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Who really is the worst player to play for England since 1990?

Who really is the worst player to play Tests for England since 1990?

  • Wayne Larkins

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • David Capel

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Neil Williams

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Derek Pringle

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Dermot Reeve

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mike Gatting

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Paul Jarvis

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • John Emburey

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Neil Foster

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mike Watkinson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • James Ormond

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Geraint Jones

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Liam Plunkett

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .

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Ok I can understand the frustration with Mahmood and he really shouldn't be in any of the England squads at the moment but worst player in the last 50 years? You dont go around taking cheap wickets for the A team in some of the harshest bowling conditions for pace bowlers- India, WI and SL at an average in the low 20s if that was true. Mahmood is not a good bowler, but if he gets his accuracy sorted out, he has the potential to be a very good one.
Pfft, but he plays his county cricket at Old Trafford and averages over 30.

Mahmood isn't the worst player in the world, he'd just horribly inconsistent and nowhere near good enough when he's firing to make up for the dross he bowls when he's not.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
This kind of contradicts the point you keep making about it being the worst cricketers in general and not the worst performed cricketers in Tests though, doesn't? They may have been poor when they played in the 90s but they were good players all the same.
UIMM they were just poor players in the 1990s in general, not merely at Test level. I've said it many times; a good player does not remain a good player for life, he is only good for a finite time. Gatting was no longer any good come 1992/93 and certainly come 1994/95; Botham was absolutely horribly bad (given how good he'd once been) come 1991. Pringle had once been deserving of a Test call (not Test-class nor close to it) but he wasn't come 1991 and there were many better options.

It's important to emphasise that all the players concerned had had breaks from their Test career; they received recalls in the 1990s, some of which were rather unexpected and near enough all of which were criticised to some extent.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I dunno but Neil Smith surely needs to be on the list too. Highest ODI score of 31 against the might of the UAE in 1996. Was picked on the strength of his bowling (nude nuts, for the record) and ended up opening the batting!
I've written that Neil Smith's case more than perhaps any other demonstrates the cluelessness with which England's selectors approached ODI cricket in the later part of the 1990s and the entire 2000s, but mercifully no-one ever considered him for Tests.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
The "absolutely awful" Mike Gatting in first class cricket in 1992, before his totally erroneous recall in 92/93:

10 x 50
6 x 100

Of his 50s, five were scores of 86 or higher. With a bit luck he could have scored 11 FC centuries that year.

If England could select some more "absolutely awful" players of that class, we'd be sitting pretty.

He was arguably the best player in the country at that point.

Mike Gatting in first class cricket in 1994 before his selection in 94/95:

6 50s
6 centuries including 3 double centuries

His double centuries, 2 of them unbeaten, came against
- England A (McCague, Ilott, Bicknell, Dale, Such, Croft)
- Leicestershire (Millns and Mullally)
- Northants (Ambrose).

At this point he was still arguably the best player in the country.
I see. I'd no idea his figures were anywhere near that good TBH, but the point remains that his best days had been behind him in Tests even before he elected for that Rebel tour. I don't believe it was right to recall him, but I may be biased because Michael Atherton's viewpoint on why not made so much sense to me when I read it as an impressionable little 16-year-old.

Fair enough to say he doesn't deserve mention in the list though.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Joey Benjamin also fortunate to escape nomination, but perhaps not as bad a pick as NF Williams.
For me Benjamin just about falls into the next category up. He certainly shouldn't ever have played for England, but he was a decent county bowler for 7 seasons and had a stellar year in 1994 at the end of which he played on a one-off basis and actually made an important contribution to a series-levelling victory (as I'm sure you know). I'd not imagine there are too many one-Test wonders who can be happier with their lot than him.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
I agree that it was highly debatable as to whether he should have been recalled, both for reasons of having led the rebel tour (but cf Graham Gooch) and because of his age. However I was more or less persuaded when I heard a good journalist (don't remember who) say pre-94/95 Ashes that the Ashes are not the time to be building for the future, they are the time to pick your best team, and Gatting remains the best player in county cricket. Wisden's verdict is that he didn't ultimately justify his selection, but I think that's a tiny bit harsh as he had some poor luck and scored an important hundred in the win at Adelaide.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
And what on earth is Ormond on that list for? County pro who could swing the ball both ways at a decent pace and really only didnt get a consistent run in the test side because of his weight issues.
Ormond basically ruined his own career by a) being unable to keep a sensible diet and b) going for big bucks and bright lights (Surrey) over what had sustained him so well (Leicestershire). The moment Ormond left Leics and went to play on The Oval's featherbeds his performances, which had hitherto been promising, deteriorated. Had he not played in 2001 at the last ditch he'd almost certainly not have played at all. Make no mistake, he was a very talented bowler but the issues with him could and should have been discerned before he was picked.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I agree that it was highly debatable as to whether he should have been recalled, both for reasons of having led the rebel tour (but cf Graham Gooch) and because of his age. However I was more or less persuaded when I heard a good journalist (don't remember who) say pre-94/95 Ashes that the Ashes are not the time to be building for the future, they are the time to pick your best team, and Gatting remains the best player in county cricket. Wisden's verdict is that he didn't ultimately justify his selection, but I think that's a tiny bit harsh as he had some poor luck and scored an important hundred in the win at Adelaide.
It's absolutely fair to say that there is a case that he did justify his selection, but Atherton's verdict was that he reckoned Gatting's age, the potency of the Australian attack and above all his by that time dreadful fielding should have been enough of a dissuasion to his selection - that there was enough evidence that he was not among the best cricketers in the country. I have always, as you know, been of the persuasion that Test cricket, against anyone, is always the time to pick your best team and not build for the future. That's the whole ethos of it - the best of one country vs. the best of another.

All that said of course Gatting, though he did precious little for most of that series, did play an innings that paved the way for England's consolation victory and that innings was a truly wonderful example of courage in the face of adversity, something everyone, Atherton included, cherished.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Please people, keep him spouting on in here and the rest of the threads in CC might not be taken over by his rubbish.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'll "take over" whatever threads I fancy. Which, BTW, is none, because no-one can "take over" a thread; anyone who wants to post can do so under all circumstances (unless, obviously, the thread is closed).
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
Please people, keep him spouting on in here and the rest of the threads in CC might not be taken over by his rubbish.
This thread was going along pretty swimmingly until you decided to interject with that comment. It's just going to sideline discussion where we don't need it.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
For me Benjamin just about falls into the next category up. He certainly shouldn't ever have played for England, but he was a decent county bowler for 7 seasons and had a stellar year in 1994 at the end of which he played on a one-off basis and actually made an important contribution to a series-levelling victory (as I'm sure you know). I'd not imagine there are too many one-Test wonders who can be happier with their lot than him.
He was totally peed off at the time. He was selected for the original Ashes tour party and never played a Test, constantly being overlooked in favour of people like Angus Fraser and Chris Lewis who were not in the tour party but happened to be in Australia.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
He (Joey Benjamin) was totally peed off at the time. He was selected for the original Ashes tour party and never played a Test, constantly being overlooked in favour of people like Angus Fraser and Chris Lewis who were not in the tour party but happened to be in Australia.
Didn't he get shingles whilst he was out there?
 

four_or_six

Cricketer Of The Year
I would vote for Ian Salisbury, or Rikki Clarke. I wouldn't like to vote for someone whose career is ongoing because their selection may turn out to have been beneficial for their development down the line (Mahmood or Plunkett may fall into this category) but even so I think I would still go for Amjad Khan.
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
In 1992 the distinctly ordinary Tim Munton and Neil Mallender both got called up against Pakistan - in fairness to Mallender he had a good game at Headingley but Munton looked totally unremarkable
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
.............. and what's Mike Watkinson doing in such a list - surely that matchsaving innings against the WIndies disqualifies him?
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
In 1992 the distinctly ordinary Tim Munton and Neil Mallender both got called up against Pakistan - in fairness to Mallender he had a good game at Headingley but Munton looked totally unremarkable
I always liked the look of Munton. Certainly unremarkable but tall and hit the seam.

Lacked cutting edge and anything special but still a good bowler that was quality at the level below Test.
 

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