Put these five players in order

[thierry henry]

Perhaps it's counter-intuitive but I tend to rank Fleming slightly higher, rather than lower, as a result of his crap conversion rate. I understand the logic behind rating guys more highly for their big, memorable innings but with Fleming he probably had a higher proportion of "useful" innings than usual for a guy with his moderate record (I'm assuming this must be the case due to his unusual distribution of scores without actually checking it, but it also matches with my perception and memory of him as a guy who usually at least got a start). By NZ standards it was just nice to have a guy in the team with a bit of stability and who could generally be counted on to make a few runs. It was more like having a 45-average guy in the team except he got out for 70 rather than 140 (I'm fully aware of how absurd that sounds but hopefully you get my point).

 

[morgieb]

Stewart
Fleming
Atherton
Hussain
Astle

 

[Zinzan]

Perhaps it's counter-intuitive but I tend to rank Fleming slightly higher, rather than lower, as a result of his crap conversion rate. I understand the logic behind rating guys more highly for their big, memorable innings but with Fleming he probably had a higher proportion of "useful" innings than usual for a guy with his moderate record (I'm assuming this must be the case due to his unusual distribution of scores without actually checking it, but it also matches with my perception and memory of him as a guy who usually at least got a start). By NZ standards it was just nice to have a guy in the team with a bit of stability and who could generally be counted on to make a few runs. It was more like having a 45-average guy in the team except he got out for 70 rather than 140 (I'm fully aware of how absurd that sounds but hopefully you get my point).

I'ts not absurd, It's basically a Consistency vs. conversion argument. The fact he averaged 40 with that incredibly low conversion suggests he had an awful lot of scores between 30-100.

 

[Furball]

Harmison was a worse version of Johnson. Absolute gun on his good days and utter filth on his bad days.

Steve Waugh referred to him as the "white West Indian" due to his height and pace and really rated his talent. He was memorably woeful at times and didn't peak in his late career like Johnson so won't be remembered the same way. But they were remarkably similar in how their careers panned out.

That's a ludicrous comparison.

 

[stephen]

That's a ludicrous comparison.

What's ludicrous about it?

Yes, Johnson was a much better bowler. But he and Harmison were both the most hot and cold bowlers I've seen. At their best both were intimidating and fine bowlers. At their worst they were pure pie chuckers.

 

[stephen]

It's hard for me too rate English batsmen from the 90s. McGrath in our side means I never saw enough of them batting.

 

[Howe_zat]

As keeper/batsmen

Rod Marsh (3633 at 27)
Jeff Dujon (3146 at 31)
Syed Kirmani (2759 at 27)
Moin Khan (2581 at 29)
Ridley Jacobs (2577 at 28)

 

[Flametree]

Hard to compare Dujon and Kirmani - one was spectactular 25m behind the stumps, one was brilliant 1m behind them...

 

[Burgey]

Dujon
Marsh
Kirmani
Moin
Jacobs

Found it hard to separate the top four tbh so maybe a bit of bias on my part putting Marsh so high, given he was a childhood hero.

 

[Zinzan]

All good keepers

Kirmani
Dujon
Marsh
Moin
Jacobs

 

[OverratedSanity]

Dujon
Kirmani
Jacobs
Marsh
Moin

Controversial putting Jacobs over Marsh I know, but I reckon he was severely underrated, especially as a batsman. There was a short stretch when Lara was in really terrible form when it was Jacobs producing the tough runs,not sure many people remember this.

 

[indiaholic]

When was this? Early 2000s?

 

[OverratedSanity]

I think so. Might've been the 2001 tour down under.

 

[cnerd123]

I definitely remember Jacobs pulling of several good innings and then checking his record and being kinda shocked at how low his average was as a kid

Not a pretty batsman but a gutsy one

 

[indiaholic]

I was shocked when I saw his average here. Expected it to be in the mid 30s. I asked OS so that i could check scorecards lol

 

[Daemon]

Kirmani has the coolest 90's kids tv show intro looking cricinfo profile pic so he wins

 

[Zinzan]

How bout this lot as Test pacers?

Mervyn Dillon 131 wks @ 33
Lasith Malinga 101 @ 33
Chris Martin 233 wks @ 33
Ishant Sharma 212 wks @ 36
Fidel Edwards 165 wks @ 37

 

[Burgey]

Chris Martin

The rest in any order really

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Martin
Malinga
Dillon
Ishant
Edwards

 

[Furball]

Did Castro not have an average in the high 40s at one point?