Twenty20 Cup Team of the Decade

Forget the IPL, the English Twenty20 Cup is the groundbreaking tournament which spawned the devil just ten years ago. Adam Hollioake's Surrey were the original masters of the format but since then there have been numerous excellent outfits. Sussex and Warwickshire have often looked good. Some have perhaps punched above their weight (Leicestershire, Hampshire?) while poor Somerset are Finals Day regulars but with just the single success to their name. But what about the individuals who have illuminated the tournament over the past decade?

Luke Wright, Graham Napier and Darren Maddy made their careers out of their all-round performances, and destructive batting in particular. However, none make my all-time XI. Adam Hollioake was certainly an innovative captain in the first few years but wasn't an enduring figure in the English game. Andrew Symonds' monster strike rate of 180 for three different counties and Mushtaq Ahmed's miserly economy rate of 5.88 also fail to make it because they played under thirty games apiece. Brilliant flares but burned out relatively quickly.

A number of my team have opened the innings, some as pinch-hitters. However I shall go for the mighty Marcus Trescothick and Jonathan Trott. Marcus has almost 2000 T20 Cup runs to his name for Somerset and, at 37 years old, hopefully he has a few more up his sleeve. His strike rate of 161 is one of the best of any player still going. Before England came beckoning with a central contract, Trott was a highly effective anchor for Warwickshire, averaging more than 40 with the bat. In 2009, he aggregated 525 runs.

To be honest, any of my Eleven could bat anywhere in this line-up. I'd have Matt Prior next. He has scored 1572 runs in the competition, with a strike rate of more than 150. He didn't always keep wicket in T20 and Essex's James Foster has three times his number of catches, but the England Test star just shades it in my view, and also wears the gloves. Azhar Mahmood has been a vteran for a long time now, be it in England, the IPL or anywhere else. As a clever all-rounder, he has few peers, especially in the 2000s, and was an integral part of Surrey's early successes. His tally of 104 wickets is unsurpassed, and taken alongside 1795 runs at a strike rate of 142, he is probably the most effective all-rounder of them all. Right behind him is Leicestershire and Kent's Darren Stevens. Even approaching 40, he remains a superb cricketer in all forms of the game without ever making the England team. He has the highest runs aggregate (2209) and has played more matches than anyone else in the domestic game (103). 46 wickets at under seven an over illustrate his worth as a medium-pace bowler, too.

Aussie Ian Harvey trotted around the globe and the English counties but in T20 he was a great finisher and scored three hundreds, more than anyone else. Like Stevens, his seam and swing often brought him wickets, too. Next up is Mike Yardy. ALthough a fine batsman in his own right, it is as a miserly spin bowler and canny captain that he earns his place in my T20 Cup team of the decade. In his spell as skipper, Sussex won more than 70% of their fixtures, which is quite an achievement!

Alfonso Thomas and Dmitri Mascarenhas are another two men who have sought the T20 dollar around the world, but some of their best performances have come in the English game. Primarily bowlers, they have 157 wickets between them and while the 'Fons' is famous for his superb 'death' bowling', the Hampshire all-rounder has been an excellent one for strangling batsmen in mid-innings. He was instrumental in his county's triumph last season. The Somerset evergreen's 33 wickets in 2010 remains a competition record. My final two are Warwickshire's Neil Carter and Glamorgan's spin wizard Robert Croft. Both played as pinch-hitters in their latter days and Carter in particular averaged a strike rate of 139 over a period of 91 matches. Before departing in 2012, each snared more than 80 T20 Cup victims, too.

Others who came close to selection include Ali Brown, David Hussey, Brad Hodge, Jimmy Adams, Yasir Arafat and Samit Patel but I reckon the above eleven have contributed more than most during the period of the Twenty20 Cup in all of its sponsored guises. If one gets slogged, bring on another. Six wickets down after ten overs, or fifty ruins to get in the last three? Never fear, this lot bat all the way down to eleven. Even if Murali, Kohli, Gayle and co had seen more or indeed any action in this tournament, they may have struggled to displace the likes of Crofty, Stevens or Tres.

Cricketing Honours and 2012 Farewells

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.

Happy retirement, Robert Croft!

I recall writing a few years ago to commemorate Robert Croft's 1000 County Championship wickets for Glamorgan and now this is to mark the fact that the Welsh spin wizard has finally called time on his playing career at the age of 42 after 23 years.

It seems remarkable that fifteen years have elapsed since he played the first of his 21 Tests for England (more 'a British Lion') and eleven since his last. He took only 49 wickets but he was never a really attacking bowler, and it wasn't usually his role in the England side. Thde 1996-2001 period wasn't the nation's finest and he wasn't often on the winning side, whether in tests or ODIs. However, he did retire from internationals with the wicket of Ricky Ponting in his prime!

Of course, Robert Croft will be remembered more for as a staunch Welshman and stalwart professional with Glamorgan through some of the county's finest hours, including a few successful seasons as captain. As well as capturing well over 1600 wickets in all competitions, he re-invented himself as a useful late-order batsman and one-day pinch-hitter. A career first-class batting average of 25 is excellent for somone whose primary role was as a slow bowler, and he struck eight centuries, as well as four in one-day cricket.

In 2012 his appearances for Glamorgan were more spasmodic but he was his typical economic self in Glamorgan's T20 campaign then, given an opportunity to bow out in the last two Championship matches, he played a major part in the side's unexpected rout of promotion hopefuls Kent, taking 5-31 in the first innings and the last wicket to fall in the second.

He didn't look particularly happy as he received the plaudits and awards on the pitch at Sophia Gardens, but then Robert Croft's face never seemed made for smiles and laughter! I'm sure he will be happy to reflect on a wonderful career at Glamorgan and ambassador for Welsh cricket generally. NO doubt that will remain a big part of his new role trying to bring on future talent at the county. If Glamorgan unearth a new Robert Croft they will all be laughing.

Danish Kaneria: 1000 Wickets

These days it's rare for a bowler to notch up 1000 first-class wickets. In recent times, of the big names, only Warne, Murali and Kumble achieved this milestone but in modern times of central contracts and the shift from Tests to one-dayers, the landmark will become even harder to reach. A few years ago, the veteran Glamorgan spinner Robert Croft did it, since advancing to 1152, with more than the thousand in the County Championship alone. Today, a fellow slow bowler, Danish Kaneria became the second man still playing to join the 1000 Club.

For some reason he never really transferred domestic form into the international arena, but this has probably helped him accumulate even more victims. What undoubtedly made the real difference was his stints with Essex. For several seasons he was one of the most reliable wicket-takers in the County Championship, especially in the second half of the summer. Without seasons in the English sun, I don't think any player in recent history has got close to the 1000 mark. In days gone by, perennial contracts with Gloucestershire and Hampshire pushed Courtney Walsh and Malcolm Marshall way beyond even 1500 wickets. Mushtaq Ahmed ended his career on 1407. Sadly, Dominic Cork retired in 2011 just eleven short.

The current leading Test wicket-taker is Harbhajan Singh, with 406. However, he has only 279 in other first-class games to add to that tally. Zaheer Khan is on the verge of taking his 600th scalp while all those pre-England years on the county circuit have propelled Graeme Swann to 605. Such figures are well short of the totals amassed by other veterans of the English seasons. Lancashire's captain Glenn Chapple leads the way on 837, closely followed by Kaneria's successor at Essex, Charl Willoughby on 827. Another county stalwart Jon Lewis is on 798, and both Matthew Hoggard, Chaminda Vaas and Yasir Arafat have high hopes of nudging 800 next year.

However, it's not all about county cricket. True, the paucity of first-class domestic cricket means that Australians and South Africans rarely score huge volumes of first-class runs or take shedloads of wickets, at least not on home soil. India and Pakistan offer more opportunities, and it was playing for Habib Bank that Danish Kaneria captured his 1000th scalp. Indeed, I've had this article on ice for three weeks, when I spotted he was on 999. Having missed the last two fixtures I was relieved that Kaneria was back in the side, and Fahad Iqbal of PIA was clean bowled to give him that elusive number 1000. The leg-spinner has in the past few years suffered more than his fair share of injuries and fallen foul of match-fixing allegations (since dropped) and the Pakistan cricket board, but who hasn't?! However, at the age of 31 (almost), he must surely have time to take hundreds more. Nevertheless, it really is difficult to see where the next 1000-up first-class wicket-taker will come from.