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Most overrated cricketer

trundler

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Let's do this by country:

Australia: Steve Waugh, Warne (voted a top 5 cricketer of the 20th century which is insane), Greg Chappell
England: May, Compton, Atherton, Barnes, Trueman
South Africa: Kallis, G Pollock
West Indies: Kanhai, Hall
New Zealand: Glenn Turner, Shane Bond
India: Jadeja, Tendulkar (still great, just overrated by casuals like Warne)
Pakistan: Inzamam-ul-Haq (widely considered better than YK outside CW which is wrong, not overrated here), Zaheer Abbas
Sri Lanka: De Silva (I guess)

There are guys like Hayden, Akram, S Pollock etc who are simultaneously overrated and underrated by different sections so it ends up mostly cancelling out.
 

trundler

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Explain how that is worse than averaging 22.81 consistently across a career, please.
It's also penalising him for being a test class specialist batsman for 4 years out of a 21 year career. Imagine faulting someone for continuing to be useful beyond the point regular cricketers retire in a totally different role because it makes one number less pretty.
 

Coronis

Cricketer Of The Year
Let's do this by country:

Australia: Steve Waugh, Warne (voted a top 5 cricketer of the 20th century which is insane), Greg Chappell
England: May, Compton, Atherton, Barnes, Trueman
South Africa: Kallis, G Pollock
West Indies: Kanhai, Hall
New Zealand: Glenn Turner, Shane Bond
India: Jadeja, Tendulkar (still great, just overrated by casuals like Warne)
Pakistan: Inzamam-ul-Haq (widely considered better than YK outside CW which is wrong, not overrated here), Zaheer Abbas
Sri Lanka: De Silva (I guess)

There are guys like Hayden, Akram, S Pollock etc who are simultaneously overrated and underrated by different sections so it ends up mostly cancelling out.
Who overrates Kanhai? And are these mostly CW things or media things?
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
Explain how that is worse than averaging 22.81 consistently across a career, please.
Yeah exactly. You will always get slices with much better and much worse averages than career averages. It's the same thing that is done to Viv Richards career.
 

Coronis

Cricketer Of The Year
Like I said I just prefer players who are more consistent so thats just me. Like I loved watching Johnson at his peak but his troughs were disgusting and I’d have much preferred it if he was a more consistent bowler tbh.
 

trundler

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Who overrates Kanhai? And are these mostly CW things or media things?
Both the media and wider cricket community. I've seen plenty of people talk about Kanhai as if he's on the same plane as Sobers as a batsman because muh genius. Guys like Kanhai, Compton, Abbas and May are vastly overrated by old school writers because muh genius.
Like I said I just prefer players who are more consistent so thats just me. Like I loved watching Johnson at his peak but his troughs were disgusting and I’d have much preferred it if he was a more consistent bowler tbh.
Nah it's not like Johnson at all. More like if Steyn became a specialist batsman instead of retiring but still bowled a bit so his non-peak average arbitrarily went up. The man broke his back, said nah I'll walk it off and became a full time batsman fuelled solely by pain injections and determination.
 

Flem274*

123/5
yeah i don't penalise players for finding new ways to be useful just because they disturb the purity of someones model on how careers should go.

i don't think it means you get to pick a player who didn't exist for an atg side, but cricket isn't played to produce comfortable and pure atg sides. if babar azam loses an eye tomorrow and can't bat anymore but works on his bowling and makes the team it doesn't make him a worse player but you also don't get to merge his batting and bowling for an atg team, but tbh who cares because the most important pakistan team to be good is the one that plays the next real game.
 

Ashes81

State Vice-Captain
Let's do this by country:

Australia: Steve Waugh, Warne (voted a top 5 cricketer of the 20th century which is insane), Greg Chappell
England: May, Compton, Atherton, Barnes, Trueman
South Africa: Kallis, G Pollock
West Indies: Kanhai, Hall
New Zealand: Glenn Turner, Shane Bond
India: Jadeja, Tendulkar (still great, just overrated by casuals like Warne)
Pakistan: Inzamam-ul-Haq (widely considered better than YK outside CW which is wrong, not overrated here), Zaheer Abbas
Sri Lanka: De Silva (I guess)

There are guys like Hayden, Akram, S Pollock etc who are simultaneously overrated and underrated by different sections so it ends up mostly cancelling out.
Don't know where to start with that list mate but I can't let the Graeme Pollock reference go.

Averaged nearly 61 from his first 23 tests before S Africa's ban and had his best years ahead of him.

He could have quite easily ended up with a record 2nd only to The Don so I'd be interested to know why you think he's overrated
 

trundler

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Don't know where to start with that list mate but I can't let the Graeme Pollock reference go.

Averaged nearly 61 from his first 23 tests before S Africa's ban and had his best years ahead of him.

He could have quite easily ended up with a record 2nd only to The Don so I'd be interested to know why you think he's overrated
Pollock faced the softest Australian attacks between Davo and Lindwall and never faced Trueman in a test. Averaging 60 at that point in his career is still great of course but someone like Miandad who's considered a B tier great averaged more up to that point against similar or better attacks. Yet he's placed in the top ten batsmen of all time. I'd have him top 20ish and somewhere alongside Barrington and the 3 Ws. It's not his fault he couldn't do more but you can only rate him on what he did.
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
At the end of year 1988, Imran was averaging just shy of 22 with 334 wickets in 73 matches. Then went on to play 15 more tests mostly as a batsman (was he skipping "easy" tours?) and averaged 73 with the bat. Seventy ****ing Three. Is that what he loses points for?
 

Coronis

Cricketer Of The Year
At the end of year 1988, Imran was averaging just shy of 22 with 334 wickets in 73 matches. Then went on to play 15 more tests mostly as a batsman (was he skipping "easy" tours?) and averaged 73 with the bat. Seventy ****ing Three. Is that what he loses points for?
Nah actually its more his pre peak bowling that puts me off tbh. Also that he is a big home track bully (both batting and bowling). And yeah that “73” is well inflated, 7/20 not outs and batting very low in the order does that.
 

CricAddict

Cricketer Of The Year
Let's do this by country:

Australia: Steve Waugh, Warne (voted a top 5 cricketer of the 20th century which is insane), Greg Chappell
England: May, Compton, Atherton, Barnes, Trueman
South Africa: Kallis, G Pollock
West Indies: Kanhai, Hall
New Zealand: Glenn Turner, Shane Bond
India: Jadeja, Tendulkar (still great, just overrated by casuals like Warne)
Pakistan: Inzamam-ul-Haq (widely considered better than YK outside CW which is wrong, not overrated here), Zaheer Abbas
Sri Lanka: De Silva (I guess)

There are guys like Hayden, Akram, S Pollock etc who are simultaneously overrated and underrated by different sections so it ends up mostly cancelling out.
Kallis is over-rated? He is under-rated everywhere, within CW and outside. Graeme Pollock not over-rated too but I see that point has been made already.
 

trundler

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Nah actually its more his pre peak bowling that puts me off tbh. Also that he is a big home track bully (both batting and bowling). And yeah that “73” is well inflated, 7/20 not outs and batting very low in the order does that.
10 wicket hauls in each of Australia, England and WI. Won Pakistan a series in England with the ball and drew in WI. Averaged 24 away before the batsman phase. That's like calling Smith or Steyn HTBs.
 

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