Most Underrated Cricketers in Cricket Chat

[Flem274*]

I know that if you look at the hard figures of his record, he did end up seeing a lot of success at 3. But honestly reckon he'd have been much stronger spending his whole career at 5. Another bloke thatd have benefited having a stronger top order. Could've ended up with a mid to late 40s average. Hussey-lite

Edit: Mentioned because NZ swing/grass kills the top order

yeah fleming had #4 written all over him. hated swing, but played some very important innings for nz in asia.

 

[Slifer]

Yea but what was his average when X didn't have a broken finger nail and Y played at full fitness without back spasms? EH? EH?

(He averaged 'only' 32.42 when both Ambrose and Marshall played, 34 in the Windies - see how silly these stats get?)

I assume you're being facetious. Either way, he averaged 70+ and scored 500 runs in 1984 in a series featuring Marshall, Holding, Garner, and Daniel. No, he didn't play all four throughout the series but in all tests, he faced at least two. Some tests 3 of 4. That's more than good enough for me.

 

[Engle]

I assume you're being facetious. Either way, he averaged 70+ and scored 500 runs in 1984 in a series featuring Marshall, Holding, Garner, and Daniel. No, he didn't play all four throughout the series but in all tests, he faced at least two. Some tests 3 of 4. That's more than good enough for me.

Notice how far ahead Border was of the other batsmen - very impressive indeed

 

[Magrat Garlick]

S Smith averaged 8, a fraud

 

[Gob]

Ken Barrington averaged 51 at home, 69 away. (yes, let's all annoy Daemon)

Ken loved some 69 away from home

 

[a massive zebra]

Notice how far ahead Border was of the other batsmen - very impressive indeed

View attachment 28540

41 runs in 5 innings is not an average of 8.19.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Already have the Ashes though

As an aside, it was only a week or two ago that I realized your username was Fuller Pilch and not Fuller Pitch.

You're about the 3rd or 4th person to write that over the years. I once read a book about really old players and thought he sounded like a good dude so chose the name.

 

[cnerd123]

Yeah I'd heard of him but didn't realise he was the user name here.

i thought you'd have seen him play

 

[CodeOfWisden]

Thilan Samaraweera
Dilip Vengsarkar
Lance Gibbs
Mark Richardson
Ashwell Prince
Ian Redpath
Javagal Srinath
Stuart Clarke
Derek Underwood
Ravi Shastri.

 

[Burgey]

cnerd truly proving himself an honestbharani multi with this standard of “humour.”

 

[andruid]

Probably overrated

i thought you'd have seen him play

 

[StephenZA]

i thought you'd have seen him play

Why would Burgey have seen him?... never played in an Ashes only played in English domestic.

 

[Uppercut]

Ntini and Siddle are good answers. A sustainable action that means you can play lots of games without breaking down is one of the most valuable traits a test bowler can have, but it's boring so we don't talk about it much.

Sehwag and Jayawardene are good answers too. A new development since I last wandered into CC is that people are now extremely keen for player performance to be as evenly distributed across countries as possible. Players that absolutely crush in 75% of the conditions they play in get a bit less credit than they deserve.

Also ~every South African and Sri Lankan is underrated here because their fans are underrepresented, but that's not a new development at all.

 

[Daemon]

Also ~every South African and Sri Lankan is underrated here because their fans are underrepresented, but that's not a new development at all.

I don't think this is true of the elite SA/SL players with the exception of perhaps Kallis.

Heaps of people have been arguing Steyn > Hadlee, AB > KP and Sanga > Kallis > Dravid etc recently. It's probably more relevant for the lesser players like Dilshan or Ntini for instance.

 

[trundler]

I was thinking the other day that Ntini playing as long as he did, as one of the better pacers around no less, is an indictment on the state of pace bowling in the 00s. His equivalent bowlers today like Shami and Roach appear much better.

 

[Teja.]

A new development since I last wandered into CC is that people are now extremely keen for player performance to be as evenly distributed across countries as possible.
.

I agree that Sehwag and Jayawardene are underrated. The above quoted logic does seem weird prima facie as you imply but I think its more that batsmen who do well in conditions radically different from what they face at home are valued higher because there's plenty of batsmen in a team who can do a job at home and home advantage has become stronger than ever wheras the opposite is true for batting away from home, especially in comparatively alien conditions.

For example, these are India's batting stats in the 'home season in 2019 with basically everyone averaging 60+:


However, if you look at the stats in the away tours since 2020 (NZ, Australia and the WTC test), you get drastically worse numbers with only a couple of batsmen making runs. While I agree that batsmen like Warner and Sehwag are ATGs and people do take it too far the other way, it does make sense a lot of times to contextualize runs. For instance, an Indian batsman doing well in England and being average in India in this era is lot more valuable than the opposite because there's literally no one in our batting line up who has consistently made runs in England, apart from Kohli last tour.

There's another interesting anti-cricket argument in this type of debate which was first made by Goughy a long time ago where he argued iirc that a cricketer (Botham in that case) should be rated more highly for performing well against teams which were roughly on their level and they had a realistic chance of beating (like India and Australia) as compared to performances by a player against a far superior side which their side did not have a chance at beating (like Kapil's great performances v WI). I think it's harsh to not rate lower for performing their best against the best sides but it was a pretty interesting argument nevertheless.

 

[honestbharani]

For instance, an Indian batsman doing well in England

The singular being imperative here, coz you dont want an entire line up who are good in England and useless in India.


We already have England for that.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

The singular being imperative here, coz you dont want an entire line up who are good in England and useless in India.


We already have England for that.

Boy do I wish we had this.

 

[Uppercut]

There's another interesting anti-cricket argument in this type of debate which was first made by Goughy a long time ago where he argued iirc that a cricketer (Botham in that case) should be rated more highly for performing well against teams which were roughly on their level and they had a realistic chance of beating (like India and Australia) as compared to performances by a player against a far superior side which their side did not have a chance at beating (like Kapil's great performances v WI). I think it's harsh to not rate lower for performing their best against the best sides but it was a pretty interesting argument nevertheless.

I made this argument about a decade ago, albeit not fully believing it. IIRC it wasn't one of my more popular ideas. Most people hated it.

As an Ireland fan I would 100% take a home specialist over a batsman with evenly distributed runs. Away runs aren't very useful for us. We'll struggle to get results in the subcontinent for the foreseeable future, and one player who can handle those conditions won't change that. If we want a test victory, we need players who are good at home.

That's not exactly the same thing as home players being "better". But there's an extent to which batsmen choose which skills to develop, and I'd like it if they made that choice with the intention of winning matches. Suppose one of our players works hard on mastering Irish conditions, and another tries to master all conditions evenly, and they end of with similar records overall. I would strongly object to the idea that the latter player is automatically better because his runs were more evenly distributed.

All that said, I agree with your post on the whole. It's impressive for an Indian or Sri Lankan player to bat well in England or Australia, and vice-versa. It's not that the logic is wrong, it's just given more weighting than I think it should have, and Sehwag/Jayawardene types are underrated as a result.

I think the Goughy logic is stronger when it comes to valuing fifties, centuries, and double centuries. If you modelled the marginal effect of each run on win probability you'd probably get something n-shaped. Sometimes people use double centuries as a kind of tie-breaker, but that just seems wrong to me. The runs between 180 and 200 aren't very likely to make the difference between winning and losing.

 

[honestbharani]

I made this argument about a decade ago, albeit not fully believing it. IIRC it wasn't one of my more popular ideas. Most people hated it.

As an Ireland fan I would 100% take a home specialist over a batsman with evenly distributed runs. Away runs aren't very useful for us. We'll struggle to get results in the subcontinent for the foreseeable future, and one player who can handle those conditions won't change that. If we want a test victory, we need players who are good at home.

That's not exactly the same thing as home players being "better". But there's an extent to which batsmen choose which skills to develop, and I'd like it if they made that choice with the intention of winning matches. Suppose one of our players works hard on mastering Irish conditions, and another tries to master all conditions evenly, and they end of with similar records overall. I would strongly object to the idea that the latter player is automatically better because his runs were more evenly distributed.

All that said, I agree with your post on the whole. It's impressive for an Indian or Sri Lankan player to bat well in England or Australia, and vice-versa. It's not that the logic is wrong, it's just given more weighting than I think it should have, and Sehwag/Jayawardene types are underrated as a result.

I think the Goughy logic is stronger when it comes to valuing fifties, centuries, and double centuries. If you modelled the marginal effect of each run on win probability you'd probably get something n-shaped. Sometimes people use double centuries as a kind of tie-breaker, but that just seems wrong to me. The runs between 180 and 200 aren't very likely to make the difference between winning and losing.

There was a popular name for those runs back in the late noughties here, right? When you get runs just to rub it in or whatever...