5 Players who changed the game of cricket for ever

Everyone has the potential to really accomplish something in life. Some people get entangled in the intricacies and give up without giving their full, while some others keep fighting till their very last breath. The ones that make use of their potential achieve the purpose for which they were sent to the earthly realm.

A very rare breed of individuals fully use their potential to the fullest and make a difference by revolutionising the field they work in. The same is the case in cricket.

Many great players come and go, but only a very of them make a difference and change the way the game is played altogether. And here are 5 such players:

Sir Vivian Richards

A statue of Sir Vivian Richards outside the main grandstand entrance in Antigua

The original king of aggressive batsmen. Before his arrival, batting was basically all about playing the overs out and hoping for a decent 3-4 runs per over run-rate in limited overs cricket. And then along came this gum-chewing phenomenon, and everything changed.

The mark of good batting in limited overs cricket these days is to have scored more runs than the number of balls faced. And it was Sir Viv Richards who started this trend. Batting in the top-middle order, he wreaked havoc by taking the attack to the bowlers and hitting them all over the park.

He never showed any sign of being intimated by long run-ups and blistering bowling speeds. In fact, it was his batting that became the cause of sleepless nights for many bowlers back in the day.

His fearless style of batting was one of the biggest reasons for West Indies’ dominance in the 70s. Most remember West Indies for their pace bowling attack of the time, but it was Richards’ swashbuckling batting style that gave confidence to the rest of his team-mates – and shattered that of the opponent’s.

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Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram bowls for Pakistan in 1990

Pace bowling was all about pace before Wasim Akram’s arrival. The emphasis was on speed more than anything – to dent the confidence of batsmen with rib-crunching bowling speeds. Line-length and swing were also important, but they were like adornments – pace was the main criteria on which bowlers were judged.

And then this man from Pakistan showed us how the ‘line-length’ approach with balanced swing is more useful than just raw pace.

It was not that Akram wasn’t quick himself, he was. But he could have bowled a lot quicker if he wanted to, but he sacrificed pace to have the right combination of swing and speed. Almost every ball he threw swung, it was as though the balls had magnets embedded in them.

The way he placed his fingers over the ball and the angle with which he threw it made sure that the ball swung before pitching and cut after. To this day, many bowlers use this technique and have reaped high rewards off it. Irfan Pathan, at one stage, gave the impression that he was going to master this technique, but bowlers like Akram of course don’t come so easily.

Shane Warne

Shane Warne bows to the crowd during Ashes 2007

Bowling leg spinners isn’t as easy as Shane Warne made it look like. In fact, finding good leg spinners in itself is a daunting task. A look around the current crop of players in world cricket and we can see that not a single leg-spinner can be labelled as world-class.

The biggest problem with bowling leggies is knowing where to drop it and how to drop it. Whether to throw it flat or to give flight. Turning the ball is also more hard-earned for a leg spinner as it requires a strong wrist and technique.

Shane Warne, however, is like the God in this aspect. Or was one. He spun the ball to gigantic angles, but that wasn’t all. He gave enough flight to it to make sure the batsmen fell for it and committed to their shots early, leaving them embarrassed after the ball pitched and left them reeling.

Few bowlers can replicate what he did. Stuart MacGill was the only one who came closest to – or even probably bettered – his technique, but was unfortunate to have played in the same era as Warne.

That doesn’t, however, change the fact that the Australian inspired a lot of bowlers around the world to bowl leg spin. And the next world class leg spinner will most likely have his technique stamped on it.

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Adam Gilchrist

Adam Gilchrist playing for Australia in 2008

Cricket is a game of 11 men as we all know. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is the role of the wicketkeeper, and Adam Gilchrist is the man who is the reason for that.

Before his arrival, a wicketkeeper was someone who was good at standing behind the wickets, his batting skills were secondary. It was like 6 batsmen, 4 bowlers and 1 wicketkeeper. The wicketkeeper didn’t need to be good at batting to be selected in the team.

But all that changed after Adam Gilchrist came into the scene. Not only was he a great batsman, but he was also as destructive as one could be. With a strike rate of over 80 in Tests and 90 in ODIs, one can clearly understand that he wasn’t someone who would wait for a bad ball to hit it across the boundary.

A player like him – and a wicketkeeper that too – would be hard to find. He single-handedly won numerous games for the Aussies and is, till date, their greatest ever wicketkeeper batsmen ever.

Sanath Jayasuriya

Sanath Jayasuriya playing for Sri Lanka during the 2007 World Cup

Once upon a time, opening batsmanship was all about being cautious and playing out the initial overs without losing wickets so that the middle order batsmen could build on it and launch the innings to achieve a respectable total.

But then things changed when Sanath Jayasuriya came walked onto a cricket field.

No longer was opening about being cautious. Now, it was about smacking the ball over the fielders and exploiting the fielding restrictions. Jayasuriya didn’t give one care about where the ball was pitched, all he cared for was about hitting the ball out of the park.

Be it the off side or the leg side, his bat was like an all-consuming magic wand that ripped the ball – and hearts – of bowlers apart. These days, aggressive opening batting is a very common sight – more common than signing with auto-tune – and the Sri Lankan is the man to be thanked for that.