Ryan ten Doeschate has established himself as one of the finest cricketers ever produced by an Associate nation. Most notable in a long-standing career were two centuries at the 2011 World Cup, including an exhilarating 119 that almost stunned England. Reflecting his dominance, he won the ICC Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year Award three times between 2008 and 2011. Ten Doeschate also played five years for Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL - the first Associate player to gain such a contract.

Born in South Africa, ten Doeschate cited Jonty Rhodes as his hero, and has played for Western Province. He is of Dutch descent, though, enabling him to represent Netherlands and qualify under the European Citizenship law to play county cricket. With his huge hitting, skiddy bowling and big smile, he soon became a cult figure at Essex, where he has played for more than a decade.

The rise in Twenty20 leagues around the world came at a particularly good time for ten Doeschate. His combination of belligerent hitting, particularly to the leg side, and canny medium-pace have earned lucrative contracts not only in the IPL but also in Australia, Bangladesh, New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe. But after the 2011 World Cup, ten Doeschate appeared to lose interest in playing for the Netherlands, missing the 2012 and 2014 World Twenty20s.

Ten Doeschate's first-class batting average is in the high 40s and if he has cause for disappointment it is that his bowling has not developed as much as he would have liked, but whatever his achievements in the longer form of the game, he will always be viewed as a Twenty20 specialist. There were few players more immediately suited to the advent of the shorter form of the game and he invites the question how many more T20 stars exist beyond the main Test nations.

Essex spotted ten Doeschate playing for Western Province on a tour of South Africa in 2003. For a time, Gooch was his regular airport runner so he could play club cricket in Holland at a weekend. The following season, the second season of T20 in England, he signed full professional forms and gradually proved himself one of the finest Essex players of his era.

Success for Essex was frustratingly evasive during his career, and he was in the later stages of his career when he was appointed captain in succession to James Foster in 2016. Alongside a new coach, Chris Silverwood, he immediately led Essex back into Division One of the Championship, leading by example by averaging 64 with the bat with four hundreds and suitably scoring the runs that won promotion. He accepted a new two-year contract as he looked forward to first division life.

At 37, Essex finally brought fulfilment as he led them to their first Championship for 25 years - and first-ever, incidentally, without his old chauffeur, Gooch. Ten Doeschate suggested Essex had killed the "myth" that there was a huge gap between Divisions One and Two and remarked that "people make too much of a deal about cricket captaincy." But alongside the coaching pair of Silverwood and Anthony McGrath he built a culture at Essex that landed a punch for the smaller, non-Test counties. By then he could call himself "Essex through and through" and not hear a murmur of dissent.

Essex failed to defend their title, but at least ten Doeschate had the satisfaction of spearheading a victory in the last match of the 2018 season to prevent Surrey going unbeaten through the season, his unbeaten half-century bringing a nerve-tingling one-wicket victory that showed the Championship could still provide moments of high drama.

ESPNcricinfo staff