On Sunday night in the Caribbean, a group of players will be able to do something the likes of Sir Garry Sobers, Barry Richards, Denis Compton, Mike Proctor and even Sir Donald Bradman never could. They will call themselves cricket world champions.
The golden ages of cricket were often played out with little more at stake than pride, or the promise of expenses for the train fare. How Twenty20 has changed the landscape of cricket during its short lifespan. Now players can earn astronomical fees for three hours of hit-and-giggle cricket, as well as a medal to say they are the best in the world at it. If Tyron Henderson, one of the costliest flambes in the T20 pan, could command a price of US$650,000 (Dh2.3m) at auction, what might Sobers have earned? Here we pick a side from the annals of history who were old too soon for the T20 revolution, but who would surely have been stars in this arena. (With apologies to Sobers, Richards, Compton, Proctor and Bradman, you were too good for this format.)
Viv Richards (Windies) Richards retired more than a decade before T20 was first introduced to professional cricket, but he had been playing his own version of it for years anyway. There have been slower centuries hit in the 20-over format than the one the Antiguan master managed against England in 1986. His 56-ball masterpiece remains the fastest in Test history.
David Hookes (Australia) "Marshy's takin' wickets, Hookesy's clearin' pickets." So went C'mon Aussie, C'mon, the song penned to promote World Series Cricket in the late 1970s. Kerry Packer was so intent on landing the whizz-kid Hookes for his new tournament he granted him two-thirds of his fee in advance. Established stars such as the Chappell brothers had to make do with half. Mike Llewellyn (Glamorgan) Every successful T20 side needs its wildcard selection, a bolter from the backwaters. If big-hitting is the staple, then Llewellyn, a stocky Welshman who played 143 one-day matches but none at international level, is the man. He smashed John Emburey, the England spinner, on to the roof of the Lord's pavilion in a cup final in 1977.
Gordon Greenidge (Windies) Cuthbert, which is Greenidge's Christian name, seems more suited to the fops who are bullied by Dennis the Menace in The Beano. Yet for most of his 21-year career, Greenidge was the one doing the bullying. Rarely in the history of the game have new-ball attacks had the ball coming back at them as hard as when the Barbadian was on strike.
Graham Gooch (England) With a railway sleeper for a bat and a keen grasp of how beneficial a trip to the gym could be, Gooch was way ahead of his time, and set the mould for the T20 batsman. The Essex opener took England to their last major final in a limited-overs competition, and had a healthy average in excess of 42 in one-day internationals.
Albert Trott (Eng and Aus) Who needs Andrew Symonds when we have got Albert Trott? English/Australian identity crisis? Check. Regularly falls foul of selectors? Check. Crowd-pleaser? Check. Can hit the ball over the Lord's pavilion? Symonds has never got close to that feat, which Trott managed with one famous strike in 1899. And with an old-fashioned bat, too. Farokh Engineer (India) "He's mad," Engineer, the former India wicketkeeper, said of Shahid Afridi during a trip to Dubai in 2005. "I know he's mad, because he plays the sort of shots that only I would have tried." Engineer's modus operandi once brought him 94 before lunch in a Test against the Windies, and made him one of his era's most watchable players.
Kapil Dev (India) Shane Warne, the IPL captaincy king, deems the No 8 slot to be vital in T20 cricket. The four successive sixes Dev took from Eddie Hemmings to save the follow-on in the 1990 Lord's Test suggest he would have been perfectly suited to the role. Then there is the added bonus of his 434 Test wickets and World Cup winning leadership.
Gavin Larsen (N Zealand) Accepted wisdom has it that taking the pace off the ball is the key to stemming runs in limited-overs cricket. Larsen could probably run faster than he bowled it. With his slow-medium pacers, he had an economy rate of 3.75 per over in 121 ODIs for New Zealand, earning himself the nickname of "Postman", because he always delivered. Abdul Qadir (Pakistan) The presence of a mystery spinner is crucial in this format, and few have been more bewitching than the Lahori leg-spin legend. With more tricks than Houdini, and a competitive streak which once saw him wade into the crowd in the West Indies to settle an argument with a barracker, Qadir would have been a ideally suited to T20.
Joel Garner (West Indies) Despite all the innovation that abounds in T20 cricket, no one has yet come up with a convincing and fail-safe method for countering a perfectly delivered yorker. Garner was, arguably, the greatest ever exponent of the sand-shoe crusher. His five wickets for 38 against England in 1979 remain the best figures in a World Cup final. @Email:pradley@thenational.ae
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
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Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
The Specs
Engine 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 582bhp (542bhp in GTS model)
Torque: 730Nm
Price: Dh649,000 (Dh549,000 for GTS)
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
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Who is Allegra Stratton?
- Previously worked at The Guardian, BBC’s Newsnight programme and ITV News
- Took up a public relations role for Chancellor Rishi Sunak in April 2020
- In October 2020 she was hired to lead No 10’s planned daily televised press briefings
- The idea was later scrapped and she was appointed spokeswoman for Cop26
- Ms Stratton, 41, is married to James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator
- She has strong connections to the Conservative establishment
- Mr Sunak served as best man at her 2011 wedding to Mr Forsyth
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
The biog
Age: 23
Occupation: Founder of the Studio, formerly an analyst at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi
Education: Bachelor of science in industrial engineering
Favourite hobby: playing the piano
Favourite quote: "There is a key to every door and a dawn to every dark night"
Family: Married and with a daughter
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5