Cricket is a game that often resembles life in that there are many who justifiably get lavished with praise, while others who are worthy of the same limelight are often overlooked.

This is perfectly exemplified when any ‘best’ team is chosen, which is guaranteed to generate comments about who has been left out rather than who has been included.

The recently named ‘best ever’ team named by Cricinfo and ICC again exemplifies this, even though you cannot dispute the merits of the players named. So in honour of the payers who are constantly overlooked and under-appreciated, here is a collection of players that could aptly be named ‘The Forgotten Legends XI’.

Mahadevan Sathasivam (Sri Lanka)
Everyone who watched this Sri Lankan batsman play was left wide-eyed at the sublime mastery on display. He not only had all the spectators in raptures with his skill, but the style that he oozed while displaying his mastery made people wax lyrically about him.

‘His walk to the middle, with his cap at a rakish angle, had style. The nonchalant way he took guard, and his stance had style. His every movement had feline grace.’

‘Satha had the eye of a hawk, the wrists of a fencer and the feet of a dancer. All of it combined to make a Satha innings like a glass of bubbly champagne.’

These are the kinds of words that have been spoken time and again about the Sri Lankan genius.

At the same time, do not let his sublime manner fool you into believing he was merely a ‘pretty player’, for the boy could bat in a manner comparable to any. Credible judges like Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Frank Worrell have labelled him ‘the greatest batsman ever on earth.’

That may be a huge call, but it is in line with the wide-ranging view that the nature of the opposition was irrelevant to ‘Satha’. He had that Brian Lara-like quality of making good bowling attacks look distinctly average. It didn’t matter whether he hit off the back foot or the front foot, for when Satha decided to flay balls they would rocket to the pickets at the rate of knots.

His immense talent was in full view in 1947 at the Chepauk Stadium where he hit his majestic 215, which was regarded by many as the greatest innings seen at the ground.

Adding to the mystique of the knock was that when after the end of the first day, when he was unbeaten at 120, he decided to go out on an all-night bender of wine, women and song. He arrived bleary eyed the next morning, but still with enough of his senses intact to flay the bowling to all parts in completing his double ton.

Sathasivam’s extraordinary skills prompted this reaction from the accomplished Test spinner and Indian captain Ghulam Ahmed:

“I have bowled at Bradman, Harvey, Hutton, Denis Compton, Keith Miller, The Terrible Ws – Weekes, Worrel and Walcott. If you ask me who is the most difficult batsman that I have ever bowled to, I will mention a name that you (may) not know. He is M. Sathasivam of Ceylon. I will never forget how he thrashed me in Chennai.”

Satha sadly never got to play Test cricket, but you can rest assured that he would have been a master batsman in that forum as well.

Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji (India)
This was a batsman who changed the game forever with his innovations, taking the game from a predominantly offside game for batsmen to one where shots were hit all around the game. Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji was the first Indian player of note and was eternally honoured for his place in the game with the Indian first class competition, the Ranji Trophy, named in his honour.

And yet, despite these accolades, he is very much a forgotten legend.

Perhaps no cricketer in history has been as romanticised and sentimentalised as Ranjitsinhji. W. G. Grace had prophesied that there would not be a batsman like Ranji for a hundred years.

Ranjitsinhji revolutionised the late cut and was the inventor of the leg glance, a shot that he played with a dexterity and expertise that has seldom been replicated. To add a further feather in his cap, he is widely recognised as being the originator of the back foot defensive shot as well.

The ‘Prince’, gluttonous in his accumulation of runs and a notch above the rest during his time, was truly a master batsman.

Rohan Kanhai (West Indies)
The West Indies have had a cavalcade of batting stars from Headley and Sobers to Richards and Lara. These were all geniuses of the highest echelon, but one name that often gets overlooked while recounting the great West Indian batsmen is that of Rohan Kanhai.

Kanhai was a complete batsman and was lauded by his team mates and the opposition alike. His technique was pristine, but he was also ruthless, uncaring of the reputations of bowlers, and daring in his stroke play.

His trademark fall away sweep was one of the most breath-taking shots anyone could ever witness; he would go down on one knee and sweep the ball high into the long blue yonder with a ‘falling down’ motion.

Dominant against both spin and pace, Kanhai was indeed a master, and some of his daredevil hooking was the stuff that should have had the moniker of ‘kamikaze’ attached to it. But he never went so far as to crash and burn; instead, he left the bowlers in cindered ashes with his merciless shot-making.

Kanhai had a feline grace about him, rather like a leopard stalking its prey. He would spring into action without warning and completely destroy bowler, taking him completely by surprise.

Kanhai’s last innings for the West Indies came at the inaugural World Cup final. Despite his advanced age his cricketing smarts were on full display as he played the perfect sheet anchor role, allowing the rest of the batsmen to run rampant. Kanhai’s acumen rescued the team from 50/3, as he put together a 149-run partnership he shared with a belligerent Clive Lloyd.

Kanhai was a great player who deserves a lot more credit than he gets.

Javed Miandad (Pakistan)
The fact that Javed Miandad was universally hated by opposition members because of his antagonistic mannerisms doesn’t blur the fact that he was a remarkably great batsman.

I have always thought that Miandad should have been born an Aussie, for he had that typical confrontational demeanour that was very un-Asian. He gave as good as he got and then gave even when he was not getting; he drove the opposition to distraction with his incessant needling.

I loved Miandad for I could relate to his style, as I reminisced about my old boxing days when I used to smile at my opponent even after he had just broken my nose.

Miandad was a terrific player who thrived in times of crisis. He often viewed cricket as war. That said, he not only had diamond-like toughness, but he also had the skills to match his temperament. In his 124-Test career his average rarely dipped below 50, and this was in the days when that mark was considered the measure of immortality. Against spin or pace he was equally masterful, whether in defence or blistering attack.

Adding to his legend was his unspoken role behind the glory days of Pakistan cricket which are solely attributed to Imran Khan. Imran was indeed the captain of Pakistan in their heyday that saw them win the World Cup, but Miandad was the rudder on the ship that guided the team to their glory.

Ken Barrington (England)
In any age a player’s greatness is determined by his ability to perform in all types of conditions.

Having this as a parameter of greatness makes you query as to why English great Ken Barrington never gets greater recognition for his career average of 58.67, which is in the top six of the game’s history. And when you dig a bit deeper into that figure you discover that away from home he averages an incredible 69.18!

That makes you wonder: has there ever been a player who has been so dominant away from home?

Barrington’s numbers also make you question why most fans have never heard of the man who was revered as a player who batted with ‘The Union Jack draped around his heart’. Such was his courage and relentless determination to succeed, and by golly he was almost impossible to get out. He put a price on his wicket that has few comparisons with any other batsman ever.

It’s possible that Barrington’s relative lack of fame is because he was an old style stone-walling batsman rather than one of the glitzy and glamorous stroke players that usually leave people in awe.

Whatever the reason, Barrington being constantly left out of the list of the greatest players in history is a big crime.

Mike Procter (South Africa)
I am often left bemused when the cricketing conversation moves towards South Africa and the constellation of stars that we were deprived of seeing during their tragic ban from the game. Most of the focus surrounds two batting legends in Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards, with both of them frequently viewed as two of the best ever. But one South African player who is always overlooked in these conversations is the great all-rounder Mike Procter.

Procter was, maybe with the exception of the freak of freaks Garry Sobers, the best all-rounder in the history of the game.

Supporting my contention are these words from Richie Benaud:

“Mike Procter was a marvellous all-rounder who would have walked into any Test team since the war”.

I was fortunate to see Procter in his youth, while I was in South Africa between 1964-66, and then when he was in his pomp while playing English county cricket in the 1970s for Gloucestershire. Or ‘Procter’shire, as it was known in respect of him.

As a bowler, Procter had real pace and fire that truly intimidated opposition batsmen. Additionally, he could also be a very refined and wily off-spinner, if the situation suited that style of bowler. Just watch this video of him to get a full appreciation of his threat with the ball in hand:

To match the fury of his bowling, which could reportedly touch speeds of 100mph, was his equally whirlwind batting. That was of the bludgeoning variety, but supported by plenty of class and technique, which enabled him to share a record with a batsman of the name of Don Bradman (the record of six consecutive centuries in first class cricket). Procter’s Gloucestershire teammate Zaheer Abbas had this to say about his batting:

“If I were to pick a World XI, he would be one of the first batsmen I would choose. Mike Procter was one of the best batsmen I have played with.”

Supporting this contention was Procter’s 203 in 1978, which was widely regard as the best innings in English county cricket since Wally Hammond’s heyday.

Sport is sadly not about dealing in ‘ifs’, but IF South Africa was not banned, and Mike Procter was allowed a full career, he may have ended up as the very best all-rounder of all.

Jeffrey Dujon (West Indies)
When you watched the great West Indian teams play in the 1970s and 80s you could almost swear that during his tenure with the gloves Jeff Dujon could at any second morph from a Clarke Kent-like character into a virtual Superman. That’s because you would rarely notice him until he defied gravity and almost literally ‘flew’ to catch a rearing delivery or an edge that was a million miles away from his grasp.

Dujon was a truly exceptional keeper, but do not let that make you think that he was a bunny with the willow for he excelled at batting as well. He exuded supreme elegance and skill that would have seen him merit a place in most sides on the basis of his batting skill alone.

A great player, and an unspoken legend of the game!

Richie Benaud (Australia) (Captain)
There would be few, if any, cricketing fans that would disagree with Richie Benaud being ordained as a legend, but most would view that purely in terms of him being the voice of cricket for the last 50 years.

Which indeed is a fact, but it often takes away from him being one of the very best cricketers that the game has ever seen.

Benaud was a leg spinning all-rounder of the highest calibre and a captain who was lauded as one of the best in the game’s history. His mindset, no matter what the situation on the field, was born out of a natural desire to be proactive. He had thoroughly attacking instincts and a good deal of supreme cricketing smarts.

You saw that in his very refined bowling that was characterised by guile and subtle variations as he out-thought most batsmen.

Benaud took his bowling guiles into his leadership; he was like a Chess Master who manoeuvred his pieces until he had the opposition hopelessly checkmated. Completing this package were his hard-hitting batting skills and his expertise as a close in fielder.

Long before he become a commentary doyen Benaud inspired many with his genius as a player.

Alan Davidson (Australia)
The views of people are justifiably governed by the age they live in and the stars they have the privilege to view, but one universally accepted view in current day cricketing circles always makes me raise my eyebrows. The view that Wasim Akram is the greatest left arm fast bowler of all time.

Most people support that claim by citing the exceptional nature of Akram’s career, but doing that alone gives scant respect to the exploits of the great Aussie left-armer Alan Davidson. When you compare the key figures of both you get a grasp of how overlooked Davidson is:

Wasim Akram: 104 Tests, 414 wickets, average 23.62, strike rate 54.6

Alan Davidson: 44 Tests, 186 wickets, average 20.53, strike rate 62.2

In no way am I taking away from the great Pakistani and his right to be viewed as the ‘best of the best’, but my main grievance is the fact that ‘Davo’ as us old-timers knew, him rarely gets a mention. This, despite his exceptional record that is given greater weight by these further facts:

Davidson was remarkably effective in the last five years of his career, taking 170 wickets at 19.25 in 32 Tests, only four of which were lost. He was the first man to take ten wickets and make more than 100 runs in the same game, a feat he accomplished in the famous tied Test in Brisbane against West Indies, despite a broken finger on his bowling hand.

He was a supreme practitioner with the ball and had real sting with the bat as a hard-hitting lower order batsman. Plus, he was a truly remarkable fielder anywhere on the ground.

Honestly, he sounds like an ancestor of Akram in every regard. Whether he was better than Akram is a matter of debate, but he deserves at least equal billing when talking about the greatest left-arm bowlers in the history of cricket.

Andy Roberts (West Indies)
“Andy Roberts is the finest fast bowler I have ever faced.” – Sunil Gavaskar.

Andy Roberts was the first of the feared four-man West indies pace battery that terrorised batsmen around the globe from the 1970s onwards, and as seen in these words by the immortal Sunil Gavaskar, he was perhaps the best of the lot.

Roberts was the epitome of bowling smarts and nightmarish pace. He had a fearsome reputation as he did plenty of damage with his variety of bouncers that varied from the slower ‘hit me for six’ sucker ball to the much faster ‘be prepared for a trip in an ambulance’ type. One of his more famous hits was the ones he inflicted on a youthful Ian Botham in 1974 that saw the latter’s jaw broken and a killer blow delivered to his career.

Fearsome indeed, but do not let that diminish his immense skill as a bowler. Despite all the greats that were present in the team that he played in, the new ball was always thrown to Roberts, and boy did he dazzle with his precocious genius.

“I will never forget how Andy, when I was well past a hundred, (and) the ball, 60 overs old, brought so many balls back from way outside the off stump, literally cutting them viciously over the middle stump. He followed that with two perfectly pitched leg cutters in the next over and (I) marvelled at the versatility of the man.”

“He made you play almost all the deliveries. 95 percent of the deliveries he sent down you had to play and that was the greatness of Andy.” (Sunil Gavaskar)

Roberts was a complete bowler in every regard, and it is surprising why such scant respect is given him.

Johnny Wardle (England)
Johnn Wardle put forth a conundrum that was never solved by batsmen facing his left-arm spin on the pitch or by the powers that be off the field dealing with his free-spirited demeanour in stringently conservative times.

He was described aptly as ‘a maverick’. Despite his obvious talent he was ostracised for the most part from the English team which deprived the game of the complete story of his unparalleled genius.

His figures tell this truth, with him taking 102 wickets in his 28 Tests at a remarkable average of 20.39, putting him in the top seven in the all-time bowling averages as well as the top four in terms of economy rate. His average is even more impressive when seen in the context of the averages of the two spinners regarded as the best in the game’s history – Shane Warne (25.41) and Muttiah Muralitharan (22.72).

Like both those legends, Wardle shared the same characteristics of coming up with unplayable varieties and unorthodox mannerisms. Whether it was his stock left-arm orthodox spin or his revolutionary ‘Chinaman’ deliveries, Wardle was a true mystery bowler.