Brothers play a prominent role in the game of cricket from the very old days. The brother-act was simply breathtaking and a delight to watch. Brothers play a pivotal role in playing together in International Cricket and achieving great success for their teams. Alec Bedser and Eric Bedser — the twin brothers played for England with distinction.
Richard Hadlee, who first achieved 400 wickets (that of Arun Lal) in Test matches was fortunate to have his brother Dayle Hadlee in the side for some time to assist him in the pace department. Even their sister Gayle Hadlee represented New Zealand’s Women’s cricket team. The two carried Kiwi bowling to great heights claiming 502 test wickets in a combined effort. More over Albie Morkel and Morne Morkel represented South Africa and helped the Proteas to win the one-day series against Australia. Australia’s illustrious pair of Mark and Steve Waugh dominated the scene of action for over a decade. The two was part of the Aussie side scoring 18956 runs and accounted for 151 wickets in all.
But it was Ian and Greg Chappell who did wonderfully well for Australia as Captains and their share of runs in test matches made all the difference to the Kangaroo side. Australia team assumed greater proportion with their presence. The two combined scored 12,455 test runs and claimed 67 wickets among them for Australia. But it was Trevor Chappell who became famous by his under-arm bowling in an one-day match and that ultimately made ICC change the one day rules. New Zealand had one more pair of Marshalls representing the Kiwi side for a short period. Adam and Ben Hollioake showed their all- round powers but the death of Ben Hollioake in Perth, Australia made the other to leave the game early.
Zimbabwe was lucky to have Andy and Grant Flower representing the weak side. Again New Zealand had Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe making a great impression in International cricket. Both led their sides in different periods. For Australia we had Mike and David Hussey representing Australia wonderfully well in one-dayers. For India we have seen AG Kripal Singh and Milkha Singh represented Indian Team from Tamil Nadu. The former scored a century on his appearance against the weak New Zealand side at Hyderabad. Dwayne and Darren Bravo were not considered as they are half-brothers.
Mohinder and Surinder Amarnath represented India and the latter scored a century on his test appearance against New Zealand. Even their father Lala Amarnath led the first Indian side and he was the first century maker for India in Test matches. For Pakistan Rameez Raja and Wasim Raja did the spade work as batsmen. But the more illustrious Hanif, Mushtaq and Sadiq Mohammad made their presence felt in a very big way for Pakistan. There were two other Mohammad brothers as Wazir also represented Pakistan, while Raees was once 12th man for his country.
South Africa saw Kirsten brothers playing for the Proteas. However, both Graeme and Peter Pollock did a grand job before apartheid policy of their Government put paid their hopes in the bud.
So, Big Brothers played brilliant role in International Cricket with significant success and some of them still hold the fort with success. More recently Hardik Pandya played Test cricket but his brother Krunal Pandya is playing only at the IPL level. Both Yusuf and Irfan Pathan made their presence in International Cricket, with the latter being successful in Test matches and Yusuf played stellar role in ODIs for India.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
GOODNEWS
Surinder Amarnath was the best & most unlucky too to have become a victim of selection politics . His Son Digvijay is said to be as aggressive as his father and as solid as his grandfather Lala Amarnath. He is still coming up.