Rate the current Test teams on the basis of how over/underrated their players are

[OverratedSanity]

Test cricket's crying out for India v Pakistan at the moment. Would be brilliant. Younis and Misbah vs Ashwin and Jadeja on turning tracks would be great.

Amir vs Kohli too. Would be spicy for sure. And with Amir's fixing background, the rivalry would just get doubly nasty since most of the Indian team nowadays are mouthy ****s. Would be massively entertaining.

 

[TNT]

Amir vs Kohli too. Would be spicy for sure. And with Amir's fixing background, the rivalry would just get doubly nasty since most of the Indian team nowadays are mouthy ****s. Would be massively entertaining.

Bit of a mismatch though, Kholi would destroy Amir, although I wouldent bet on it.

 

[smash84]

Bit of a mismatch though, Kholi would destroy Amir, although I wouldent bet on it.

In ODIs he Kohli will probably destroy Amir. Test matches though are a different beast.

 

[Flem274*]

would be fun if bangladesh can finally live up to all the wishful thinking with their now dangerous looking team and throw hand grenades into the rankings battle by winning test series at home.

 

[Black_Warrior]

For me:

Majorly overrated: Australia
Overrated: England, India
About right: Zim, WI, BD
Underrated: Pak, SL, NZ
Majorly underrated: South Africa

The problem with overrated or underrated discussions is that it is totally at an individual level.

Some people rate England as a top side today, some people don't. It's very difficult to make a general statement about whether England is overrated or not. It's usually based on what your own experience is. So maybe you heard people around you saying England are the next West Indies of the 80s and you find that overrating the team. Fair point.

Based on activity on this forum.

I would say the teams with the biggest fan bases will naturally have a proportion of overzealous fans who believe their team is the greatest thing to happen to cricket, and the teams with less number of fans will tend to get drowned out a little.
Australia, India, England and New Zealand have the most number of fans on CW, but from my experience, the England and India fans are very measured in their assessment of their team, even after a massive victory like the South Africa one now.
If anything, I find Australia and New Zealand these days, by virtue of having a small proportion of those overzealous fans tend to get overrated a little bit. In fact I would describe you as one of those fans tbh. You tend to overrate Southee a little bit for example. Not saying all of the AUS/NZ fans are like that though. Most of them aren't.

The other teams barely have 3-4 active fans on CW to make much noise. This is why South Africa tend to get a little underrated, because there aren't enough fans here expressing their point of view.

Oz are potentially a great team but let's not get carried away

These guys were beaten by a very ordinary England team FFS

Burns - developing nicely and is technically better than at the start of the summer but he is batting on roads

Khawaja - smashing hundreds on roads is great but bigger tests to come and he looks loose around off stump to me

Voges - brilliant Band-Aid on roads

MMarsh - improving with the ball but has done nothing with the bat aside from the UAE

Haze - great stats but Adelaide needs to be the rule not the exception in how he bowls

Sidds - done

Patto - just back after a long time out and injured again

Starc - just starting to bowl well at test level and now out for 6 months

Cummins - out for a year

I love posts like these because you can say this about everyone pretty much

would be fun if bangladesh can finally live up to all the wishful thinking with their now dangerous looking ODI team and throw hand grenades into the rankings battle by winning test series at home.

Wrong format. They still haven't taken 20 wickets in 2015, their greatest year in cricket so far.

I massively rate the BD ODI team, but the test team is another story.

 

[Black_Warrior]

It's a decent period for pretty much everyone not named West Indies, Zimbabwe or Sri Lanka.

And yet we have people saying how test cricket is in shambles now because all teams have major weaknesses

 

[we're yorkshire]

England over rated? No one gave us a chance against South Africa

 

[kiwiviktor81]

England over rated? No one gave us a chance against South Africa

Not an overrated team, but tends to have overrated players.

People in the tour thread are still talking about a guy averaging 30 with the ball being world class FFS.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Why would they talk about Tim Southee?

 

[Spark]

It's kind of amazing that anyone still has any doubts about Anderson. Since 2008 he's had two years where he's averaged over 30 (and even then, it wasn't exactly a long way over 30, with some very solid performances included in there). He's taken at least one five wicket haul in each of the last nine calendar years.

What else is he meant to do? Take a hattrick whilst doing cartwheels?

 

[honestbharani]

Nah.. just cartwheels would do..



He is just awesome. But he also behaves like a humongous ass on the field, so guess it is very easy to not rate/ underrate him compared to someone like Steyn who is just as competitive but somehow comes across as more likeable. That IMO is a reason why a fair few still do not rate Anderson even though he obviously is among the top 5 bowlers of this generation.

 

[Spark]

Nah.. just cartwheels would do..



He is just awesome. But he also behaves like a humongous ass on the field, so guess it is very easy to not rate/ underrate him compared to someone like Steyn who is just as competitive but somehow comes across as more likeable. That IMO is a reason why a fair few still do not rate Anderson even though he obviously is among the top 5 bowlers of this generation.

Would be curious to see who people pick as their top bowlers of the post McWarne generation tbh

 

[Gob]

Would be curious to see who people pick as their top bowlers of the post McWarne generation tbh

Would they have to debut post McWarne like Steve O'keefe @ SCG vs WI cos that would be hard

Hoping its not the case i'd go with

Steyn
Anderson
Broad
Johnson
Harris

Harris would be close to Steyn had he played more

 

[vcs]

Assuming Ajmal can't be picked,

Steyn
Anderson
Philander
Broad
Johnson

otherwise, replace one of Broad/Johnson with him.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

What else is he meant to do? Take a hattrick whilst doing cartwheels?

If he could get his bowling average down to within 6-7 runs of contemporaries such as Steyn it would be a good start

 

[Gob]

Assuming Ajmal can't be picked,

Steyn
Anderson
Philander
Broad
Johnson

otherwise, replace one of Broad/Johnson with him.

Nah

 

[vcs]

I really, really rate Philander. He had Steyn playing second fiddle to him for a good period of time. I'd actually have them in that order.

 

[Gob]

Vernon is like 200 wickets short of Broad. If you pick Vernon then you'd rather have Harris as well who has very similar numbers to Vern but had success on more batsmen friendly pitches. Always felt that Vernon is bit one dimensional.

 

[vcs]

Yeah I agree, rating him above Broad is a bit unconventional. It's just that I was really impressed by Philander's early performances, making me overlook some of his struggles against Australia and in recent times. Steyn-Morkel was hardly a poor new ball attack, and this guy suddenly comes it and improves it significantly, which was very impressive.

Harris was excellent no doubt, it's just that Philander's performances stick out a bit more in my mind.

 

[Spark]

Yeah I agree, rating him above Broad is a bit unconventional. It's just that I was really impressed by Philander's early performances, making me overlook some of his struggles against Australia and in recent times. Steyn-Morkel was hardly a poor new ball attack, and this guy suddenly comes it and improves it significantly, which was very impressive.

Harris was excellent no doubt, it's just that Philander's performances stick out a bit more in my mind.

Harris was definitively the better bowler IMO. Had more tools in his arsenal to prise batsmen out on unresponsive decks.

If he could get his bowling average down to within 6-7 runs of contemporaries such as Steyn it would be a good start

Nah, I think he'll just focus on consistently winning important Test matches instead.

He's pretty clearly been the second best bowler of the last 5 or so years, as anyone who has actually watched a reasonable amount of England Tests as opposed to statsguru could tell you. Only Steyn and Harris were IMO better bowlers, and the latter wasn't fit half the time. Johnson's last year or so in Tests puts him below for mine. So in order: Steyn, Anderson, Harris, Broad, Johnson. Maybe try to squeeze Herath in there somewhere too.