But more than that, he seems the perfect channel for England's narrative in ODIs: he's probably the team's most totemic member. If any opposing coach is giving a talk about playing England and he has to describe both their strengths and their weaknesses, he should probably just display a picture of the man. Everyone would get what he meant.
In that spirit, I closed my eyes, thought of each of the other major ODI nations, and wrote down the first player that came to mind:
India: Sachin Tendulkar
Sri Lanka: Sanath Jayasuriya
Pakistan: Shahid Afridi
West Indies: Chris Gayle
Australia: Ricky Ponting
South Africa: Mark Boucher
New Zealand: Scott Styris [weird, I know]
Bangladesh: Mashrafe Mortaza
Strange, but it kind of works...
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2 comments:
This is very good, OB. A sort of personification word-association.
Could we also describe them with 7 dwarf-type names? eg.
Sri Lanka: Loopy
West Indies: Sloppy
Australia: Flinty
South Africa: Flaky
New Zealand: Ballsy
Pakistan: Schizo
England: Plodder
Kind of agree with that theory. Not a player to have opposition coaches trembling with fear, honest, hard working, can do the business on his day, but ultimately not fit to drink at the top table - as just five centuries in 171 ODI's would testify.
It does kind of sum up the England ODI team.
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