What are the first names that come to mind when you talk about the England team, irrespective of formats? Joe Root, James Anderson, Ben Stokes. Also, Jos Buttler and Alex Hales.
As the Three Lions prepare to spend yet another month in the Antipodes – England’s tour down under began in October and will end in April – the one player who has delivered almost every time he has worn an England jersey is a bloke who made his international bow at 30.
Dawid Malan will most likely spend close to the entire seven-month duration with the team. He did not play the ODI series in Australia which England won 4-1 to avenge, to an extent, the Ashes drubbing. But in the nine international matches he has played (five Ashes Tests and four T20s in New Zealand), Malan has scored three fifties and a century in red ball cricket and three T20 fifties.
By comparison, Hales scored a solitary fifty from nine limited-overs matches. Not only did Malan prove to be a more reliable batsman irrespective of the format, opposition or venue, his leg spin has emerged as a wicket-taking option. In what turned out to be the final game of the T20 tri-series for England, Malan produced three wicket-taking deliveries before dismissing the well-set Martin Guptill towards the end of the chase on Sunday. He was hit for three sixes before getting a wicket midway through his second over, but Malan showed enough guile with his leg spin and finely disguised googly to give England a limited-overs slow bowling option.
Leg-spinner Adil Rashid is the first-choice white ball wrist spinner for England but Malan is not too bad a second option.
Virat Kohli gets a perfect 10 in India’s report-card after historic South Africa ODI triumph
And Malan is not the only unassuming, hard-working bloke who has offered his side a lot more than many of the more flamboyant members of the team.
Bhuvi picked up five in the first T20 against SA.
When you talk about the India side, regardless of formats, the names that are talked about first invariably are Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and so on. The hair style and hair colour of all-rounder Hardik Pandya attract as much attention as his performance on the field.
But if you look at India’s tour of South Africa, the one player – apart from captain Virat Kohli – who has proved to be of immense value is Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The Uttar Pradesh seamer had an outstanding Test series where he picked up 10 wickets in two Tests and batted with great resolve against extreme pace on some dicey wickets for scores of 25, 13*, 30 and 33. He had a poor first ODI against the Proteas where he went for 71 runs and remained on the expensive side as India registered a historic ODI series win. But he got right back into the thick of things, finishing with 5-24 in the opening T20 against the Proteas.
While players like Pandya and Rohit will most likely hog the limelight, the Bhuvneshwar Kumars of the world are the glue that hold teams together over the long run.
Maybe you don’t need to have flamboyant techniques, crazy hairstyles or elaborate tattoos to get the job done on the cricket field.
