Glenn Maxwell
If there’s one thing to recommend Glenn Maxwell, it’s that he hates being called The Big Show. Matthew Wade applied the nickname in keeping with the wicketkeepers’ code of being as annoying as possible at all times. Many are the spectators who see Maxwell’s audacity as a sublimation of batsmanship to egomania – he is held up as personally representing the moral and social failure of Generation Y, or Z-Minus, or AA, or whatever we’re up to.
Of course, complaining about the traits of certain generations is just an announcement that you’re a) no longer young and b) resentful about no longer being young. Maxwell is humble in interviews and hardworking on the field. Defending 300 in a practice match against the UAE he dived full-length on the boundary to reel in a four, then crashed into the hard adjacent wicket for a low one-hander. It was full commitment in a scenario most would take a little easily.
His batting can’t come off every game, but when it does he wins them. Selectors messed with his head by picking him in a Test late last year, and with mixed messages from all directions his confused Big Bash season culminated in the most gloriously terrible leave in cricket history. Recently though he’s found his mojo, expressed in a monstrous 122 from 57 balls in the warm-up against India. Who else has retired in a 50-over match? Maxwell’s consistent off-spin allows Australia to play four quicks, he adds catches that anyone else would miss, and his ground fielding is probably worth 20 runs a game. Even if he makes a duck, he’s a compelling addition.
Kumar Sangakkara
Elegant and assured, Sri Lanka’s left-handed master may be of an age where retirement is constantly discussed, but the word should be left in the dictionary. Sangakkara’s late 30s find him in the richest form of his life. His Test run from the start of 2014 to now includes a triple century, two doubles and a single, while his one-day games have yielded five more hundreds while keeping wicket. The venues have ranged from Dhaka to Lord’s to Wellington, and Sri Lanka’s past two months have been spent acclimatising in New Zealand, where they’ll play several World Cup matches.
His quiet nature means that Sangakkara is often overlooked, even though his Test record as a specialist batsman is streets ahead of supposed betters like Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting. He’s seen it all, on track to bringing up his 400th ODI appearance during the Cup. He can control any situation and bat any length of time. More than that, he has a point to prove after losing the last two World Cup finals. Sangakkara wants this badly. Stay tuned.
Imran Tahir
On his international emergence, Imran Tahir terrified his own team more than opponents. He was the unruly id to South Africa’s risk-averse super-ego, a wild and untidy leg-spinner for a nation whose adventurous choices went as far as Paul Harris. Four years after his debut and Tahir has only played 30 one-day games. But gradually South Africa have come around, and he should be their first-choice spinner through the Cup. It might be fanciful, but perhaps accepting his style was also part of liberating the aggression of South Africa’s batsmen.
Leggies traditionally enjoy bowling in Australia more than off-spinners. The harder pitches suit their bounce, especially for a high-arm bowler with a lot of over-spin like Tahir. Get his length right and he should have batsmen playing and missing all day. He’s full of enthusiasm, gives the ball a shredding and has an array of variations. Forget the pace attack, watch this guy send down a spell.
Eoin Morgan
It’s a hard job, being England captain. People talk obsessively about your form, management back you time and again, then eventually drop you weeks out from a World Cup. Your replacement comes in, and people talk obsessively about his form.
Eoin Morgan’s appointment was supposed to refresh England. What he can’t change, though, is their institutional timidity, a middle-management ethos obsessed with processes and outcomes and conformity, starting at the top of the ECB and filtering through the national set-up. Alastair Cook was their perfect man, less captain than head prefect. For Morgan to flourish he must resist being forced into that mould.
Morgan playing on instinct can devastate bowling attacks. He can also stabilise any situation. I’ve seen few better one-day innings than in the first Tri-Series match at the SCG. With Ian Bell lbw from the first ball of the series and James Taylor from the third, against Mitchell Starc hooping the new ball, Morgan’s first match as captain involved walking in at 3/12 and subsiding to 5/69. He stayed calm, batted through to the 48th and scoring 121 in giving England a total. It was a magnificent counter under pressure, and if he can reproduce that, any team he’s in will be carried along. What a shame he’s not playing for Ireland.
Misbah-ul-Haq
Old Man Misbah, as Ben Pobjie calls him, should by rights be off in an orchard somewhere getting crotchety about kids stealing apples. Instead he’ll be captaining Pakistan in a World Cup that will end within cooee of his 41st birthday. With the bulk of his career played in the second half of his 30s, Misbah has amassed an exceptional record, approaching 5000 ODI runs at an average just on 43. The statistical quirk is that he’s still never scored a century in the format, with 12 innings ending not out between 70 and 96. So often when a few wickets collapse, it’s Misbah coming in down the order who’s forced to do the repair job.
Nonetheless, he can hit a long ball, and last November showed that he’s lost none of his timing. Against Australia in the UAE, he matched none other than Viv Richards’ record for the fastest Test century, smashing home in 56 balls before dedicating the innings to everyone who’s ever called him “tuk-tuk” for being too slow. The nickname is unfair – his big clouts in the late stages of short-form games are exhilarating to watch, and he could be the difference between Pakistan icing a total and falling short. You don’t hit 76 career sixes by mistake. And he’s not actually crotchety at all. When he set his world record it turned out he has a lovely smile.
