Players you tried to imitate as a kid X1

[maniac]

Here is mine

 

Sherwin Campbell : WI opener from the 90’s. Very inconsistent but could play some destructive knocks when in the zone. He used to wind up before smacking the ball, tried that technique many times with 0 Results 

 

Saeed Anwar: loved his pick up shot on square leg. In gully cricket that was our only legal scoring area where there were no cars/buildings, so tried to imitate that shot many times.

 

Rahul Dravid: when you have to troll your opponents or your own team, do the well left or perfect defense Dravid style.

 

Azharuddin: the collar up, walk with a slight hunch, also wore a black thread around my neck (had a Hanuman locket I bought outside a mandir instead of a taveez)

 

Jayasuriya: I am sure we all tried grip of holding the bat handle way low some time if you grew up and played gully cricket in the 90’s

 

Kapil Dev: every kid of my generation tried the Kapil Dev bowling action at least once 

 

Abdul Qadir: Just like Kapil’s action,

One of the most imitated action when I was a kid

 

Muralitharan: c’mon we all were curious and thought if we put our hand in the babaji ka thullu position and throw, we will get insane spin

 

Coutney Walsh: he used to kind of rub his fingers before he bowled, had an elegant run up. Someone I always tried to imitate when trying to bowl phaast without much success :)

 

Waqar Younis: even though I ended up looking like Malinga trying to replicate his side on action.

 

Alan Donald: not bowling but the lip balm and sunscreen . I remember a kid who moved from USA used to play gully cricket with us. He aused to bring sunscreen. Even though most of us never saw a sub screen bottle before , emptied the entire bottle as everyone tried to be Donald and Mcdermott in style at least  

 

There are more names but these are the X1 prominent ones I tried to imitate.

 

Just a fun thread.

 

 

 

 

[zen]

I feel like a kid all over again so SDP

[bowl_out]

Sachin - adjusting the abdomen guard, tapping the bat on the pitch

 

Dravid - his stance and square cuts

 

Srinath - my bowling action in gully cricket was inspired by him.

 

Tony Grieg - tried to imitate his style of commentary so many times

 

Kumble and Muralirtharan - inspirations for leg spin and off spin actions. Shane warne was the third

 

Ricky Ponting - tried many times to imitate his backlift before playing every shot

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by bowl_out

[zen]

Late 80s was a tricky period as there was relatively limited cricket. And usually the Test and ODI teams were one.  I was in boarding school which had its own challenges/busy schedule (get up at 6, have tea, exercise, classes, breakfast, classes, lunch, nap, study, tea, sports (Basketball, Hockey, Football, etc), bath, study, dinner, study/watch tv, bed time)

 

One cricketer I liked was Imran Khan (was brilliant in 1989 Nehru Cup). I tried to bowl and bat like him (hit 6s). In games including gully cricket, I used to be the captain too (and even make most of the rules - for e.g. if the ball hit a glass in a particular sensitive house, you would be out ) so again Imran Khan like aura as a good captain added to the mix (not too forget that I was a handsome kid as well - looking much like how Imran looked among Pakistani cricketers) 

[Gollum]

Like SRT I used to do ashtanga pranam after getting bowled as if to indicate that pitch was at fault, hid my deficiency and also undermined the bowling effort. 

 

Can't think of XI but some of the things I imitated

 

- Lara's backlift and pull, though the high backlift meant more tributes to Sachin (refer pics above)

- Sadagopan Ramesh's cut and flick, played very late

- Martyn's cover drive, backfoot punch

- Ricardo Powell and Craig Spearman's hoicks over long on, mid-wicket (one of my earliest memories is Spearman's 68 off 44 balls in 1st ODI of 1999 series....he was my first idol, made my gully cricket friends call me Spearman or Justin Slater, for some reason didn't like Michael and Langer though loved both players individually so combo)

- Flower's reverse sweep, don't think I ever touched a ball playing that shot

- Shane Bond's action when bowling phaaast, and always tried to bowl yorkers

- Upul Chandana's action when bowling spin

[Ankit_sharma03]

• Sachin- 1st one by buying and MRF bat and that heavy chain he use to wear
• Kumble- after his titan cup final bowling
• Bowling- Wasim, Srinath, Zak , mcgrath, flintoff 
• The most i enjoyed was bowling from brett lee action 
• then settled on akthar one for few yrs (but haath se nikalti jadeja ki speed hi thi)
• Batting stances ended up like chanderpaul and very last i played tried to imitate gilly 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Ankit_sharma03

[Suhaan]

My all time favorite , greatest Wicket Keeper batsman of all time

Greatest of them All

Sir Adam Craig Gilchrist

 

I always tried to imitate him ,his leg side lift was one shot which i always used to play and ended up loosing the ball in neighborhood and was chased by my friends to bring another one from my pocket ....ahhh those days

I was typical front on bowler like Flintoff so naturally sort of copied him

 

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Suhaan

[sriniwu]

mine

 

Gladstone small

Graham dilley

kapil

srikanth

Ambrose

imran Khan

aquib javed

rumesh ratnayake

Greg Mathews

McDermott

 

apart of srikanth, the only batsman I tried to imitate was clayton Lambert...results were often embarassing

 

[Sean Bradley]

@OP, imitated Qadirs Action ? You must be really old , Just kidding.

On Topic. Can't put up a 11 but things which influenced my game the most.

First ever Bowling Action : Fanie De Villiers, I remember I had developed a ferocious leg cutter with this action and my outswinger used to really rip at pace. Then tried to imitate far too many pacers as i kept growing up which eventually ruined my bowling and I had to settle on being an off spinner, but mind you, a very good offie I still gave it a nice rip and have beaten many gali nukkad ke Sachin, Sehwag with Guile and Flight.

Batting : Jacques Kallis was my idol and as a kid I was highly influenced by his batting stance and Defensive Technique. Apart from Kallis, other imitations/influences were, poise of Marcus Trescothik, Wrist work of VVS, Ricky Pontings Pull Shot, Adam Gilchrists short bat lift. Justin Langers late cut , he was the master of allowing the ball to come to you playing it late. Those were the days....

 

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Sean Bradley

[VT87]

Ricky Ponting -  tried his back and across movement which helped me to play pull ,cut and back foot punch more efficiently gave me those 1 and 2 extra minutes against pace.

[zen]

5 minutes ago, VT87 said:

Ricky Ponting -  tried his back and across movement which helped me to play pull ,cut and back foot punch more efficiently gave me those 1 and 2 extra minutes against pace.

 

must be some pace you faced (if the ball took 2 mins to reach you)!

Edited December 1, 2020 by zen

[VT87]

2 minutes ago, zen said:

 

must be some pace you faced!

Seconds

[zen]

2 minutes ago, VT87 said:

Seconds

 

Reminded me of the "Waqar" guy we had. He used to bowl with a long run up. After I would smash him, his run up for the next ball would be even longer. And repeat. 

 

[maniac]

1 hour ago, zen said:

 

Reminded me of the "Waqar" guy we had. He used to bowl with a long run up. After I would smash him, his run up for the next ball would be even longer. And repeat. 

 

We used to have a Shane Warne of under arm bowling in our apartments, had the same swag, smooth hair and would terrify us by making the ball talk and turn with under arm of course  . He started believing he was Warne, started getting the same type of hair cut too

 

Toughest bowler I ever faced 

[zen]

30 minutes ago, maniac said:

We used to have a Shane Warne of under arm bowling in our apartments, had the same swag, smooth hair and would terrify us by making the ball talk and turn with under arm of course  . He started believing he was Warne, started getting the same type of hair cut too

 

Toughest bowler I ever faced 

 

Nothing like the old school days!  .... Where we had our own set of international equivalents

[Laaloo]

 

[Gollum]

@Laaloo hi, how are you?

[Laaloo]

1 minute ago, Gollum said:

@Laaloo hi, how are you?

Hi, I’m good bro. 

[Gollum]

1 minute ago, Laaloo said:

Hi, I’m good bro. 

Nice

[Rasgulla]

 

This guy