SHAUN POLLOCK

'Shaun Maclean Pollock' (born July 16, 1973 in Port Elizabeth) is a South African cricketer who is considered a bowling all-rounder. From 2000 to 2003 he was the captain of the South African cricket team. He was also chosen as the Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2003.

Contents

Cricketer

Career highlights

Rankings

Personal life

References

External link

Cricketer

Shaun Pollock is a medium-fast seam bowler, with the ability to deliver a quicker ball. His main weapons are his unwavering accuracy, reliability and his ability to make the ball swing both ways, but he can also produce a dangerous surprise bouncer. He is considered to be one of the straightest bowlers in world cricket.
The nephew of legendary South African cricketer Graeme Pollock and the son of former South African fast bowler, Peter Pollock, expectations from him have been high since he started playing for South Africa in 1995/96, in their home series against England. Incidentally his father, Peter Pollock was the chairman of selectors, when he made his entry into the South African team. He cemented his place in the team with some excellent performances and found a steady bowling partner in Allan Donald. They were to be the mainstay of South African bowling till Donald's retirement.
Pollock is also a very useful hard-hitting batsman who normally bats at 7 or 8, with a Test average of over 30 and ODI average above 20. There have been many occasions when Pollock saved the day for South Africa by stringing together important lower order partnerships. In fact, most critics would say that he has not fulfilled his true potential as a batsman. His outstanding fielding, both on the outfield and occasionally in the slip region, makes him all the more potent.
After Hansie Cronje was banned from cricket for life, Pollock took over the captaincy in April 2000. He had the task of boosting the morale of the team in the aftermath of the match-fixing scandal. After getting off to a good start as a captain he faced some disappointing series losses in his tenure. He was eventually removed from the captaincy after South Africa's poor performance in the 2003 Cricket World Cup, a tournament that they were amongst the favourites to win as the host nation. Graeme Smith took over the captaincy from him.
Although no longer captain, he retained his place in the team, going about his business quietly. Of late, especially after a disappointing Test series tour of Australia in 2005/2006, he has been facing criticism for losing his wicket taking ability, even though he still maintains his unwavering accuracy about the off-stump. He has the lowest economy rate of any bowler to have taken 300 ODI wickets.^[1] He is the first South African and only the tenth player to take 400 Test wickets. However, minor injuries have hampered his most recent performances.
Besides South Africa, Pollock has also played for Africa XI, World XI, Dolphins and Warwickshire.

Career highlights

Pollock took four wickets in four balls on his first appearance for Warwickshire - in a limited-overs (B&H Cup) game v Leicestershire at Birmingham in 1996.
Shaun Pollock recently received the SA Player's Player award and the SA ODI Player of the Year Award.
He is currently tenth on the all time Test Wicket takers list, and was named 12th in the all time best ever bowler ratings in the LG ICC Ratings. He has taken over 400 wickets and is one of only six players to have scored 3000 runs and taken 300 wickets in Test matches.
His ODI performance is quite impressive as well, he had performed consistently from 1997 to 2001. The year 2002 saw a little performance dip after which he performed excellently up until 2005 after which there was a second dip. Many said that Pollock would not recover from this but he did, in fact he reached his career-best LG ICC Bowling Rating of 920 in February 2006 and it despite slight variation it remains at 920. This personal best gives him the honour of holding the 3rd highest rating ever, 3 points behind the New Zealand bowling great Richard Hadlee.
In June 2007 he represented an Africa XI in an ODI game against an Asia XI in Bangalore. Playing as a specialist batsman, Pollock scored 130 from number 7 in the batting order, the highest ever score by an ODI batsman in that position.^[2] The record would however not last long, MS Dhoni bettered it later in the series.

Rankings

Shaun Pollock's current ranking and (rating)in the Cricket ratings as determined by the International Cricket Council are as follows:

★ Pollock has never gone below the number 2 position for bowlers in the ICC ratings in ODI cricket since 1998

★ Test Batting 48th (488) - career best 37th (565).

★ Test Bowling 4th (730) - career best 1st (909).

★ Test All-rounders 3rd (356) - career best 1st (489).

★ ODI Batting 52nd (525) - career best 34th (589).

★ ODI Bowling 1st (920) - career best 1st (920)

★ ODI All-rounders 1st (483) - career best 1st (483).

Personal life

Pollock comes from a family of mainly Scottish ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Pollock, who played for Orange Free State, was born in Edinburgh.^[3] He is married to Patricia "Trish" Lauderdale and has two daughters, Jemma and Georgia. Jemma was born in August 2003, and Georgia in July 2006. Lauderdale was a finalist in the Miss South Africa pageant in the early '90s and also worked for MTN, a South African telecom company.^[4]

References

1. Records - One-Day Internationals - Most wickets in career
2. Records - One-Day Internationals - Most runs in an innings (by batting position)
3. Players and Officials - Andrew Pollock
4. Pollock in doubt for Sri Lanka

External link

★ Official Site

★ Cricinfo: Player profile

★ CricketArchive: Player profile

'Shaun Pollock at the Cricket World Cup'

'Shaun Pollock's career achievements'