Cheers To Overseas Stars' 50 Years Of Service...

Everyone will have their favourite overseas pro in county cricket – they’ve been decorating our summer game for 50 years now.

- Derek Pringle

It may not even have been one who played for your team. My own was Ken McEwan, with whom I played at Essex, but Malcolm Marshall would have run him close with his unstinting service for Hampshire.

Both men were beloved by team and supporters alike, mostly because they played so long for their respective counties that they became part of the family – and county teams in their era, the 1970s and 80s, were just like big, messy families.

But were they successful in bringing home the bacon for their teams? Few could match Marshall’s incredible wicket-taking prowess, but although he took over 1,000 first-class wickets for Hampshire over 11 seasons, they never won a County Championship title with him in the side. In fact, he had little to show for his perennial dominance over batsmen other than two Benson and Hedges titles and a Sunday League trophy, small beer for the sheer effort and brilliance he gave in equal measure.

McEwan, a quiet and clubbable South African, was a batsman of silky but punishing strokes, a bit like a sporting Madam Whiplash. He won three Championships with Essex, three Sunday League titles, a Benson and Hedges Cup and one NatWest Trophy. In those three Championship campaigns he scored 4,868 runs at 52.3, by some distance more than anyone else at the club, including Graham Gooch.

With counties allowed two overseas players from 1970-85, McEwan shared the stage for many of Essex’s successes with Norbert Phillip, an all-rounder from the West Indies. A fine player, Phillip was more a utilitarian signing than a game-changing one unlike Kenny Mac, whose contributions to Essex’s success were stellar.