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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