Players Who You Predicted Would Be Great................

.........but weren't due to not taking opportunities, injury or whatever. I'll start the ball rolling:

Alan Mullaly: I swear when I first saw this guy bowl, I thought he had the goods. I predicted he'd be a great Test bowler (and in an old 'Inside Edge' magazine of mine, so did Ritchie Benaud, Ian Chappell etc.) but what happened? He had everything; swing, movement off the pitch and an aggressive streak but just didn't make it past the 'looks good' stage.

Greg Blewett: Sure things may not be over yet but it seems that Blewwy will most likely be remembered as a guy who could have been a world beater but didn't make it. Once again, he seemed to have the game to do it; a great pull shot, excellent temperament, glorious flowing drives and could bowl too. Since he was an opener at Sheffield Shield level, I think the biggest mistake the Aussie selectors ever made was batting him at 6 and expecting him to bowl.

Mohammed Akram: this guy I personally thought could REALLY bowl. Tall and quick but probably tended to err on the side of short far too often. When he got the ball up, he was terribly difficult to play.

Mohammed Wasim: Looked to be a brilliant prospect. Absolutely gorgeous drives and technique, he seemed to have the technique and temperament to succeed. I used to love watching him bat because had a lot of Mark Waugh in his smoothe style and was probably even more of a flowing player.

So there you go. Think of others or critique my choices.

Matt Sinclair after his double century in his first test.

Graeme Hick after first seeing him in county cricket.

Good thread T_C.

Agree with your choices especially Mohammed akram.

More from me.

Javagal Srinath: A pacer with everything except some brains. Cant believe he actually ended up with a avg above 30 when he could have been the top 5 bowler of atleast his era.

Wavell hinds: He still has time but surely is not the batsman i thought he was once.

Stuart williams : Obviosuly this man lacks skills at the highest level. But whenever he bats he epitomized pure calpyso fun

cheers

I totally agree about Hick. He must have been the overrated player in the history of test cricket. After all those huge scores in county cricket, he was hyped up to such an extent that he was seen as the 2nd coming of Bradman.

He turned out to be fair player of medium pace and mediocre spin and an absolute bunny (especially when he began his test career)against fast bowling and quality spin. What a let down that was!! I still remember Mustaq Ahmed of Pakistan making him dance at the wicket before ending his misery with a googly or something.

I remember a speedster from Derbyshire many years ago - Alan Ward.

He was 21 when he made his test debut. Only played 5 matches, disappeared without trace.

To tell the truth, he had many injuries - in fact, I think that he was the first cricketer I ever heard of with the old 'stress fractures / shin splints' type of problem.

As Geoff Boycott would say : "Too much bottled milk as a baby".

good thread TC,

Zahid Fazal, looked as smooth as Inzi.

Reon King, seems to remind me of the old WI pacers.

Brett Shultz, I thought he would become the best pacer in the world in the future!

Sanjay Manjrekar, thought he had better style than sahin, maybe not better temperament

Shabbir Ahmad, hope he comes back

Mohammad Zahid, another guy I thought could become the one of the best bowlers in this generation.

I am sure I can think o fmore some other time

Mark Ramprakash and Ian Salisbury.

Also Jason Gallian should have done more. Neil Fairbrother never got a fair crack with England.

I thought Craig Spearman was going to be good, he continuously smashes every attack to pieces at first class level but when he goes up to international level he always flops.

Then, there was Basit Ali, the Miandad clone who was rated very highly at one point, then just faded away.

Laxman : after the killer test series against Australia i thought this guy was superman .... but he certainly hasnt proved that in the tests so far...

Vinod Kambli, I thought he would be one of the greatest batsman ever. The best friend of Sachin Tendulkar, and of equal talent, but not of equal temprament. While Sachin was working so hard, Kambli was partying and relying on natural talent only, this is why he got dumped. But seriously I thought Vinod Kambli would be superb!

I agree on Mohd Waseem, he was really a good prospect, its a pity that his career was screwed up by the Board

I have been the biggest M Akram fan, but I think his failure has been more the resulot of poor team selection than his own folly.

Agree on M Wasim too.

Darren Lehmann i would say........

Praveen amre...remember him ? any one from india..

His career his been screwed by bad luck, politics and regional bias.

Tony Gray...he came with Walsh and I thought Gray would be a better bowler than Walsh Not sure what really happened to him.

Arthurton, who came in WI with Lara, and looked pretty good. Although I thought that he was a bit ****y, but then being ****y actually goes in ur favor in u r a windie. Though not in arthurton's case

Mohd Akram is serving a one yr ban from the game currently for indecipline, i don't think he had the right attitude towards the game!

Can u tell us what M Akram's fault was?

I think he deserted the team without informing anyone, when a series was being played