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Your Favourite Obscure Selection

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
cricinfo website said:
Hasan Raza is one of the many Pakistanis given an early exposure to international cricket, although even by those standards his Test debut at the age of 14 years and 227 days was exceptional (doubts about his birthdate and medical tests later resulted in the PCB withdrawing the record claim – his actual age was uncertain, but was around 15 at the time of debut).
still, 15 is pretty good going.
 

C_C

International Captain
hey faaip..i thought the best spin potential in AUS is
Doheerty ? any input ?
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Noel David

I dont think many obscure selections can beat the selecion of Noel David into the Indian team in 1997.

Tendulkar was the captain in the tour of 1997 and he rquested for a spinner be sent as a replacement for some one. He indicated his preference for Bahutule as he had confidence in the man.

The selectors came up with one Noel David.

Not many First class followers had heard of him even.

He came to the team, played poorly in a few one dayers, was out of the Hyderabad team soon after and settled in the U.S. not much later.

Such is the sorry state of support recieved by Tendulkar as captain. Okay instead of Bahutule some one else decent could have been sent too but who was Noel David!

Other obscure Indian selections I have seen while watching cricket since 1991 :-

Rakesh Patel
Parthiv Patel
Deep Dasgupta
Devang Gandhi
Nikhil Haldipur
Laxmi Ratan Shulka (selected too young)
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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mavric41 said:
Its funny with all the players not picked because of contracts, that he was not picked for the first test. He looked a good prospect who needs experiance.
Well he couldn't get into the Jamaican side when Gayle returned...

I don't see why he needs his experience at the top level. I also heard word about his possible lack of fitness?
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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vic_orthdox said:
xavier marshall, i believe. hope he doesn't get written off just because he had a hard time of it during the tour. talk about being thrown in the deep end...with concrete floaties on.
Marshall was chosen on the back of a good domestic OD season.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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A couple new names - Dwayne Smith and Ricardo Powell. There's also Adam Sanford. Mind that these aren't favourites of mine, just obscure/shocking selections.
 

chaminda_00

Hall of Fame Member
Mr Mxyzptlk said:
A couple new names - Dwayne Smith and Ricardo Powell. There's also Adam Sanford. Mind that these aren't favourites of mine, just obscure/shocking selections.
Dwayne Smith scored a century on debut, how can u call that a shocking selection.
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
C_C said:
hey faaip..i thought the best spin potential in AUS is
Doheerty ? any input ?
even though i'm not faaip, i think that he's been overtaken this year by cullen with ease. doherty is still averaging around 50 with the ball, and while he is still only young, probably hasn't come on as quickly as everyone would have hoped. has made some pretty handy contributions in the OD comp though, and still only 22. also, tasmania's penchant for choosing 4 pace bowlers at times has arguably hurt his development.
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
C_C said:
hey faaip..i thought the best spin potential in AUS is
Doheerty ? any input ?
Hehe, missed this one.

In my view, best spin talent in Australia is easily Cullen. He took 25 wickets @ 18 or so in his last three FC matches in his debut season. No finger spinner has done anything like that in Australian domestic cricket for a long while. Doherty and White are probably next in line, White first because of his batting, but I don't rate either of them that highly. There's also Krezja, who is a decent young finger spinner for New South Wales who can bat a bit. All in all though, there's nobody that exciting aside from Cullen.
 

chaminda_00

Hall of Fame Member
FaaipDeOiad said:
Hehe, missed this one.

In my view, best spin talent in Australia is easily Cullen. He took 25 wickets @ 18 or so in his last three FC matches in his debut season. No finger spinner has done anything like that in Australian domestic cricket for a long while. Doherty and White are probably next in line, White first because of his batting, but I don't rate either of them that highly. There's also Krezja, who is a decent young finger spinner for New South Wales who can bat a bit. All in all though, there's nobody that exciting aside from Cullen.
Beau Casson isn't too far behind White and Doherty, his biggest problem is that he play half his games useless WACA pitch (interms of its assitance to spin bowling). If he move states, anywhere would be better then the WACA, then he would be giving Cullen a run for his money.
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
chaminda_00 said:
Beau Casson isn't too far behind White and Doherty, his biggest problem is that he play half his games useless WACA pitch (interms of its assitance to spin bowling). If he move states, anywhere would be better then the WACA, then he would be giving Cullen a run for his money.
Maybe. I haven't seen him so I can't comment.

Cullen isn't proven or anything yet anyway, he just looks really good so far.
 

chaminda_00

Hall of Fame Member
Right arm fast said:
afridi was 16 when he got picked
I think non-Asian place too much impotentance on the age of player, if u r good enough ur good enough. Also anyone who saw Afridi at 16 will tell u he didn't look like your average 16 year old, he looked like a man not a boy. It is more obsure to pick someone like Peter Taylor who had no FC record or youth record to back up his selection. Atleast with guys like Warne, Tendulkar, Afiridi and Raza they all showed potential at youth level and at the time of their selection their was a gap in their respective sides that need to be filled.
 

psxpro

Banned
I agree with you, age doesn't matter, if you are good enough, you are old enough but the opposite is true too, i think sometimes people want players dropped if they are too old. If yuo are still good you should keep picking them.
Also I don't believe in picking young players just becasue they are young, Just pick the players who think will do the best job for you.
 

vvk

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Noel David - (who?)
Off spinner with a relatively modest first class record picked to replace Javagal Srinath in the West Indies during a tour in the mid-90s.
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
In 44 years of watching and following test cricket, I dont recall a more scandalous selection than Gavaskar (as captain he could insist and get what he wanted in those days) gettting into his team two Bombay cricketers who were not fit to tie the shoe laces of those they replaced.

Ghulam Parker, Bombay opener and a brilliant fielder at cover and the biggest surprise of them all, Suru Nayak ( so called second Chandrashekhar).

Parker played 1 test on tour, scored 1 and 6.

Suru Nayak (the all rounder) faired even "better" playing 2 (of the 3 test series) batting at positions as varied as number 1 to 10 and getting a grand total series aggregate of 19 runs and 1 wicket for 132 runs !!

He left behind Mohinder Amarnath whom he had kept out of the team for three long years already inspite of massive run getting at domestic level against a;ll sides, most heavily against Gavaskar's Bombay.

Mohinder came back after this tour and over the next five years dominated Indian cricket, indian batting and Sunil Gavaskar himself whom he outscored year after year to get 2604 runs at 54.25 runs each and stood as a rock against the pace attacks of Pakistan and West Indies while all others around him looked clueless.

Keeping Mohinder Amarnath out at this, his peak period (he had debut in 1969 and this five year period came from 82-86) is the greatest fraud done on a cricketer and the public by the cricketing establishment of our country. All the accolades that Sunil Gavaskar never fails to pay to Amarnath can not undo the injustice that was done to him with the active collusion of Gavaskar along with the likes of Raj Singh Dungarpur.
 

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