By Waleed Saleem (28th October 2012)

Who do you think of when someone asks you to name a cricketing legend? Imran Khan? Don Bradman? Malcolm Marshall? Sachin Tendulkar? These are probably some of the names that come to mind, but what makes a cricketer a legend?

The Oxford dictionary defines the word legend as ‘an extremely important famous or notorious person, especially in a particular field.’ Applying this definition, one could potentially classify Justin Bieber as a legend, because he is extremely famous (or infamous), but is he a legend? Certainly not.

So what makes someone a legend? To analyse further, let’s look at what makes the likes of Imran Khan, Don Bradman and Javed Miandad legends.

Imran Khan is a hugely popular figure in Pakistan and in the broader cricketing world, his legendary status being cemented by the 1992 World Cup win and the cornered tigers speech. However, his legendary status isn’t limited to his leadership. He had great skills as a cricketer, a great eye for talent, a great vision as a captain and most importantly that charisma attached with his personality. These are the attributes that made him a legend and why people still remember him as a cricketer.

Don Bradman and his immense batting average of 99.94 in 52 matches is enough of a reason alone to make him a legend, but again his skills and ability as a batsman along with his attitude towards cricket set him apart and made him a legend.

Hanif Mohammad also known as the (original) little master was hugely popular for his patience. That innings of 347 against West Indies which lasted 970 minutes provided evidence of his legendary status, but he had additional skills of being versatile, he could bowl with either arm and probably invented the reserve sweep. This whole package most probably got him under that famous category of ‘legends’.

Javed Miandad? That six in Sharjah against India, at least in the eyes of the Pakistani public, made him a legend but there was more to him than just that. His street fighter attitude, the ability to score runs in any situation, the aggressive running between the wickets, most runs by a Pakistani batsman in Test cricket and most importantly his mental strength as a player all played a part in him being branded as a legend.

A common thing between all these ‘legends’ is that they all have a very good Test record, but as it’s known in statistics that correlation does not equal causation and so being good in Test cricket should not necessarily be criteria to be classified as a legend.

There are two factors that I would like to propose to classify someone as a legend. One is uniqueness - they all need to have something unique attributed with, some unique characteristic, some unique skills or some uniquely memorable innings. The other is that people should remember them even after decades after they retire.

What about some of the current cricketers? Shoaib Akhtar, Sachin Tendulkar, Chris Gayle and Shahid Afridi? Are they legends or will they ever be legends?

From the criteria set above none of them is currently a cricketing legend (they are just too recent). However Sachin and Shoaib will most definitely be in my opinion cricketing legends, one is the highest run getter in international cricket and the other was arguably the fastest bowler in the world in his time – both powered by diehard, “never say die” attitudes.

The other two cricketers are a bit tricky, but following the criteria set above both will be remembered as legends. Gayle has a positive attitude and coupled with his destructive batting, I for one will definitely tell my children and grandchildren about how good this man was, so he for me will be remembered as a legend. Shahid Afridi has the fastest century (and almost changed the way aggressive batting is done), that overly aggressive and entertaining style of batting going for him and I’m certain a lot of people will tell the new generations about how destructive this man could get.

However only time will tell whether these cricketers are going to be remembered as legends or not and whether this criteria of defining ‘legends' is correct or flawed.

Discuss!