In recent years, though, county cricket is being seen by Indian cricketers as a platform to iron out the chinks, find lost form and grab national selectors' attention. That's what Zaheer Khan achieved against Worcestershire in 2006 and that's what Gautam Gambhir hopes to accomplish at Essex this season. Even leg-spinner Piyush Chawla will be hoping his Somerset stint boosts his career.
India's most successful county cricketers:
Farokh Engineer (Lancashire): Arguably India's most successful county cricketer ever. The wicketkeeper-batsman played alongside Clive Lloyd between 1968-76. Scored a hurricane 141 against Derbyshire in 1971.
Bishan Singh Bedi (Northamptonshire): The left-arm spinner played with a high degree of success, scalping an impressive 434 wickets between 1972-77.
Dilip Doshi (Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire): The left-arm spinner enjoyed a decent run with the midland counties, Notts (1973-78) and Warwick (1980-81), claiming 303 wickets in 87 first-class games. His son, Nayan Doshi, has played for Derbyshire and Surrey.
Ravi Shastri (Glamorgan): Played for the Welsh county for four seasons beginning 1987. Scored over 1,000 runs in 1989; a year earlier he had also earned the Sunday League award for hitting the highest number of sixes (14) in the season.
Mohammad Azharuddin (Derbyshire): Smashed 2016 runs in 1991, with 7 tons. It wasn't just the runs but the way he scored them that fans still fondly recall.
Murali Karthik (Lancashire, Middlesex, Somerset and Surrey): The Railways left-arm spinner is the most successful Indian cricketer in the county circuit, turning out for four counties over eight years since 2005. He was the first overseas player to claim 10 wickets on debut for Lancashire against Essex.
The wrong one
Uday Joshi (Sussex): A left-arm spinner, Joshi played 88 matches for Sussex between 1970-74. His county coach Les Lenham once said, "He gives it such a tweak that you can actually hear the ball hum and buzz through the air." In 2012, Joshi was sentenced to six years for sexual abuse of a kid in 1979.
Notable mentions
Sunil Gavaskar (Somerset), Kapil Dev (Northamptonshire), Anil Kumble (Surrey, Leicester, Northamptonshire), Javagal Srinath (Gloucestershire, Leicestershire), Sourav Ganguly (Lancashire), Sachin Tendulkar (Yorkshire), Rahul Dravid (Kent), Virender Sehwag (Leicestershire), Zaheer Khan (Worcestershire), S Sreesanth (Warwickshire), Harbhajan Singh (Essex), Pragyan Ojha (Surrey).
0 comments:
Post a Comment