The ideal county limited-over allrounder © Getty Images

In a January 2000 ODI at Kimberley, Mark Ealham took five wickets for eight runs in 24 balls. Five of Zimbabwe's top seven were struck on the pads, and each time umpire David Orchard responded by raising his finger. It was the first time anyone had got five lbws in an ODI innings.

It is the perfect example of his bowling strength. The spell was during the dreaded middle overs of an ODI when nothing much usually happens, and his line was deadly accurate. The Cricinfo profile labels him medium-fast, but that “-fast” suffix risks contravening the Trade Descriptions Act: he might have tried to justify it in his early years, but he soon settled down as a straight medium-pacer. Ealham's control of line was impeccable, he could often wobble it in the air, and he could vary his pace enough to unsettle batsmen committed to trying to score.

In the MCC v Champion County match which opened the 2006 season, Ealham smashed eleven fours and seven sixes on his way to a 45-ball hundred, which went on to win the Walter Lawrence Trophy for the season's fastest. Forty in thirty minutes rather than a hundred in three hundred was what his county sides usually wanted from him, which explains why he passed fifty 80 times in first-class cricket but only converted 13 into hundreds.

In short, he was the ideal county limited-over allrounder, a part he played with distinction from 1995 to 2003 for Kent (having debuted in 1989), and then for Notts until 2008. In 2009, he was not quite a first-team regular and his bowling average shot up from its customary 27 to 36 in both the long and short games, so he has called it a day at the age of 40.

Ealham was not quite the ideal ODI allrounder, though he did a reasonable job in his 64 appearances. His bowling was more than adequate, bordering on pretty good, but his batting was more skittish than forceful. To be fair, England lower orders were regularly faced with dire situations to which panic was a fairly rational response; even so, he rarely did himself justice with the bat.

But Ealham should not be blamed for his eight disappointing Test matches. He could in fact be said to have performed a useful service by helping to explode the muddled theory held by the England selectors in the late 1990s that someone who could bat better than the bowlers and bowl better than the batsmen while not being adequate in either discipline was a useful addition to a weak Test team.

Martin Saggers also owed his Test selection to selectorial desperation, but given his trouble getting on to the ladder at all, just winning three Test caps was a triumph.

His was a mildly romantic story. He had tried out in the second XI for a few counties in the early 1990s, but by 1996 had given up and was playing for Norfolk. Picked for the Minor Counties, his opening spell in their Benson & Hedges match against Durham was impressive enough for the county to offer him a contract. He was effectively competing against Steve Harmison for a place, a contest he was bound to lose, but when Durham inevitably released him, Kent snapped him up and he became one of the best swing bowlers on the circuit. He took 64 wickets in 2001 and 83 at 21.5 in 2002, occasioning a lot of serious suggestion that he should be picked for England.

Perhaps that was Saggers' moment, but he was up against Gough, Caddick, Hoggard, Flintoff, Harmison and Jones (at least) and therefore too far down the pecking order. He finally got picked in a Test in Bangladesh when most of them were injured and Gough had retired, and then again the following summer in similar circumstances against New Zealand, bowling Mark Richardson with his first ball in a home Test but otherwise achieving little. Like many Test failures. he was compelled as the junior member of the attack to demonstrate his weaknesses as a change bowler with the old ball rather than his strengths as a dangerous customer with the new one.

His England episode over, he remained a useful member of the Kent attack and 2009 was a well-deserved benefit year. Unfortunately a knee injury brought his season and career to a premature end and the circuit will miss his sunny personality.

Alex Wharf was another who needed great persistence before eventual recognition.

He started in 1994 as a pace bowler at his native Yorkshire, who also had Gough, Peter Hartley, Chris Silverwood and Hoggard, which considerably limited Wharf's opportunities. He moved on to Nottinghamshire, where he got more first-team cricket but he was not the strike bowler they were after.

A big, burly man, his run-up exuded aggressive energy but the ball only travelled at 78mph rather than the 88mph the run-up advertised. Notts did however give him the chance to develop as a power-hitter, sending him in early in limited-over innings, but Paul Franks already had the job Wharf was suited for.

He found his niche at Glamorgan, who had a vacancy for a lower-order hitter and aggressive bowler, especially for their one-day side. Wharf's rumbustiousness with bat and ball were key ingredients of the county's winning the 45-over league in 2002 and 2004. That 2004 campaign included a quite remarkable Wharf performance, albeit in a losing cause: in a weather-affected match, Kent's relatively simple Duckworth-Lewis target was 143 off 25 overs, which they managed to scramble with one wicket to spare off the last ball despite Wharf's amazing spell of 5-3-5-6.

Such efforts earned him a run in the England one-day side that winter, the selectors being ever on the hopeful lookout for someone who could inject a bit of life into the flaccid international ODI team. Like Ealham before him, his bowling held up to international scrutiny but his batting failed to ignite and the selectors moved on to the next bright-looking toy in the shop.

His career had already begun to wind down by 2009, his Glamorgan first-team place no longer assured, but now his knees have called time on him too.

So that concludes the goodbyes for 2009. Thank you, Mark Butcher, Andy Caddick, John Crawley, Mark Ealham, Jason Gallian, Martin Saggers, Michael Vaughan and Alex Wharf for what you have done, and good luck for the future.

	It's not too fantastic to imagine a scoresheet, that along with the batsmen and bowlers' names, also records the fielders' names as well © AFP

A few weeks ago, I wrote a little piece suggesting cricket take a leaf out of baseball's book and maintain statistics for fielders. The practical difficulty with this suggestion is that cricket scoresheets do not contain this kind of information: fielders do not figure on scoresheets except for when they take catches. The runouts and boundary saves they make, the catches they drop, the misfields the inflict on their team are all missed.

But for a few years now, a scoresheet has been present which could potentially address this difficulty. I am referring to the Cricinfo ball-by-ball commentary, which currently records brilliant fielding, catches, drops, some misfields (if they are particularly egregious), and sometimes information on the fielder.

Consider the following excerpts from the Ashes:

9.4 Harmison to Ponting, 1 run, oh dear! Huge run-out chance missed there by Ian Bell! Ponting prods to cover and takes off for a single, but it's misjudged and Ponting had given up on making it as Bell's throw bounced over the stumps. Ponting was about three metres out there. Enormous chance missed.

And:

26.5 Broad to Ponting, no run, prodded out to third man - no, brilliant stop from Anderson at gully! He's a lithe and brilliant fielder for a fast bowler.

In this commentary/scoresheet, besides the usual recording of dot balls, runs, batsman and bowler, we have information on the fielders, on what they did or did not do. Thus the Cricinfo ball-by-ball is in fact, an annotated scorer's sheet, which could be used to generate the kind of fielders' statistics I had in mind in the piece linked above.

Of course, the annotations in the Cricinfo commentary are voluntary; they are placed there by the commentators on duty at that time and the level of detail can vary. The commentary still does not record fielders' names when there is no error as in:

25.2 Harmison to Watson, no run, shorter delivery, slapped to point

Here, we do not know who was at point, and thus we have no way of finding out, for instance, whether a particular fielder commits more errors at point and is better placed somewhere else. Adding this information would certainly add to the burdens of the (possibly already overworked) commentator/scorer. But it's not too fantastic to imagine a scoresheet (suitably tweaked to make the commentator's task easier), that along with the batsmen and bowlers' names, also records the fielders' names as well.

How would fielders' statistics be extracted from such a scoresheet? That task would be made considerably easier if the commentary facilitated the use of keywords that would allow for automated processing of the commentary transcript (another requirement would be a form-like entry for fielders for each delivery). Hopefully, such a tweak to the commentary software would not be too involved.

Fielder's statistics for too long have been ignored in cricket. Instead, we are left with a host of entirely subjective statements like "he is worth 30 runs in the field" or "his fielding has declined over the years" and so on. Quantification and recording of fielder's statistics would not only allow for comparison and record-keeping, it would also permit a ranking and recognition system for fielders that is long overdue. Annotated commentaries like the Cricinfo version point the way forward in this regard.

	Jason Gallian was more of a bruiser; he was a slender version of Mike Gatting, sharing his appetite for runs though not for food © Getty Images

Eight former England players announced their retirements during the 2009 season. I have already written about Andy Caddick, Mark Butcher and Michael Vaughan, who all had substantially successful Test careers, but the others have received little in the way of public appreciation for their efforts over many years.

In the first Test of the 1989-90 Under-19 Ashes, Jason Gallian made an impressive 158 not out and 14, while John Crawley made 52 and 44 not out. They both made their first-class debuts for Lancashire a few months later but in the youth game Gallian, having been born and brought up in Sydney, was captaining the young Australians. He also qualified for England through his parents and was enticed back by Lancashire's offer of a contract.

Crawley was the earlier to become successful in first-class cricket. He impressed in 1993 and it was no surprise when he was picked for England the next year. He was an exceptionally good player on the leg side and a more than competent player of spin, but he never quite clicked as a Test player.

He scored 106 at The Oval against Wasim and Waqar in 1996, and 156 not out in Muralitharan's famous demolition job at the same ground two years later. He also hit a hundred in Bulawayo when Zimbabwe still had Andy Flower and were a good match for England, but his weaknesses outside off stump were repeatedly exposed by Ambrose and Walsh for West Indies and by any number of Australians and South Africans.

No longer in England's favour, he began to fester in county cricket, but was rejuvenated when Rod Bransgrove recruited him for the new, go-ahead Hampshire. Lancashire refused to release him, so he had to buy out his contract after an acrimonious legal tussle.

In his first match for his new county in 2002, he scored 272, which led to an England recall against India. He was one of four centurions in his comeback Test, the others being Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Ajit Agarkar, but thereafter it was back to the middling scores of 30 and 40 and he played his last Test on the 2002-03 Ashes tour.

Until very recently, he continued to rack up the runs for Hampshire, phenomenally so against Nottinghamshire, his scores in five matches from 2004 to 2006 being 301*, 39 & 6, 311*, 106 & 116, and 148 & 23. He finishes his career with over 24,000 first-class runs at a highly-respectable average of 46.5, as well as four Test centuries. He's more than earned his keep.

The captain of Notts when Crawley notched up the first of those triple hundreds was once again Gallian, whose career had been more chequered. Where Crawley was stylish, Gallian was more of a bruiser; he was a slender version of Mike Gatting, sharing his appetite for runs though not for food.

Picked for England largely on promise in 1995, he was not ready for the big time and swiftly returned to county cricket. His response to being dropped included a match against Derbyshire in which England captain Mike Atherton recorded a duck while Gallian went on to make 312, numerically at least the peak of his first-class career.

Perhaps hoping to revive his England career, he moved to Notts for the 1998 season, and was promoted to the captaincy halfway through that campaign. Over the next six years, he did for Notts what Nasser Hussain was doing for England: turning a poor side into one which could win games, only for someone else to take over and win the glorious prizes.

He had inherited a bowling attack largely incapable of taking wickets, so results were very poor in the early years, but as the youngsters gained experience and overseas players like Chris Cairns and Stuart MacGill were signed, things looked up, even more so when a South African lad with English parents by the name of Pietersen turned up to try and make his fortune much as Gallian had done a dozen years earlier. And as the team's fortunes improved, so did Gallian's personal contributions. He enjoyed his richest form in his early thirties: perhaps if he had not been pushed too far too early in his career, he would have reached his batting maturity somewhat earlier and ended with more impressive figures than 15,000 runs at 37.6.

Despite these personal and team improvements, Gallian was sacked as captain. He and KP had not got on well at all, with the result that the Notts dressing room became fractious, and though Pietersen jumped ship to join Crawley and Shane Warne at Hampshire, the county decided that a new captain was required and appointed Stephen Fleming for 2005. Back in the ranks, Gallian had his best season ever, making 1200 runs at 53, in the course of which he was twice run out for 199 – and Notts won the Championship.

But it was his last success. Over the next three seasons he averaged just under 31, and then moved to Essex for 2009, where a meagre 245 runs in seven matches told him it was time to quit.

These were substantial careers. They did not fulfil the optimistic dreams their early displays of talent encouraged, but they have certainly not wasted the last twenty seasons.

Enough for now. I will wave goodbye to the other retirees in my next post.

	Sri Lanka, and not Australia, were the one-day world champions in 1996 © Getty Images

It was almost not thus; I was not aware that in the late 1990s, world cricket was apparently on the brink of a major split that would probably have destroyed the game. I always knew there was some talk of it but it never really seemed to be much more than a bit of posturing and chest-puffing. I recently stumbled upon a book called Run Out, written by the former CEO of the Australian Cricket Board, Graham Halbish. It’s hardly a new offering and it’s certainly not worth recommending but nonetheless, it still provided a fascinating insight into the politics of cricket in the 1990s.

He described an ambitious idea called Project Snow which was apparently Australian cricket’s defiant response to the power bloc of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and South Africa. Without going into the detailed politics of it, Australia, New Zealand, England and West Indies would form a league which played each other on a regular basis (presumably the other countries would do something similar with their members) and world cricket would be split in two. Amazingly, he went so far as to make the statement that the intent of Project Snow was to show South Africa that it had made the wrong choice in siding with the Asian bloc, to call India’s bluff and to show the subcontinent that “we could do without them, but that they could not do without us”.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course and it is unfair to judge someone on that basis. Perhaps in 1996, Halbish and the ACB truly believed that, surprising as it may seem in today’s context. My memory of that period still contrasts with Halbish’s view though – in 1996, it was patently obvious that the nexus of power and influence had shifted inexorably to the subcontinent and it seemed foolish to think of a truly viable global game without their involvement. The recent decline of West Indies and the sad fact (unfairly perhaps) that New Zealand does not have huge marketability, makes Project Snow seem even more ridiculous. Even the lure of the Ashes would soon lose its box office appeal if the two countries were forced to play each other every second year in Tests and ODIs. Today’s professional cricketer, some of them earning more rupees than dollars, must be glad indeed that Project Snow was nothing more than a concept on a piece of paper. It just doesn’t make sense on any level to contemplate world cricket without the major countries, East and West alike.

It was difficult to take the book seriously after that point. Once credibility is lost, she is a difficult mistress to find again. I should have seen the writing on the wall in the very first paragraph of the book when Halbish claimed that Australia were world champions in Test and ODI cricket in 1997 (when he was CEO). He may have forgotten the fact that Sri Lanka were the reigning World Cup champions at that point. I then started keeping a beady eye out for any other discrepancies and I was not disappointed – some of them were minor mistakes but it nonetheless became very difficult to then work out which bits were true and which bits were not.

In one chapter, curiously called “The Best of Times”, he tells of a story when a former ACB Chairman ejected two ECB officials off his houseboat (during the Youth World Cup in 1988) with some choice expletives and refuses to give them a drink or food. The best of times? Really? How charming!

Halbish recounts every detail of a very famous falling-out with the board which led to his sacking and the subsequent bad blood that inevitably followed. It was actually quite fascinating to read the behind-the-scenes politics that seem to dog most cricket boards around the world. I am neither interested in the politics nor knowledgeable enough about what really went on to offer any meaningful commentary on Halbish’s version of events. The only thing that really stood out was the total unpleasantness of most of the characters involved in that whole saga, something that is probably replicated in other cricket boards around the world I’m sure. For supposedly distinguished and senior administrators, the only common denominator seemed to be a total absence of decency or honour amongst the lot. Halbish obviously tells the story from his perspective, but even allowing for that bias, it just made me wonder how the game of cricket survives such people.

It is indeed a testament to the quality of the 'product' that it can transcend those who administer it. Cricket will never escape the grubby politics that seems to follow it in just about every country (although NZ seems to be relatively benign) but the game itself is such a powerful force that it will probably still survive and thrive, despite such folk. Halbish’s book merely highlights the ugly underbelly that governs this great game that we all love. It was an interesting read, a revealing read, an inconsistent read but sadly, it did nothing to paint cricket’s governors of the 1980s and 1990s in a positive light. I don’t think much has changed since!

	The toss has proved too crucial in some one-dayers © Getty Images

The Champions Trophy, played on early season pitches on the South African Highveld, has thrown up enough variety worthy of a global competition. It’s had enough intrigue and diversity to suit just about every style of cricketer. No team can claim they were significantly disadvantaged by the conditions, although the toss was crucial in some of the earlier matches. That’s cricket though – how can you ever compensate for the vagaries of the toss?

In long series between two countries (or even tri-series), it is probably fair enough to leave things as they are. Going by the law of averages, the coin toss tends to even out in the long run and the better team usually wins the series. Most sensible people will agree that the longer the competition, the better the chances are that the most deserving team will triumph.

Shorter tournaments like World Cups and Champions Trophies necessarily allow for much less margin in terms of this balancing-out effect. Especially in cut-throat situations where one loss can finish your tournament, the toss is often crucial. Too crucial. In some of the early games at Centurion and Johannesburg, where extravagant spin and seam were in equal abundance, the toss effectively determined the outcome.

Perhaps it’s worth giving serious thought to the 4 x 25 over format that Sachin Tendulkar (and others) are expounding, to renew and regenerate the 50-over game. In fact, I’d go one step further by suggesting 2 x 20 overs to begin with, followed by 2 x 30 overs. This allows the team winning the toss to still reap some advantage by minimising the time they have to bat in the first stanza (if the ball is nipping around a bit) or maximising the time they have to bowl in the second session (if the pitch is starting to turn or keeping a bit low).

It also has the added bonus of ensuring that if there is rain later in the match (like the Australia vs India match last week), there can still be a Duckworth-Lewis result so long as there was sufficient time for a minimum of 40 overs. The possibility of a weather interruption will add a layer of intrigue to the tactics in that first session too – should teams use their Powerplays and best bowlers early doors or keep it in reserve and risk never using them? Fascinating stuff….

The main reason for suggesting this split format is to negate some of the effects of winning the toss, especially when conditions are hostile early on (like some of the early starts in Johannesburg) and or when they deteriorate late in the game (usually when the ball starts to turn or the pitch gets slow). Of course there will still be some advantage in winning the toss but it won’t be a four-hour advantage. In some conditions, that’s almost fatal to the team losing the toss.

The tactics will be extremely interesting to watch. Human nature being what it is, any batsman who is at the crease towards the end of the first lot of 20 overs will naturally be a bit more conservative so he can resume his innings when the next installment begins. Is this a good time for the fielding team to take their Powerplay then, from overs 16-20? Is it a good time to get a few cheap overs out of the 5th and 6th bowlers? For the batting team, in purely pragmatic terms, the 20th over should be treated like any other – each run is still worth the same amount. But, it would take a brave batsman prepared to take risks in that 20th over and miss out on the chance to start afresh a few hours later?

It would bring the fitness of allrounders into the game much more too. Someone like Jacques Kallis is likely to be not out at the end of the first innings, then bowl some overs and chase balls in the outfield, only to resume his innings once again. His rhythm would have been disrupted (batting or bowling) so it would take good skills to pick up where he left off, showing off a new dimension to his all-round game.

Another advantage would be that it possibly allows the team that is struggling to break the rhythm of the game and thereby try to claw their way back. Any rule change that allows a chance for a 'comeback' must surely be a good thing. A bowling team that is bleeding runs in the 20th over has time to break the momentum, re-think their field placings or strategies and start again. It might be just what the 50-over game needs to renew interest in those middle overs when it all becomes all too predictable.

A final twist to add spice to this new format - instead of the compulsory 10-over Powerplay at the start of the game, why not have two compulsory five-over stints at the start of each innings? The batting and fielding Powerplays can still be taken at the discretion of the captain but if there’s a compulsory Powerplay from overs one to five and then again from 21-25, it will broaden the skill base of all players. Someone like a Mohammad Yousuf or Rahul Dravid, supremely skilled at working the ball into gaps during the middle overs will be forced to bring another dimension to their game if they resume on say 30 not out in the 21st over and have to start again in a Powerplay. We’ll soon see the end of one-dimensional players or we’ll see some unusual changes in the batting order just prior to the first innings break. Either way, the unpredictability and innovation is just what ODI cricket needs.

What do you think? Do we have the basis of an idea worth exploring? My mind is already racing with the various sub-plots that will inevitably play out if this format is adopted, even if it’s only in knockout type tournaments where it would be a shame to see the toss dictate the winner of the game. Cricket needs to balance the ledger in favour of the better team rather than the lucky one!