10 less gifted cricketers who became legends

3. Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Shivnarine Chanderpaul didn’t get the farewell he so deserved. But then, life could be harsh if your stance is one of the ugliest ever in cricket.

Chanderpaul always played second fiddle to the dazzling brilliance of Brian Lara but still almost overtook him in career runs. Almost. That has been the story of arguably West Indies’ most responsible and least attractive batsman who racked up 11867 runs, a lot of which came in losing causes or in tough, critical situations with collapses at the other end.

There is the small matter of 49 not outs to go with the tally too. Not surprisingly then, West Indies are already missing him.

4. Glenn McGrath

Glenn McGrath

The lanky Australian didn’t have express pace. He was medium pace at the best of times, operating between 130-135 kmph. He didn’t have the big curving outswinger that someone like Allan Donald had. He couldn’t crank it up on demand like how Curtly Ambrose could.

Despite all his drawbacks, though, McGrath was still the most outstanding seam bowler of his era and that was because of his unrelenting accuracy. If you placed the nib of a fountain pen on the cricket pitch, McGrath, I’m pretty sure, would have hit it six out of six balls. He was a machine.

The most successful fast bowler in cricket’s history with 563 wickets, McGrath operated within his constraints, hardly giving anything away and rarely losing his patience. He might say, “That, my kids, is how I achieved excellence!”