Ages ago i started a 5 most important cricketer series.
But by the time i was half way through i already disagreed with my selections.
This one is not so much about the future of cricket, but about the here and now.
These are the guys that are leading cricket right now, forget about old men like Ponting and Tendulkar, these are the men.
Mitchell Johnson
Bats like bowling all rounders are supposed to; bowls like left armers almost never do; and has gone from a run leaking vanity project to the most explosive player on earth in one year. I’m not sure how.
Three players on the planet can make test hundreds and bowl at over 90 miles per hour. The other two are older, slower, and injury proner. Is Australia’s most important player by so far no one can work out who is the second most important.
When Dennis Lillee said he was a once in a generation player, did he mean as an all rounder?
Jesse Ryder
Prince Brendan McCullum may get the big IPL bucks, he might have the body art, and be the marquee player for New Zealand, but Jesse is the marquee.
Jesse is 6 tests into a career and is already carving India’s ‘way better than average’ bowling attack. Likes making runs under pressure, takes the odd wicket and seems to inspire his team mates. It’s too early to put him on this list, and yet here he is.
Keep him out of the pub and New Zealand have a messiah.
Virender Sehwag
Considered a novelty act for a great deal of his career, but only by troglodytes. Sehwag was the real deal even when internal politics kept him out of the Indian side.
Since returning in Perth, Sehwag has started to damage bowling attacks with a special brand of religious intent (Sehwagology). The problem with getting him out is that you still have to go through the best batting line up in cricket, the problem with not getting him out is he can make 300 at better than a run a ball.
There is no test batsman who can win a game, or produce a bowlers mental breakdown, quicker than this man.
Kevin Pietersen
No matter where you stand on KP, complete wanker or batting stylist par excellence, fewer cricketers are more engaging on or off the field. The world’s highest paid cricketer (we don’t count Freddie, you don’t get paid for being injured) is still the prize wicket of the English team, and is box office in every way.
Australia will know that if they can keep him quiet in the ashes, on the field (no one can keep him quiet off it), they will go along way to winning. He is 45% of the reason Lalit Modi wanted English players in the IPL.
Cricket’s David Beckham, and I mean that as a compliment and a slur.
Dale Steyn
Probably not the fastest bowler on the planet, but no one takes wickets at a quicker rate. Wrestles crocodiles in his spare time, and often has a weird shadow on his top lip.
Does seem to be very hit and miss, but is still young enough to get away with it. When he takes wickets, they seem to come in large bags and he looks on top of the world, for a great deal of the rest of the time he looks flat and bored.
Not the prettiest boy in the band, but the only one who can really sing.
