The writing was pretty much on the wall (pun completely intended) as six of his last eight dismissals have come by way of being clean bowled. As soon as Rahul Dravid announced that he was to hold a press conference today, it wasn't difficult to guess what was coming. After 164 Test matches, 344 ODIs, 24,000 patiently gathered runs, an astonishing number of catches and, lest we forget, 14 stumpings, The Wall has retired.
One of the true greats, he seemed happy to let Sachin Tendulkar get the headlines, to remain stoic at one end while Virender Sehwag go batshit insane at the other, but he was no less important to that Dream Team of the last decade and more. Moreover, he seemed to shun the limelight away from the field of play. Not for him the armed entourage of SRT, nor the front page headlines when he had a haircut a la MS Dhoni. No swagger or sneer (here's looking at you, Yuvraj), no theatrics, pantomime villainry or Billy Big-bollocks type behaviour. The term 'role model' always sits uneasily when referring to sportsmen, but here is one. He would do anything for the team, including keeping wicket and opening in times of emergency. Team before self every time and, as such, it's difficult to avoid the feeling that his contribution has always been under-appreciated. It began to get the recognition it deserved towards the end of his career, especially in that tour of England when he was the outstanding player of the series, despite being on the end of a 4-0 whitewash.
It remains something of a grotesque legacy that he will continue to play in the pantomime/circus environs of the IPL, his game the absolute antithesis of what t20 cricket stands for, but hey ho. Everyone has to earn a living, right? It also remains a bizarre statistical anomaly that he both made his international t20 debut and announced his international t20 retirement on the same day, a long way north of his 38th birthday.
Of that Dream Team, Saurav Ganguly went some time ago and Dravid has now followed. VVS Laxman surely can't have much longer and Sehwag and Tendulkar are hardly young men. There seems to have been a lack of succession planning and while the like of Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina look good fleetingly in one-dayers, their lack of Test credentials have been horribly exposed by both England and Australia while Gautam Gambhir can only be relied upon outside of the wedding season. The retirement of Dravid denies the younger players the rock around which they can build an innings. They're going to have to start thinking for themselves.
So long, The Wall. If only the next generation of Indian batsmen had cojones like yours.
Showing posts with label retirement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retirement. Show all posts
Friday, 9 March 2012
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Flintoff quits
News today that following his latest in a long line of knee operations, Andrew Flintoff has retired from all cricket. It's hardly a surprise that it's happened - if anything, the surprise is that it's taken this long to finally make the call. He now looks set for a media career where his carefully honed jack-the-lad image will no doubt work for him.
With all the drunken hoonery at Trafalgar Square and the pedalo incident, there's reason for forgetting there was a pretty good cricketer underneath it all. Like most of his generation of England player, the high-water mark of his career was the 2005 Ashes. At this point, everyone thought the world was his for the taking. However, injuries were mounting and a disastrous spell in charge of England, losing the Ashes 5-0, didn't do him any favours. But to over-analyse his career would be to miss the point. He emptied bars; people wanted to watch him. Grounds around the world weren't big enough if he connected and everyone loves a 90+ mph bowler, especially one as whole-hearted as him. The highlights reel has plenty of candidate footage, but we'll leave you with this, perhaps his finest hour:
With all the drunken hoonery at Trafalgar Square and the pedalo incident, there's reason for forgetting there was a pretty good cricketer underneath it all. Like most of his generation of England player, the high-water mark of his career was the 2005 Ashes. At this point, everyone thought the world was his for the taking. However, injuries were mounting and a disastrous spell in charge of England, losing the Ashes 5-0, didn't do him any favours. But to over-analyse his career would be to miss the point. He emptied bars; people wanted to watch him. Grounds around the world weren't big enough if he connected and everyone loves a 90+ mph bowler, especially one as whole-hearted as him. The highlights reel has plenty of candidate footage, but we'll leave you with this, perhaps his finest hour:
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Vaughan calls time on illustrious career
Reports are emerging today that Michael Vaughan will announce his retirement after the Yorkshire v Derbyshire match at Headingley. It's a slightly ignominious end to his career, but stats rarely lie in cricket and the numbers just don't stack up any more.
While the 2005 Ashes may have been his career peak as a captain, the series in Australia in 2002/3 was undoubtedly his peak as a batsman. The career best 197 in Adelaide was a sparkling innings made in the style which, from his early days with Yorkshire seconds, was his trademark; all flourishing cuts, effortless pulls and peerless drives, all conducted with grace and exquisite timing.
Internationally, he first gave notice of his ability in the under-19s where he opened alongside a left-handed biffer by the name of Marcus Trescothick, one year his junior, and the pair's international careers would develop alongside one another. However, where the much publicised mental problems eventually did for Trescothick's international career, with Vaughan it was physical. A succession of knee injuries robbed him of his best years as a Test batsman and, though his captaincy skills were worth a healthy amount of runs in the field, the combined effect of the persistent problems and the burden of captaincy diminished his prowess with the willow.
In the lead up to the crowning glory that was the 2005 Ashes, England embarked on a long winning run, whitewashing the West Indies and New Zealand and beating South Africa on their own patch. The Ashes were won using just twelve players - and Paul Collingwood only played one match - but that group of players would never play together again with Vaughan being the prime casualty. Though he'd return as skipper of the one-day side, his prowess was never in the shorter forms of the game, a fact made clear in that a batsman of his quality never made an ODI hundred. He quit the one-day scene, but stayed on in charge of the Test side, passing Peter May's record of 20 wins to become the most successful England captain of all time. The runs, however, were drying up and he quit the post in 2008. The fact that England have struggled to find even a half-decent captain since then - though Andrew Strauss is doing OK for now - is testament to the standards he set. He finished with 5,719 Test runs at 41.44 with 18 hundreds. His criminally underused bowling - he was a pretty useful off-spinner - brought him just six wickets at 93.5.
It seemed odd at the time when Vaughan was handed a central contract for the current year, but, forced to prove his worth on the county circuit, the scores haven't been there. No hundreds, only three times past 50, a total of 615 runs in 22 knocks at an average of under 30 is not the form of a Test player. Moreover, Ravi Bopara has taken his chance and made the number three spot his own.
It has to be one of the hardest things a professional sportsman can do and admit that it's over. Michael Vaughan makes that step today and the best of luck to him from here.
As a former England captain, he'll have no problem getting a commentary gig with Sky, unlike any professional verbalists, but that's a whole different story.
While the 2005 Ashes may have been his career peak as a captain, the series in Australia in 2002/3 was undoubtedly his peak as a batsman. The career best 197 in Adelaide was a sparkling innings made in the style which, from his early days with Yorkshire seconds, was his trademark; all flourishing cuts, effortless pulls and peerless drives, all conducted with grace and exquisite timing.
Internationally, he first gave notice of his ability in the under-19s where he opened alongside a left-handed biffer by the name of Marcus Trescothick, one year his junior, and the pair's international careers would develop alongside one another. However, where the much publicised mental problems eventually did for Trescothick's international career, with Vaughan it was physical. A succession of knee injuries robbed him of his best years as a Test batsman and, though his captaincy skills were worth a healthy amount of runs in the field, the combined effect of the persistent problems and the burden of captaincy diminished his prowess with the willow.
In the lead up to the crowning glory that was the 2005 Ashes, England embarked on a long winning run, whitewashing the West Indies and New Zealand and beating South Africa on their own patch. The Ashes were won using just twelve players - and Paul Collingwood only played one match - but that group of players would never play together again with Vaughan being the prime casualty. Though he'd return as skipper of the one-day side, his prowess was never in the shorter forms of the game, a fact made clear in that a batsman of his quality never made an ODI hundred. He quit the one-day scene, but stayed on in charge of the Test side, passing Peter May's record of 20 wins to become the most successful England captain of all time. The runs, however, were drying up and he quit the post in 2008. The fact that England have struggled to find even a half-decent captain since then - though Andrew Strauss is doing OK for now - is testament to the standards he set. He finished with 5,719 Test runs at 41.44 with 18 hundreds. His criminally underused bowling - he was a pretty useful off-spinner - brought him just six wickets at 93.5.
It seemed odd at the time when Vaughan was handed a central contract for the current year, but, forced to prove his worth on the county circuit, the scores haven't been there. No hundreds, only three times past 50, a total of 615 runs in 22 knocks at an average of under 30 is not the form of a Test player. Moreover, Ravi Bopara has taken his chance and made the number three spot his own.
It has to be one of the hardest things a professional sportsman can do and admit that it's over. Michael Vaughan makes that step today and the best of luck to him from here.
As a former England captain, he'll have no problem getting a commentary gig with Sky, unlike any professional verbalists, but that's a whole different story.
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