ll probably find an association with Vaseline, like Mike Atherton’s pocketfuls of dirt. However, John Lever spent 22 years at Essex, taking more than 2,000 wickets for the county. His fast-medium swing was rarely appreciated by England selectors but JK’s wickets, economy rates and boundary fielding were instrumental in Essex’s success in both Championship and one-day competitions in the late Seventies and Eighties. I saw him play many times in an era when left-arm pacemen were a novelty.
54: Adam Gilchrist
Such was Australia’s strength in depth that Adam Gilchrist was almost 25 when he made his ODI debut and nearly 28 when his Test chance finally came along. He soon made up for lost time, becoming the most exhilarating batsman of the Noughties, AB De Villiers and Chris Gayle notwithstanding. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t make many runs when I saw him play a T20 for Middlesex in his latter years but, like Viv Richards, he seemed to save his best for the grandest occasions like a World Cup Final,. Oh, and he was a damn fine wicketkeeper, too.
53: Andrew Caddick
Although often derided as an inconsistent loner at international level, Andy Caddick nonetheless took 234 Test wickets, at a rate per match almost comparable with Anderson and better than Broad. Having spent twenty years at Somerset he is a legend in the West Country. New Zealand-born, he shared Richard Hadlee’s sticky-out ears, giant feet and devastating short-of-a-length seamer, and took tons of wickets on the traditional Taunton featherbed. Since his 2009 retirement I have watched several matches from in front of the Andrew Caddick Pavilion.
52: Harry Pilling
I’ve not picked Ashton-Under-Lyne’s Harry Pilling just because he was only 5 foot 3. However, it’s certainly one of the main reasons! He was a feature of Lancashire’s hugely successful side in the 1970s, especially in one-day tournaments, and as such was frequently on my TV screen in the summer. Compared with the Lloyds, Hayes or Wood, ‘Arry wasn’t the most exciting or prolific batsman but he was highly proficient at finding the gaps and holding a one-day innings together His stature made him look comical in the field but I remember always looking out for him.
51: Martin Crowe
It’s
not Martin Crowe’s fault that the Somerset board’s decision to choose him over
Viv Richards ripped the county apart. Even a massive Viv fan like me realised
that the young NZ superstar was in 1987 a better prospect, and he duly
delivered until his country called him home. He never played for us again but
Martin went on to be one of the finest Black Cap batsmen – and useful medium-pacer
– of all time. His first-class batting average was an awesome 56 and he
top-scored in the 1992 World Cup. His death from cancer at just 53 rightly
prompted national mourning.
