He was born in Leigh, just outside Wigan, 35 years ago but few would deny that Ronnie Irani, who announced today that he will retire at the end of the season, is Essex Man through and through, a cult figure in Chemsford, Southend and Colchester for his unbridled lust for life.

Irani came to Essex in 1994 after a frustrating three seasons with Lancashire (in which he took five first-class wickets and had a top score of 44) and through hard work and immense self-belief transformed himself into one of the finest all-rounders in the country. Indeed, in 1999, the year after Andrew Flintoff made his Test debut, Irani won the Cricket Society’s award for the best all-rounder in English cricket.

That was the year he earned the last of his three Test caps, and a disappointing match haul at the Oval of ten runs and one wicket coincided with the defeat to New Zealand that meant that England became the bottom-ranked side in Test cricket. Yet Irani was still to serve England in one-day cricket, earning a recall in 2002 and playing 21 more matches, culminating in two matches at the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.

His highlight was a haul of 53 runs and figures of five for 26, the fifth-best analysis by an England bowler in one-day internationals, against India at the Oval in 2002.

In all honesty, Irani, a bustling fast-medium bowler with a useful away-swinger and an aggressive batsman, was a little short of international quality, but he was a giant of the county circuit. He scored 1,000 runs in a season – the mark of a good batsman – on seven occasions and with 465 runs in four matches (including a career-best 218 against Glamorgan) this year before his frequent knee injury flared up again, he was set for another good haul.

His bowling was always useful rather than dominating, but when his knee injury forced him to give up bowling altogether in 2003 it was the making of Irani as an upper-order batsman. In each of the past three seasons he has averaged almost 60. As a one-day opening batsman, his ability to destroy attacks lay behind Essex winning the domestic one-day league for the past two seasons.

Irani was appointed Essex captain in 2000, in succession to Nasser Hussain, and is the second longest-serving captain on the county circuit, after Chris Adams at Sussex. While many would criticise him for his laidback approach to the art of captaincy – his usual fielding position is leaning on the fence at long-on and he often appears to be walking out as the bowler runs in – his positive influence at the club on such younger cricketers as Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara and Mark Pettini, who has stood in for him as captain this season, is undeniable.