ATUXIs (90s-now)

[Shady Slim]

so all the crawley talk has got me thinking... let's make some All Time Undeserving XIs for decades from the nineties to the modern era. four decades that gives us!

the reason i specifically say undeserving rather than bad - if you just say bad, you'll find that, eg, the xi for the 2000s might be just clogged up with bangladesh JAGs, or whatever, who aren't very good at cricket, but more a function of being generally just less good at the game - even though they full well deserved their spot in the team. which is to say if you frame it as "bad players", you will just get guys from teams with talent dearths.

however!

by framing it as undeserving, you focus it on the crawleys, marcus harrises and so on who aren't just bad per se however also really don't deserve to have been selected.

let's throw in a minimum of ten tests in the relevant decade

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

1. Bill Athey
2. Mike Atherton
3. Mark Stoneman
4. Dawid Malan
5. Ian Bell
6. David Capel
7. Bruce French (decent wicketkeeper, mind)
8. Derek Pringle
9. Ian Salisbury
10. Hmmm... Norman Cowans?
11. Paul Allott

Hard to get that 2nd tail ender in there, and Bruce French was a pretty decent wicket keeper. Otherwise, plenty of dross there (but Athey, Cowans and Allott go back to the 80s)

I don't think players like Mullally or Such are bad enough for this line up, and there were a host of bowlers tried for 2-3 matches that would fit here, but not enough caps. Probably missed someone obvious.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Shady's instructions in this very specific

Like the teacher that makes homework assignments way harder than they need to be

 

[Shady Slim]

Shady's instructions in this very specific

Like the teacher that makes homework assignments way harder than they need to be

nah i just want to avoid an undesired result of people selecting ****ty bangladesh or zimbabwe players from the nadir of those teams, who still were part of the "best xi" their country could offer at that point

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

nah i just want to avoid an undesired result of people selecting ****ty bangladesh or zimbabwe players from the nadir of those teams, who still were part of the "best xi" their country could offer at that point

There were some **** NZ players selected in the 90s. Doesn't mean they weren't the best on offer either. Even with someone like Ian Salisbury, chances are he was the only leg spinning option England had available. You have to be of the view that pretty much any other bowler would have been better - or someone like Robert Croft. Which is a fine argument to make, but sometimes you might want to think about who the quality players not making the side were and therefore who is undeservedly in the team. There are many other options than Z. Crawley, for example, but are any of them clearly and demonstrably better?

 

[honestbharani]

There is a literal Indian fast bowlers XI to be made here. Where is @silentstriker and his wheel?

 

[Shady Slim]

There were some **** NZ players selected in the 90s. Doesn't mean they weren't the best on offer either. Even with someone like Ian Salisbury, chances are he was the only leg spinning option England had available. You have to be of the view that pretty much any other bowler would have been better - or someone like Robert Croft. Which is a fine argument to make, but sometimes you might want to think about who the quality players not making the side were and therefore who is undeservedly in the team. There are many other options than Z. Crawley, for example, but are any of them clearly and demonstrably better?

yeah exactly and that's the thing i'm trying to get at with this thread - not guys that are just bad cricketers, but rather to look to guys who absolutely didn't deserve to be selected whatsoever

same deal with the indian fastbowlers - here we aren't looking for just necessarily the worst indian fast bowlers over this relevant period, rather guys who really didn't deserve to be there - proven failures who still kept getting selected in spite of there being options clearly on the table

 

[TheJediBrah]

Debashish Mohanty
Abey Kuruvilla
Tinu Yohannan
Varun Aaron
Iqbal Siddiqui
Harvinder Singh
RP Singh
VRV Singh
Lakshi Balaji
Vinay Kumar
Unadkat

Munaf Patel, Sreesanth unlucky to miss out

 

[honestbharani]

Debashish Mohanty
Abey Kuruvilla
Tinu Yohannan
Varun Aaron
Iqbal Siddiqui
Harvinder Singh
RP Singh
VRV Singh
Lakshi Balaji
Vinay Kumar
Unadkat

Munaf Patel, Sreesanth unlucky to miss out

The unfortunate truth is you are not even scraping the bottom of the barrel yet. Its that rarefied plane inhabited by Dodda Ganesh and David Johnson.

 

[mr_mister]

Was David Johnson an expat?

 

[Gob]

Sounds like a pornstar

 

[Days of Grace]

"Yuck" New Zealand Test XI 1990-2022

	Matches	Batting Average	Bowling Average
Matthew Bell	18	24.30
Blair Pocock	15	22.93
Jamie How	19	22.70
Roger Twose	16	25.12
Mark Greatbatch	34	23.29
Chris Harris	23	20.44	73.12
Robbie Hart (wk)	11	16.25
Matthew Hart	14		49.58
Matt Henry	17		40.24
Chris Pringle	14		46.30
Geoff Allott	10		58.47

 

[_00_deathscar]

"Yuck" New Zealand Test XI 1990-2022

	Matches	Batting Average	Bowling Average
Matthew Bell	18	24.30
Blair Pocock	15	22.93
Jamie How	19	22.70
Roger Twose	16	25.12
Mark Greatbatch	34	23.29
Chris Harris	23	20.44	73.12
Robbie Hart (wk)	11	16.25
Matthew Hart	14		49.58
Matt Henry	17		40.24
Chris Pringle	14		46.30
Geoff Allott	10		58.47

Would still probably beat an all time India XI in NZ.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

"Yuck" New Zealand Test XI 1990-2022

	Matches	Batting Average	Bowling Average
Matthew Bell	18	24.30
Blair Pocock	15	22.93
Jamie How	19	22.70
Roger Twose	16	25.12
Mark Greatbatch	34	23.29
Chris Harris	23	20.44	73.12
Robbie Hart (wk)	11	16.25
Matthew Hart	14		49.58
Matt Henry	17		40.24
Chris Pringle	14		46.30
Geoff Allott	10		58.47

Bit harsh on Greatbatch to make it from 1990 when he was superb in the late 80s and had an overall average just over 30.

 

[Days of Grace]

Greatbatch fell off a cliff and dined out on his Perth knock and 1992 world cup exploits (in a different format). Once bowlers worked him out (bowl short at the rib cage) then he was a walking wicket, the occasional swashbuckling 30 notwithstanding. Unbelievable that he averaged 23 over 34 tests and still kept being selected.

 

[Flametree]

If DRS had been around Greatbatch may not have got past his first few tests. I think Emburey hit a plonked-down front pad several times in that desperately dull series but kiwi umpires would not give you out if you got a stride in... But not sure his decline means he was undeserving - at least he had a peak to live off. Jeff Crowe lasted 39 tests and barely averaged 30 at his peak...

Was trying to think of who to replace Greatbatch with - statistically it would be Cumming, Flynn, or Rutherford (H) but I think all of them deserved their spot even if they didn't live up to expectation.

This is a difficult topic given the "undeserving" label, as you have to come up with a more deserving candidate who missed out. Even in this side, I'm not sure who was definitely better than Matthew Bell when he was selected. Spearman maybe? Hartland, Murray and Redmond were lucky to stay below the 10 test threshold.

I think the keeper should be Germon. He was better than Hart, but Hart was probably the best first class keeper at the time (Nevin is the one that stands out to me as the option but I'm not sure I have my time periods right there), while Germon was picked ahead of Parore...