3 Cricketers who deserve to play Test Cricket

There are many cricketers who are playing for associate ICC teams, but deserve to play for test playing nations. There are a lot of players, but given below are players who deserve to play for test-playing nations.

1. Ryan ten Doeschate:

Associate Player of the Year 2010

The recently concluded ICC awards named Ryan Ten Doeschate ‘the Best Associate Player’. It was his third award, and he beat Hamid Hassan, the all rounder from Afghanistan and the Irish duo of Kevin O’ Brien and Paul Stirling. Both the Irish men had a century each in the ICC cricket World Cup 2010 which was conducted in India. Kevin ‘O’ Brien famously single handedly won the game for the Irish team against England at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

In the voting period, Doeschate averaged a little above 61, and scored 2 centuries and a half century. The voting period ranged from August 11, 2010 to August 3, 2011.

He is also the only player from an associate nation to play in IPL franchise – he plays for Kolkata Knight Riders. His all-round skills for Essex impressed the management of Kolkata, which included him in their squad for IPL season 4. He is an above-par medium pacer and an excellent fielder, and has 55 wickets from 33 ODI matches at an average of 24, and 162 wickets from 86 first class matches – an excellent stat for an all-rounder from an associate nation.

In a warm up match prior to 2007 World Cup, he took 5 wickets against the strong Indian batting line up. The wickets included that of Virender sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni.

In the opening match of the 2009 ICC T20 World Cup, Doeschate scored a quick 22 runs and remained Not Out and also picked up the wickets of Luke Wright and Ravi Bopara, which eventually led to the shock defeat of mighty english team.

In the 2006 Intercontinental Cup he scored 259* and finished the tournament with an extra-ordinary average of 228. He also bettered the previous highest score score by an associate player, which was held by David Hemp. In the same competition, he also finished the leading wicket taker of Netherlands cricket team.

2. Arul Suppiah:

Arul Suppiah – More to him than meets the eye

He plays for Somerset County Club and has also represented England at Junior levels,but chose his parents’ country i.e Malaysia to represent at international level. At the age of 15, he became the youngest cricketer to play for Malaysia. He has taken a hat-trick while bowling against Singapore, and made his county debut for Lancashire.

In 2005 he represented Somerset and led his team to victory in Twenty20 Cup in 2005,though his performance was average.On 5th July 2011 in a match against Glamorgan at Cardiff, Suppiah recorded world record figures of 6 for 5 in 3.4 overs for Somerset, bowling his side to victory. His impressive bowling performance was followed by a marvelous 156* inning against India.

3. Kevin O’ Brien

Kevin O’Brien – Ireland’s star all-rounder

Kevin O’Brien holds an impressive record of scoring the fastest century in World Cup – in mere 50 balls against England. In 2009 he represented Nottinghamshire, and in 2011 he represented Gloucestershire in county cricket. He is also known as a partnership breaker, with his wicket to wicket medium fast bowling. He belongs to a sporting family of Ireland, with his father(Brendan) and brother(Niall) already having represented the Irish cricket team, and sister Ciara having played for Irish Women’s Hockey Team.

He came into prominence when he single- handedly led Ireland to quarter final victory against Australia in the 2004 ICC Under-19 World Cup. He finished the tournament with 241 runs. In Ireland’s first official ICC cricket match against England, he took 1-48 in 10 overs bowling first, dismissing Andrew Strauss with his first international delivery. In 2009 T20 World Cup, he was the architect of Ireland’s victory against Bangladesh.

He was one of six players to be awarded contracts with Cricket Ireland. In 2010, O’Brien was again nominated for the Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year Award, along with 2 more Irish players, but eventually lost to Ryan Ten Doeschate.

Edited by Kiran Vr