James Hopes is Australia’s best domestic bowler. The stats don’t lie.
he needs just one more wicket to claim 150 first class scalps, and no other player player comes close. He passed Stuart MacGill (124) a few years back. Just let that sink in.
There is nothing flashy about Hopes, but he always manages to pick up a key wicket or score a handy 30 or 40 when the team needs it most.
151 domestic one day wickets, 43 T20, 243 1st class scalps.
But aside from captaining his state to back-to-back one day cups, Shield victories, and Big Bash Championships, he has the look of a park cricketer. He gives all of us a chance.
I grew up watching the Mercantile Mutual Cup on TV, featuring portly champions like Phil Emery, Richard Chee Quee, Darren Lehmann, Jason Arnberger, Darren Berry, Brad Hodge, Blocker Wilson, Jo Angel and Doug Bollinger. I take it you are guessing a theme here?
Yep, I like a portly cricketer. They give all of us hope that if your eye is good enough, you don’t have to run a 3km time trial in record time.
‘Catfish’ represents the all that is great about cricket for the average Aussie fan, and has been a favourite of mine for a long time.
Sadly the ‘solid’ cricketer is a dying breed. Mark Cosgrove has been consistently performing at a first class level, but will never get a look in for national duties.
Inzamam-ul-Haq is only remembered for not running cheeky singles, and Arjuna Rantatunga for walking his players off the field when Murali was called for chucking. Throw in Mark Greatbatch, Pat Symcox, and Darren Gough and you’ve almost got a cricket team.
So as any great cricket fan will know when talking the beautiful game, teams need to be drawn up.
International solid XI
1 Mark Taylor (Aus)
2 Mike Gatting (Eng)
3 Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pak)
4 Aravinda De Silva (SL)
5 Arjuna Ranatunga (SL) (c)
6 David Boon (Aus)
7 Shane Warne (Aus)
8 Darren Gough (Eng)
9 Mushtaq Ahmed (Pak)
10 Pat Symcox (SA)
11 Dwayne Leverock (Ber)
My state one
1 Jason Arnberger (Vic)
2 Richard Chee Quee (NSW)
3 David Boon (Tas)
4.Mark Cosgrove (SA)
5. Darren Lehmann (SA)
6 James Hopes (Qld) (c)
7 Phil Emery (NSW)
8 Darren Berry (Vic)
9 Jo Angel (WA)
10 Paul Wilson (SA)
11 Doug Bollinger (NSW)
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While a premature retirement isn’t the solution, he or England want, he may be forced into it if he can’t maintain a long run of matches.
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