By Lehlohonolo Lehana..
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South Africa’s Shaun Pollock, Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardena and former England women’s batter Janette Brittin have been inducted into cricket’s Hall of Fame, the body announced Saturday.
They were accorded the honour ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup final between New Zealand and Australia on Sunday in Dubai.
The International Cricket Council has recognised 106 players in the Cricket Hall Of Fame since its launch in 2009.
The inductees played in 284 Tests, 814 ODIs and 67 T20 Internationals between them, the ICC said in a statement.
Pollock said it was an amazing honour to be included in the Hall of Fame.
“I would like to thank the ICC for this recognition of my career,” Pollock told the ICC.
“It’s an amazing honour to be included in the Hall of Fame alongside the very illustrious company that has already been inducted.
“It’s a real cherry on the top or maybe even a bookend of what has been a thoroughly enjoyable cricketing experience, and I’d like to thank my team-mates who played such a massive part along the journey.”
In their statement announcing the news, the ICC exalted Pollock for his contribution to the game during an international career in which he took 829 wickets.
ICC statement on Shaun Pollock induction:
The son of former South Africa Peter Pollock and nephew of ICC Hall of Famer Graeme Pollock, Shaun Pollock went on to play 108 Tests, 303 ODIs and 12 T20Is across 13 years after making his Test debut in 1995 against England.
It was with the ball that Pollock was truly special, but as a batter, he stood out as well, managing three centuries in total. Two of those hundreds came in Test cricket, in which he made 3781 runs at an average of 32.31 with a further 16 half-centuries to boot.
His lone ODI ton came for an Africa XI against an Asia XI in 2007. It was a 110-ball 130-run blitz fitting for a man with a career strike rate of 86.69. In total, he made 3519 runs at 26.45 in ODIs, with 14 fifties to his name alongside the lone ton.
Unerringly accurate with the ability to swing and seam the ball, Pollock took 421 Test wickets at 23.11, 393 ODI wickets at 25.4 and 15 T20I wickets at 20.6.
He took 16 five-wicket hauls in Test cricket, and only Dale Steyn (439) took more Test wickets for South Africa.
His tally of 829 international wickets is the seventh most of all time but to truly appreciate the greatness of Pollock is to recognise his ability with bat and ball.
Few have ever been as complete a player. Testament to that fact is that among players to have taken more than 400 Test wickets, only Kapil Dev (434 wickets, 5248 runs) scored more runs than Pollock’s 3781.
Pollock was one of the finest bowling all-rounders the game has ever seen and was the first player to achieve the 3,000 run and 300 wicket double in both Test and ODI cricket.