My Hundred: from 60 to 51

 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.

My Favourite Bowlers of all time

As with music, football clubs or TV programmes, favouritism makes no claim to equate with sheer quality, no matter how passionately the advocate makes his or her case. My personal favourite cricketers cover a wide range from undisputed giants of the game to aficionados of specific counties and/or those with lengthy memories. The list of bowlers is a case in point.

As a child, I loved to watch bowlers’ actions face-on, a standard perspective in the days when the Beeb could only afford cameras at one end. Many of my most memorable pacemen in particular date from that period when I’d channel my studies of the people I’d watched on TV into personations in the back garden. England’s John Snow had a distinctive delivery action but my first fave was someone whose notable quirk was the way during his run-up he held both arms low.

Sarfraz Nawaz was a staple of Northamptonshire’s attack in the Seventies, winning many caps for Pakistan along the way. Although taller than most, it was his moustache which also made him stand out. More recently he has been credited with inventing reverse swing, which has become an essential part of a fast bowler’s armoury.

Talking of cricketing moustaches, as much part of the mid-Seventies as flares and ‘O’ level revision, Dennis Lillee’s facial fuzz was even more recognisable, and remains his trademark to this day. His bristling, bustling demeanour and devastating pace combined to hammer thorns in the side of England on many occasions, from 1972 to the early Eighties, when his moustache was complemented by a coloured headband. He was no shrinking violet, often controversial for the sake of it, but always watchable. Even in his slower dotage, his skill and accuracy knew no bounds. Had it not been for a few brilliant Botham performances, the 1981 Ashes could well have been named after Lillee and Terry Alderman who between them garnered 81 wickets!

In mid-decade, Dennis and Jeff Thomson wreaked so much havoc against the West Indies that Clive Lloyd fathomed that his side needed to meet fire with fire. Thus the strategy of four-man Caribbean seam attacks was born. At first, this looked thrilling. The brutal bouncers, run-ups so long that they began almost from the laps of front row spectators, the prospect of athletic evasive action or humungous hooks for six  all added to the atmosphere of open hostility. The snorting Andy Roberts, smooth-as-silk Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Wayne Daniel got away with almost anything but after a year or two the novelty began to wear off rapidly. The average over rate dropped from around eighteen an hour to eleven, batsmen suffered more nasty injuries and, much as I adored Caribbean cricket, the bowling philosophy was making Test matches increasingly tedious to watch. Eventually the authorities had to introduce restrictions on the short-pitched stuff and minimum over rules to restore the balance between bat and ball before boredom and broken bones took control.

Holding in full flight was a wonder to behold, and his predecessor Keith Boyce always lively but my favoured West Indian quick was Joel Garner. Apart from the fact he played for Somerset, he didn’t rely on a relentless sprint to the wicket to breed fear in the facing batsman. Off a mere dozen loping languid strides, ‘Big Bird’ could deliver a snorting lifter, in-swinger, off-cutter or devastating yorker at will, using his six feet eight frame to the max. He was equally brilliant in one-dayers as first-class matches; nobody has got close to his career ODI economy rate of 3,09 and his 146 wickets were achieved at under 19 runs apiece. Imagine how effective he would have been in Twenty20!

I was lucky to follow cricket in an era chock full of fabulous fast bowlers. Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Allan Donald, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose were the cream of an abundant crop. In more recent times I have admired Glenn McGrath’s metronomic line and length, Dale Steyn’s rhythmic action and Shoaib Akhtar’s thunderous pace and Chaminda Vaas' impressive set of initials, but where are the English in my list?

Yes, I am impressed by Jimmy Anderson’s ability to swing it both ways but I can’t say I like him that much. A generation earlier, I was a big fan of John Lever’s left-arm swing bowling. Indeed, I saw quite a lot of him playing for Essex. In the Nineties, I was a fan of another left-arm fast-medium-pacer reliant on movement through the air for his success. This Yorkshire-born Gloucestershire pro became a one-Test wonder in 1997 but he secured my loyalty by dint of his name: Mike Smith, of course!

Top-class namesakes are rare, nor are there a plethora of fellow redheads in the sport. An exception is Glen Chapple, who bowled his fast-medium seam for Lancashire across more than two decades. I was at Lord’s for his almost singlehanded demolition of Essex in the Nat West Final of 1996, the year of his one and only England ODI appearance. Nineteen years later, I again felt deeply sorry for him when, in his forties and his hair less ginger than salt and pepper, form and fitness conspired to end his cricket career with a first-class wicket tally an agonising fifteen short of the thousand milestone.

Another long-standing stalwart of the Red Rose was David Hughes. Although primarily a left-arm spinner, he first attracted my attention with the bat. I was watching live coverage of the 1971 Gillette Cup semi-final against Gloucestershire when, in deep gloom and time running out, he proceeded to flay 24 off John Mortimore’s final over to win the match.

Of those who did manage a longer run in the England side, I quite liked Norman Cowans. His run-up was almost Holding-esque but without his fellow Jamaican’s end product. However, my favourite has to be Gladstone Small. Barbados-born, his hunched physique created an illusion of having no neck, exaggerated by the extravagant shirt collars worn at the time. His comical appearance nonetheless disguised a very useful quick bowler and, as well as a Warwickshire favourite, he was Man of the Match in England’s 1986 Boxing Day Test success in Melbourne.

Spinners have barely featured in this chapter. As with many cricket fans, it’s the pacemen who take my eye, all speed, strength and sizzle. There’s something almost primeval about a middle-stump sent cartwheeling by a 90mph nip-backer, which a gentle bat-pad catch simply cannot match. The slow bowler’s art is very different yet just as vital to an attack. Even in England teams featuring the likes of Snow, Willis or Ward, it was left-armer Derek Underwood who earned the nickname ‘Deadly’! If the Seventies and Eighties had been dominated by sneering, snarling fast bowlers, the subsequent decades were marked by the emergence of world-class spinners.

In any other era, India’s Anil Kumble would have been a global icon. And yet it was the record-breaking rivalry between Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne which stole the show. Murali went on to set the amazing mark of 800 Test wickets and he was a magician of such sleight of hand that I could watch him for hours and never work out how he bowled at all, let alone pick his doosra. In contrast, Warne was a straightforward ‘leggie’ who burst onto the Test scene when leg-spinners were as rare as British Wimbledon singles champions. 

I was to have a love-hate relationship with the Aussie. I couldn’t embrace his bleach-blonde, beer-guzzling surfer-dude personality but there was something endearingly basic about that three-pace amble and roll of the wrists. Whilst an astute captain at Hampshire, he never got to lead Australia in their absolute pomp but he was undoubtedly one of the best bowlers of my lifetime. In particular, anyone who can make Mike Gatting so hilariously bamboozled as Shane Warne so memorably did in 1993 has to be an all-time favourite. And this portrait, which I once saw close up in the Lord's Long Room, captures his charisma perfectly.

Essex meek, SA squeak

What a day of cricketing contrasts! At Chelmsford, the Essex faithful witnessed one of the worst batting failures in modern history while in Cardiff, Duckworth-Lewis served up the cruellest of finishes for the West Indies and luckiest for South Africa.

The County Championship has produced mixed fortunes for Essex this season. When they were trounced by Northants earlier in the season, coach Paul Grayson humbly apologised. This evening the dressing room was in shock after Glen Chapple and Kyle Hogg ripped through the Eleven in barely an hour. Twenty all out is their lowest ever score in the competition and the lowest by anyone against Lancashire. In the days of black-and-white, a team might at least have had uncovered wickets as an excuse for such an appalling performance but the Chelmsford pitch was supposedly placid, the visitors having just racked up 398, with the aforementioned Chapple and Hogg each scoring half-centuries at the tail end!

Even more remarkable is that 75% of Essex's second innings came from boundaries, two of which were scored by Jaik Mickelburgh who came perilously close to carrying his bat for ten runs! Lancashire's innings victory takes them to second place and into strong contention for promotion. Essex remain in mid-table but their confidence must be zapped to pieces. Elsewhere in Division Two, Kyle Coetzer's career-best 219 was the cornerstone of Northants' massive score but rain helped Leicestershire survive. Hampshire accepted Gloucestershire's stiff final-day target of 411 after forfeited innings, but may have regretted it after falling almost 200 short.

In Division One, Yorkshire (easily) and Durham (in a nailbiting climax against Warwickshire) claimed their fourth wins of the campaign and occupy the top two slots, displacing Middlesex who were crushed by the White Roses.

So, back to Cardiff and that rain-truncated Group B game in the Champions Trophy. That there were enough hours between showers to have any real contest was a bonus but the way the game ended was remarkable. West Indies had already won the toss and put the Saffers in, but as Ingram, De Villiers, Miller et al stroked their way to 230-6 in the 31 allotted overs, it looked a difficult proposition. Buoyed by Dale Steyn's return to fitness, South Africa kept Johnson Charles fairly quiet although Chris Gayle had moved on to 36 before giving a leading edge catch off Morris. Samuels entertained for a while but, with the clouds amassing, most eyes were on the fluctuating D/L par score.

With Pollard and Dwayne Bravo at the crease, they were keeping pace until the former heaved at McLaren and was well caught at third man by Steyn. The clouds wept heavy drizzle and no sooner had Darren Sammy reached the middle the umpires waved everybody off. They were 190-6 and the D/L par score? 190! No further play was possible and so it ended a tie! With one point apiece, South Africa qualified for the semis on net run rate. Had Pollard not been out the previous ball the Windies would have won the game and AB's men would be on their way home. A tough way to go but big Kieron could not have predicted the imminent arrival of the rain.

So the Proteas squeak through, behind the Indians who are now guaranteed to play at Cardiff next Thursday. Glad I have that ticket! Who they play is anyone's guess. Sadly the weather forecasts for the weekend are dismal indeed, especially for the England v NZ clash. I'd say one of those two will win Group A, with Sri Lanka possibly joining them in the knockouts. India v Sri Lanka at Cardiff. That's a mouth-watering match if ever there was one.

My Team of the Season - The Bowlers

The other day, I revealed the top six in my team of the English season which ended last week. Now for the rest of the Eleven which to me summed up the most notable players and performances across the whole summer.

I don't think it was a vintage year for all-rounders. Samit Patel enjoyed a good start to the summer for Nottinghamshire and, although he faded a bit, it was enough to get him back into the England set-up and indeed he played in this week's T20 internationals against the West Indies. Ravi Bopara also returned to the England fold but, apart from the first Windies T20I, it was as a batsman only. Durham's Ian Blackwell was solid but unspectacular while Gareth Berg produced some great all-round performances early and late in the summer, while missing out on most of the matches in between.

Mike Yardy was a welcome face back on the county circuit following his bout of depression last winter and he scored some telling first-class hundreds and took some one-day wickets for Sussex. Darren Stevens and Rikki Clarke were dependable as ever but my man for number seven is Chris Woakes. he's not normally thought of as an all-rounder but I rate him higher in those terms as Stuart Broad or Tim Bresnan. Maybe the England selectors want to see more of his bowling before giving him a chance. In only 11 Championship games for Warwickshire, he took 56 wickets at 21.78, while averaging 48 with the bat. OK, so he was less impressive in one-dayers but his consistent first-class cricket performances give him the edge for me.

My Team of the Season is not intended to set the standard as a world-beater, more as a clutch of individuals who lit up the English cricket scene between April and September. That is why the Championship's winning captain and the leading wicket-taker force their way into my side. David Masters is the epitome of a county pro, now at Essex, and his steady fast-medium pacers have taken wickets wherever he has played. 2011 saw him add more than ninety to his first-class career record, including 8-10 in a single innings against Leicestershire. At 37, Glen Chapple is four years older and has been a Lancashire stalwart for twenty seasons, While he was largely spared one-day duties this summer, he captured 57 scalps in the Championship at under 20 apiece and his enthusiastic captaincy also played a major part in his county's successful title challenge.

If I were to pick my other seamer purely on first-class performances, the leading contenders would have to include the evergreen Tim Murtagh (Middlesex), Andre Adams (Notts), Ryan Sidebottom (Yorkshire), Tim Linley (Surrey), Jon Lewis (Gloucs) and the one Sri Lankan to emerge from the summer with credit, Chaminda Vaas (Northants). However, I am going for a young bowler who earned his England spurs through his excellent limited-over ability and sheer pace, Jade Dernbach. With a little more consistency in the first-class format, he merits a spot amongst those pressing Anderson, Broad, Tremlett, Finn and Bresnan for a Test place.

Finally, amongst the myriad of tyro spinners advancing their careers through the medium of T20 (Borthwick and Briggs spring to mind), there are two who challenge for the final place in my Summer 2011 team. Monty Panesar is the forgotten man, who not five years ago was one of the best spinners in the world but who is now rebulding his career at Sussex. He bowled more than 750 overs in the Championship for 69 wickets, augmented by some economic contributions in CB40 and T20. However, my slow bowler of the year is Gary Keedy. He missed most of 2010 through injury but his availability for the past year made the difference in Lancashire's title push. In T20, his economy rate was under six, and he took 20 wickets at 17. He made little impression in the CB40 competition but in the four-day fixtures, emerged with 63 wickets at under 24 apiece. He didn't blast opposition away in single innings blitzes like team-mate Simon Kerrigan but he was always there nagging away at batsmen.

So there we have it. My complete Team of the Season reads: Cook, Trescothick, Hales, Bell, Taylor, Bairstow (+), Woakes, Chapple, Dernbach, Masters, Keedy. It was nice to see a mix of old and young making their mark on the season, and I hope to see more of the same in 2012.