by Abhishek Mukherjee
2015. A year and a half thrashing England 5-0 at home and months after winning yet another World Cup, the Australians had arrived in England.
They crushed Kent by 255 runs. Against Essex they piled up 562 in 111 overs in the first innings and set Essex 370 to win in under a day.
Only nine Essex batsmen were fit to bat. The missing batsmen were both specialists. One of them, opener Tom Westley, had top-scored with 141 in the first innings. Ravi Bopara sent Jesse Ryder to open with Jaik Mickleburgh.
It was as unEssexlike a decision as possible. Essex was known for dour batsmen, like Trevor Bailey, Mike Denness, Keith Fletcher, Graham Gooch, Nasser Hussain, Alastair Cook. Their overseas imports included Allan Border, Andy Flower, and Hashim Amla, none of whom were sloggers.
A win was out of the question. And a win did not happen, either.
But that was not how Ryder saw it. Once Mickleburgh saw off Starc, Ryder launched into Hazlewood. The second over of the innings went dot, 4, 4, 6, 4, 4 (no-ball), 4. He was bowled for 37.
Not a big score. Not a great innings. Not even a relevant innings.
If anything, probably a poor innings when your side is two batsmen short, have to bat out a day, and you last 19 balls batting recklessly.
But it was a Ryder innings.
*
Ryder's parents got divorced when he was young. He lived with his father. On one morning his father left him at a friend's and left for Australia. He had promised to return in a week. He settled down in Australia instead.
The childhood was spent "bouncing around friends' places and sleeping on their couches". The reckless attitude developed at roughly this point.
But then he found cricket. And cricket found him.
Had his immense talent been harnessed properly, Ryder could have been an asset. He would almost certainly batted in last month's Super Over. After all, he turns only 36 today.
After 8 Tests Ryder's batting average had soared to 64. At the same time, after 17 ODIs, his average was 40 and strike rate 91.
His finished with a Test average of 40.93, marginally more than Andrew Strauss's 40.91. His ODI batting numbers (Ave 33.21, str rate 95) are better than Sanath Jayasuriya's 32.36, 91. And his T20 strike rate (145.3) is more than Jos Buttler's 144.4 or Nicholas Pooran's 144.3. Remember, he also bowled.
*That* is the sort of career that never took off.
*
NZC can hardly be faulted. Taming Ryder was probably impossible. He refused to play for New Zealand A. He got involved in a bar brawl. Rushed to hospital, he abused the staff. He got into tussles with national coach John Wright. There was another fight where a head injury sent him into a 56-hour coma.
He refused to play for New Zealand A again, which cost him a probable World Cup berth in 2015. We mortals might have sulked or continued to play cricket while cheering for the team. Ryder took to boxing despite warnings from a neuropsychologist (remember that head injury that sent him into coma?).
His former teammates were concerned. "Are YOU SERIOUS?" Martin Guptill texted him.
On March 28, 2015, Ryder knocked out Cameron Slater in SKY Arena's Charity Super 8 Boxing. He then wished Guptill luck, for New Zealand were about to play their first ever World Cup final the next day.
What else did you expect?
Jesse Ryder was born on 6 Aug 1984