Toast Mushie but raise a glass to the true greats
No sooner had Mushtaq Ahmed announced his retirement from English cricket last week than the tributes poured like vintage hock
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
No sooner had Mushtaq Ahmed announced his retirement from English cricket last week than the tributes poured like vintage hock. "Mushtaq Ahmed, the finest Sussex player ever" it was said, followed by another toast to "the finest of all overseas players". Michael Henderson, in the Guardian, too lauds Mushie for his feats but disagrees that he was finest ever. After sifting through a list of county legends, he lists five of his best.
Procter is one of the five men I submit for consideration. He gets in because English spectators saw him at his best over a decade, and best in his case means being one of the most supremely gifted - and watchable - all-round cricketers the world has known.
In the same paper, Paul Collingwood talks of the circumstances which led him quitting the captaincy and how the decision has changed his life.
"You're always being judged as captain and as hard as you try not to read or listen to what people say, it eventually gets back to you. I tried to laugh everything off but it seeps through and hurts. But that is what being captain of the England cricket team is about. Along with being manager of the England football team it is the most scrutinised job a sportsman in this country can have."
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo