mr_mister
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
apologies for beating a dead horse - i've discussed this random part of England's history almost to a savant level since joining this forum and have been accused of talking too much about Atherton, Stewart, Hick etc. It's probably because I really got into the nerdier side of cricket due to my love for International Cricket Captain 1, set in 1998 and always longed for the chance to talk about those players.
This is an ATG XI thread, but only for England in the '90s. It's always fascinated me how England managed to go through so many players in a ten year span between 88-98, I feel that has to be a record for most debuting players in ten years.
In the batting there were the mainstays like Stewart, Atherton, Thorpe and Hussain, the FC heavyweights who never held down a test spot(Rampracash, Hick, Crawley, Fairbrother, Knight) and other talented players who had solid little stints at the front and back halfs of the decade (Robin Smith, Butcher). Along with Graham Gooch, all these careers overlapped with each other. In 1995 I'd say all 12 of the players I just mentioned were eligible for selection and most of them managed to play an insanely high amount of tests relative to fringe players in other countries.
There's the whole Russell/Stewart debate, the inability to find a decent All-Rounder, all the lads fighting for the spin spot(Such, Croft, Tufnell, Giles) and of course, the pacemen, of which I can't even count how many options were tried, it seemed truly ridiculous how many random scrubs were given a chance.
This is what I feel is the best they could have done. Sorry to Nasser, he'd make it if if you want toss Gooch due to his age. Dunno if all these guys ever played in the same match together, but I know they would have been eligible in the mid 90s. feel like one of the chronic underachievers full of potential (ramps and hick) deserved a run at 6. It's a long tail but I feel Cork wasn't quite the pacemen those 3 were
Atherton
Gooch
Stewart
Smith
Thorpe
Hick
Russell
Gough
Caddick
Fraser
Tufnell
This is an ATG XI thread, but only for England in the '90s. It's always fascinated me how England managed to go through so many players in a ten year span between 88-98, I feel that has to be a record for most debuting players in ten years.
In the batting there were the mainstays like Stewart, Atherton, Thorpe and Hussain, the FC heavyweights who never held down a test spot(Rampracash, Hick, Crawley, Fairbrother, Knight) and other talented players who had solid little stints at the front and back halfs of the decade (Robin Smith, Butcher). Along with Graham Gooch, all these careers overlapped with each other. In 1995 I'd say all 12 of the players I just mentioned were eligible for selection and most of them managed to play an insanely high amount of tests relative to fringe players in other countries.
There's the whole Russell/Stewart debate, the inability to find a decent All-Rounder, all the lads fighting for the spin spot(Such, Croft, Tufnell, Giles) and of course, the pacemen, of which I can't even count how many options were tried, it seemed truly ridiculous how many random scrubs were given a chance.
This is what I feel is the best they could have done. Sorry to Nasser, he'd make it if if you want toss Gooch due to his age. Dunno if all these guys ever played in the same match together, but I know they would have been eligible in the mid 90s. feel like one of the chronic underachievers full of potential (ramps and hick) deserved a run at 6. It's a long tail but I feel Cork wasn't quite the pacemen those 3 were
Atherton
Gooch
Stewart
Smith
Thorpe
Hick
Russell
Gough
Caddick
Fraser
Tufnell