Andrew Hughes looks at how the likes of Steve Tikolo, Tatenda Taibu and Mohammed Ashraful have excelled for the so-called minnows and how the pressure of the team being so reliant on them has inevitably taken its toll.

For all the ICC's efforts, there remains a gulf between the top eight Test playing nations and the rest. Zimbabwean cricket is a shambles and the Bangladeshi game is in crisis, with neither showing any signs of improvement. Further down the cricket food chain, the likes of