Unknown cricketers who share names with great cricketers
May 3, 2016 at 8:40 PM
Cricket is blessed with legends who define the game with their own way. As they made the game look beautiful their deeds were also paid back by cricket and its fans. They retired and some of them even died but their names are written in golden words in the pages of cricket history. But in the same name or in the same surname there are many cricketers who played the game but only the great players earned the reputation around the world when their namesake finished the game as an unknown bloke.
Here are the players.
Charlie Griffith
He is one of the great fast bowlers of West Indies cricket’s heydays. The Barbadian produced some of the lightning fast spells in the 1960s. But Griffith got two of his low-key namesake in Kenneth Charlie Griffith Benjamin from Antigua who played 26 Test and ODI matches respectively for West Indies. His parent probably named him after great Charlie Griffith for their love for the latter. The pair also had an almost similar Test career as Charlie took 94 wickets in 28 matches and Kenny 92 wickets in 26 matches.
Ramprakash
When well-known English cricketer Mark Ramprakash made his debut in 1991 in international cricket then there was Bhaskaran Ramprakash, three years older, who was a Ranji Trophy regular for Kerala for a dozen years. He hit 152 against Tamil Nadu in November 1991, but that was his only century.
Ijaz Ahmed
Ijaz Ahmed was a member of Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup winning side: a busy batsman who scored 22 international centuries despite peculiar batting stance, he also surprised a few players with some sub-Akram left arm skidders. He played 60 Test and 250 ODI matches.
But this one usually referred as “junior”, although they are not related, was an off-spinning all-rounder from Faisalabad. Sadly, in the matches they played together in 1996 and 1997 tour Down Under.
Alec Bedser
There was one carbon copy of the great Surrey and England bowler Alec Bedser, in the form of his identical twin Eric, who played alongside him for years at The Oval. Legend has it that they flipped a coin to see which one would bowl medium pace and which one would wake up off-spin and Alec won the toss: he went on to take more than 200 Test wickets in a glittering international career while Eric never did get a Test call. But another Alec Bedser played a few first-class matches for Border in South Africain the 1970s and spookily he had a twin brother called Eric too.
Yuvraj Singh
The Indian match winner left-hander Yuvraj Singh was born in Chandigarh in 1981, the following year Yuvraj Surendra Singh was born in Jodhpur. He was a handy cricketer who opening the bowling for Rajasthan;s U 16 side, although he didn’t ‘train on’. When Yuvraj Singh played an instrumental role and won World Cup and World T20 for Indian Yuvraj Surendra Singh never played for India. Surendra Singh one of the teammates who did, the wicketkeeper Dishant Yagnik played for Rajasthan.
G Sobers
There is a mind blowing story behind world’s arguably the greatest allrounder former West Indian cricketer Garry Sobers had an elder brother called Gerry, who sadly died in 2011. In 1964 both of them turned out for Norton, in the North Staffordshire League, and Gerry-playing as an amateur-pipped his brother, the club pro, in the batting averages.
The story goes in Barbados that when Garry was called up to play the island against the 1952-53 Indian tourists, aged only 16, the selectors actually meant to ask Gerry. “If that’s the case,” says Sir Garry, “it could have been our sister, Greta, as she is G Sobers as well…”
Younis Khan
There is the elegant and hardworking Pakistani batsman who made a century on Test debut, not to mention 313 against Sri Lanka a couple of years ago then there was a Younis Khan of Germany, who scored 13 and took a wicket against Gibraltar in 2001 ICC Trophy in Canada.
S Ganguly
Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly who revolutionized the game in India and is the most successful Indian captain as he won most number Test matches in overseas countries. His cover reminiscent us about David Gower and current day’s Virat Kohli. An aggressive and talented southpaw who played 100 Test matches and more than 300 ODIs is among the gems of India.
Before Sourav’s entry to international cricket, his elder brother Snehasish Ganguly was a good batsman. He played for Bengal but his career never poised like his younger brother Sourav Ganguly. Snehasish Ganguly played 59 first class matches.
Bradman
There was a batsman who name resembles cricket’s first legend, Don Bradman. A left-handed batsman with the exotic name Prince Bradman Ediriweera played a lot of first-class cricket in Sri Lanka, scoring 12 centuries –the highest, 154 for Colombo Cricket Club against Sebastian in January 1998. But his eventual first class average 33.01 was less than a third of the real things.
Muralitharan
The Sri Lankan spinner Muralitharan is the greatest off spinner cricket ever seen. Batsmen are thankful that no second Murali has emerged yet. But wait, what about Drawin Muralitharan of Malaysia? He bowls slow left arm orthodox and was described as “an exciting prospect from Penang” during an Asian Cricket Council Under-19 tournament in 2005 – possibly after he took 5 for 5 to skittle the mighty Maldives for 84 in Kathmandu. But even Google doesn’t divulge how flexible Darwin’s wrists are.
Tendulkar
For more than two decades cricket is dominated by a little batsman from Mumbai Sachin Tendulkar. There is only one Tendulkar you might think, but no: there is also Chandrakanth Tendulkar of Goa, who played five first-class matches in the 1980s but averaged an un-Tendulkar 9.00, with the highest score of 38. The Tamil Nadu bowlers Peter Lobo and AP Sureshkumar have probably dined out on the fact that they got Tendulkar out for a duck – just don’t ask them which one. And the recent inclusion is Sachin Baby of Royal Challengers Bangalore.