Best player most people don't know about?

[Kirkut]

David Johnson was rumored to be lightning quick.

Wikipedia calls him the fastest Indian bowler in the 1990s but cricinfo says right arm medium

 

[Daemon]

Atul Sharma

 

[mr_mister]

Norman Callaway - First Class batting average of 207 yet never mentioned in the ATG thread

just read up on him. that's an interesting story - i'd never heard of the guy

Karl Schneider is another interesting what-if story from the olden days. I get Archie Jackson vibes reading about him

 

[Line and Length]

David Larter.

As cricket writer, Colin Bateman, noted, "David Larter was a complex character. There were days at Northampton when he just would not fancy bowling. But when the mood took him and his 6ft 7in physique was in perfect working order, he was a frighteningly good fast bowler, as a career record of 666 wickets at 19 apiece suggests".

10 Test matches and 37 wickets @ 25.4 is solid too.

 

[honestbharani]

David Johnson was rumored to be lightning quick.

Wikipedia calls him the fastest Indian bowler in the 1990s but cricinfo says right arm medium

Most entries related to cricket and cinema from India in Wiki are either biased **** some idiot puts up about his favorites or someone trolling the internet. I assume this one is an example of the latter, as it being the former is, well, scary...

 

[vcs]

It was scary watching him as an Indian fan on the one or two occasions he did get picked. Think it was in that nightmare SA tour where we got bowled out for 66 or something in Durban.

 

[Kirkut]

Atul Sharma

Well, I never saw him play a game of cricket other than Rocky Balboa like training footage.

 

[Daemon]

Well, I never saw him play a game of cricket other than Rocky Balboa like training footage.

Exactly, as a famous poet once said

Ricky Ponting, there is great fame of him
But Atul Sharma? No one knows even name of him

 

[Kirkut]

I miss Dawood Ahmad

 

[tony p]

One I forgot to post yesterday, Eddie Paynter.

Just 20 Tests averaging 59.2.( career average of 42) Double centuries against Australia & South Africa, as well as a century in each innings against South Africa.
Played a famous innings during the Bodyline series at Brisbane when he got out of hospital, took a taxi to the ground in his pyjamas, changed at the ground and scored 83. He had been diagnosed with tonsillitis.
England ended winning by 6 Wkts.

 

[trundler]

Looks like an old timey Voges if you ask me

 

[the big bambino]

Not really. There were plenty of spinners from his generation achieving as good or better returns in county cricket. He played regularly alongside Hedley Verity whose first class bowling average was almost 10 runs lower.

After the war which Verity didn't survive. He should have played tests then.

 

[Starfighter]

David Larter.

As cricket writer, Colin Bateman, noted, "David Larter was a complex character. There were days at Northampton when he just would not fancy bowling. But when the mood took him and his 6ft 7in physique was in perfect working order, he was a frighteningly good fast bowler, as a career record of 666 wickets at 19 apiece suggests".

10 Test matches and 37 wickets @ 25.4 is solid too.

I'm not really sure he was that much better than Fred Rumsey to be honest, though both were a cut above John Price.

 

[ankitj]

David Johnson was rumored to be lightning quick.

Wikipedia calls him the fastest Indian bowler in the 1990s but cricinfo says right arm medium

IIRC, Srinath was genuinely fast for a period of time. At least commentators said so back then I recall.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Peter Lee.

 

[SteveNZ]

Albert Trott - the only batsman to have smacked a ball over the top of the Lords Pavilion

I don't like to be disrespectful, but do we truly believe this? That a guy playing with primitive equipment did something nothing has been able to come close to doing since, with better equipment? Monty Noble was a medium pacer or bowled off breaks from what I can find. So Trott put this guy over the Pavilion, which at a wildly loose guess would have to be a 120m hit, with not a lot of pace on the ball? No one hits it 120m in the modern game.

 

[marc71178]

David Johnson was rumored to be lightning quick.

Wikipedia calls him the fastest Indian bowler in the 1990s but cricinfo says right arm medium

So both were correct then?

 

[Engle]

I don't like to be disrespectful, but do we truly believe this? That a guy playing with primitive equipment did something nothing has been able to come close to doing since, with better equipment? Monty Noble was a medium pacer or bowled off breaks from what I can find. So Trott put this guy over the Pavilion, which at a wildly loose guess would have to be a 120m hit, with not a lot of pace on the ball? No one hits it 120m in the modern game.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/20/remarkable-cricketer-hit-ball-lords-pavilion-denied-blue-plaque/

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/16173483/albert-trott-mighty-hit

https://inshorts.com/en/news/only-one-batsman-has-hit-six-over-lords-pavilion-in-140-yrs-1486351280975

Beyond the famous shot, I would recommend reading up on Albert Trott - a sad, but absorbing story:
https://www.middlesexccc.com/news/2020/03/albert-trott-the-man-who-cleared-the-lords-pavilion

 

[Teja.]

From an Indian POV:

Vijay Merchant averaged 71 in FC cricket over 150 matches. He was only afforded a very small sample size of 10 test matches spread over 20 years but averaged 48 with 3 tons.

His rival, Vijay Hazare averaged 58 in FC cricket over 238 matches and also averaged 48 but over 30 tests.

While not quite as good as the above two, it's too hard for me to not mention another Vijay who had brief overlap with the above two batsman, Vijay Manjrekar who was a rock for Indian cricket and averaged 39 over 55 matches from 1951 to 1965.

 

[Daemon]

The standard of Vijays keeps dropping doesn't it. Since then we've had Murali Vijay who was alright for a while and then Vijay Shankar who was shocking.