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.

Roebuck v Richards: The 1986 Somerset Spat revisited

I was reading David Hopps’ article on ESPN Cricinfo yesterday, dredging up my own memories of that awful period thirty years ago when Somerset CCC was racked by an internal civil war.

The late Seventies and early Eighties were great periods to be a Somerset supporter. After years in the wilderness, the county were propelled to the forefront of county cricket, alongside Essex where I actually lived. Much of our success was down to the triumvirate of Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Joel Garner, all brought into the side as promising youngsters rather than established international stars. One-day trophies were won although the County Championship remained infertile ground.

In 1985, we actually finished bottom of the league, then a single-division format, won by Middlesex. We won just one of our 24 three-day fixtures although, to be fair, most games were drawn in those days. The 1985 debacle had been despite excellent seasons for Richards and Botham (with the bat) but the England all-rounder was captain and understandably took the flak.

He was replaced as skipper by the thoughtful opener, Peter Roebuck but 1986 wasn’t much better, as Somerset ended in sixteenth place. The ex-Millfield schoolboy enjoyed an excellent summer with the bat while Viv and Botham definitely weren’t at their best. They could be relied upon for star performances in the televised limited overs matches but when it came to the Championship, their hearts rarely appeared to be in it, especially in a struggling side. They certainly didn’t have a galvanising effect.

Roebuck identified the big stars as being a problem rather than the solution. A young Kiwi batsman called Martin Crowe was being courted by Essex and he was keen for the Somerset members to get in quick. The scene was set for a big showdown in Shepton Mallet in November 1986, the issue being who would be the overseas players for 1987: young Crowe or the old-stagers Richards and Garner?

I recall backing the Roebuck argument. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Viv. He was, and remains, one of my all-time sporting heroes. I’ve never seen a batsman like him. But Somerset needed a new strategy of building a new team around Crowe and Botham, with Roebuck guiding the troops from the front. The captain got his way, but the water were muddied when the flamboyant Botham promptly quit in support of his West Indian teammates.

His loyalty to friends was admirable but there was a bigger picture. The newly-published Roebuck diaries reveal Richards to be a bully and Botham too much of an egotistical playboy to make for a happy dressing room. I’m not saying Peter Roebuck was perfect, and rumours and charges of decidedly dodgy advocacy of personally-delivered corporal punishment caught up with him in 2011 resulted in suicide. However, he was a great servant of the county. Only four men have scored more County Championship runs for Somerset, and Viv isn’t one of them!

It was a difficult autumn for Somerset supporters but at least our first-class cricket improved in 1987. Crowe scored more than 1,600 runs at 68, with Roebuck, Felton and Hardy also topping 1,000. A young Steve Waugh also played two matches, scoring two centuries. Whatever happened to him?! With the ball, Vic Marks – later to be another excellent cricket journalist – continued to top the wickets table, while Garner’s pace was replaced by Adrian Jones and Neil Mallender, who both enjoyed a fine season. Meanwhile, Botham was a big-money signing for Worcestershire, Garner was sadly lost to county cricket for good and Richards switched to the Lancashire League before returning with Glamorgan in 1990. Roebuck himself ceded the captaincy to Marks in ’89 and stayed on as batsman until 1991.

In retrospect, this was not only a divisive but decisive period for county cricket. The traditional power of ‘old duffers’ – in Somerset, Yorkshire and elsewhere – was in decline, and player power was beginning to grow in the domestic as well as international game. Roebuck and Botham were never reconciled before the former’s death in South Africa and the latter remained a feisty personality. His fame grew in indirect proportion to his performances over the next several years and, for all his success at Taunton, I consider him over-rated, certainly in the second half of his career. I do have sympathy with Peter Roebuck, as much a Somerset legend as anyone. However, when you look around the County Ground, you see the Garner Gates, Richards Gates and the Sir Ian Botham Stand, but nothing for the captain who tried to put his club ahead of people. That’s the way of sport!

Martin Crowe RIP

It seems doubly cruel that, just a few weeks after Brendon McCullum, New Zealand’s star of the past decade retired from Test cricket, the country has lost possibly its greatest ever batsmen to cancer.

Martin Crowe may not have been the model cricketer, but when he was in his pomp in the Eighties and Nineties, he seemed to be blessed with the blend of natural batsmanship and entertaining strokeplay. I didn’t see much of him, but he divided the opinions of Somerset fans like me after the board opted to sign him as our overseas player at the expense of the legendary Viv Richards. Yet Crowe was so good that, at the time, I actually sided with the establishment, believing that Viv – still my all-time sporting idol – had become too lazy at Somerset and the Kiwi was likely to be a better bet in our middle-order.

Martin’s career Test aggregate of 5,444 runs doesn’t read like the statistics of a global superstar. However, he played only 77 matches before chronic knee injury brought early retirement. His average of 45.36 looks modest but when you consider he played in a golden age for fast bowlers like Marshall, Garner, Ambrose, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Donald, that was pretty impressive.

Crowe’s overall first-class average of more than 56 is perhaps a more impressive testament to his batting prowess. He scored more than 70 centuries, reaching three figures almost once every two occasions he passed fifty. Few can match that. He even contributed more than a hundred wickets with his medium pace, and was a nifty slip fielder to boot.

His one-day record was not quite of the same high order yet he was the player of the 1992 World Cup and is credited with being an innovative skipper, paving the way for the tactical intelligence characterised by McCullum and Stephen Fleming.

Big Bren has since eclipsed Crowe’s previous NZ Test innings record of 299 as well as his run tally. Yet he has always acknowledged the immense contribution his predecessor made in that purple patch for the Black Caps when Crowe and Richard Hadlee were up there with the world’s greatest players. I wrote recently that McCullum had passed the baton to Kane Williamson, and at the current rate of improvement, I’d expect the latter to rival Crowe in the New Zealand history books. However, this particular baton wasn’t even invented until Martin bestrode the cricket stage in the late 80s. RIP.

McCullum's Triple Whammy!

After lauding Brendon McCullum's double-century last week, I have to make him centre stage again as the first New Zealander ever to make 300 in a Test innings. For someone once renowned only for his one-day strokeplay, the NZ skipper's work on his long-form batting skills and decision-making have evidently paid off in spades. His ODI scores have suffered but making 224 and 302 in successive matches against the second-ranked nation is no mean feat. The fact that it came in a second innings gives it an extra special lustre; only Hanif Mohammad 56 years ago has hit a triple second time out.

However, it is his eclipsing of such great Black Cap batsmen such as Stephen Fleming, Glenn Turner and Martin Crowe which brought the Wellington crowd and cricket fans worldwide to life. Crowe has said he got too ahead of himself that day 23 years ago in the same city against Sri Lanka but McCullum just about held it together long enough to play the weary Zaheer Khan to the third man boundary and achieve the milestone. Records will always be broken but Brendon will always be the first Black Cap wearer to notch a triple-hundred.

OK, so he rode his luck at times and was dropped by Kohli when on just nine, but credit to McCullum for knuckling down not just to build an innings but also to save a match that was running away from his side. They were 57-3 and still needing about 200 to avoid defeat and win the two-Test series. India had dismissed the home team for a mere 192 on the first day, with Ishant Sharma claiming a personal best 6-51. Four days later, poor Ishant was looking at possibly his worst figures of 0-164, and his colleagues were struggling having bowled the second highest number of overs by India in any Test.

It could so easily have been the match of Ajinkya Rahane, who compiled his maiden Test century, BJ Watling, for an incredibly patient 124 alongside his captain, or particularly Jimmy Neesham, who marked his debut with an unbeaten 137. Some have even castigated McCullum for not declaring until he reached 300. Huh? At 1-0 up, avoiding defeat had to be his prime objective and with India's reputation for fast-scoring - Dhawan, Kohli, Dhoni et al - allowing Neesham to push the target beyond even Indian aspirations was surely the right decision. And I'm sorry, anyone in the world would not have given up with history beckoning. OK, maybe not Mark Taylor - who famously declared when on 334 so as not to overtake the legendary Bradman - but anyone else!

McCullum apart, New Zealand are definitely looking a stronger Test side these days but India's atrocious away record - fourteen matches without a win - is something they need to overcome if they are once again to be considered candidates for the Mace. They did at least make a contest of the First Test and were in the driving seat for the first three days of this one but they ran into McCullum, Watling and Neesham in the form of their lives. While they have a series in England this summer, New Zealand have no Tests scheduled for a while, and McCullum and co have to forget how to compile a long innings and remember how to slog again in the forthcoming T20 competition. They may even win it... but not by scoring 300, that's for sure.