Rikki Clarke

A sportsman has a short shelf-life, and the cream of them manage to make the most of their talent at an early age. Rikki Clarke, a highly talented all-rounder, was one of those who managed to direct his talent at a much later stage of his career. After moving to his third county, he developed into a good all-rounder, albeit at a domestic level.

After winning a Second XI Championship with Surrey in 2001, he was handed a first-class debut and immediately scored a hundred against Cambridge UCCE in 2002 and was in the midst of an epiphany as he followed that up with a 153 not out against Somerset at Taunton. Having come in from the second XI with heaps of experience, he helped Surrey to the County Championship title that year and rose to prominence with the Young Cricketer of the Year award.

As a result, he caught the eyes of the national selectors and was selected in the England team at 21. After setting the stage on fire with a wicket on ball 1 in international cricket, he delivered created enough of a presence to be fast-tracked into the Test whites for the tour of Bangladesh. He had a decent start with a half-century and dibbly-dobbled his way into an economic spell. However, due to the lack of any eye-catching and incisive performances of note at the international level, his progress was hindered. In 2006, after several stints in the national side, he was dropped from the side. He struggled with consistently poor performances and failed to achieve eye-catching run or wicket aggregates.

Clarke was dropped from Surrey after a long period of poor form in 2007 and moved to Derbyshire as captain in 2008, which didn’t go as planned. He resigned shortly in August and county-hopped yet again to Warwickshire. After being written off several times, this particular move gave his plummeting career a new lease of life.

A leaner, fitter Rikki showed up under Ashley Giles' the director of cricket at Warwickshite, and and after nearly 10 years, he grabbed his maiden five-wicket haul in 2010 and a personal record of 46 wickets in a season (2011). In the 2 years with Warwickshire, he was extremely consistent with the ball, and was amongst the wickets. He averaged over 45 with the willow too, with three hundreds on seaming green-tops, clearly exhibiting a more compact technique and temperament as Warwickshire coasted to the title in 2012 with handsome contributions from Rikki Clarke.

There was a ray fo hope when he was named in the 30 probables for the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013, but he never made it to the final squad. Showing how far he has come in terms of experience and maturity, he put his knowledge of the game to good use finishing the Natwest T20 blast of 2015 as the most economical bowler.

Clarke returned to Surrey on a two-year contract in the middle of the 2017 season. Clarke finally seemed to have come into his own as he topped the bowling averages at Surrey with 22 wickets at 19.81 including a personal best of 7/55 to prove that he was a domestic giant.

In addition to his nippy seamers with the ball and muulti-dimensional batting, Clarke is also an athletic fielder, who notably set a world record for seven catches in first-class innings at Liverpool in 2011. Despite being a Ramprakash-esque domestic giant, though, his consistency came a little too late as England were already looking beyond him at the youth of the country. He has, however, established himself as a giant in the county setting and will always be remembered for his contributions across two of the three counties he has played for.

Wirtten by Rishi Roy