Top Five Most Underrated Cricketers Ever.

[smash84]

Lets do bcos no team has been as awful as Banglers and Zimbucks. Pakistan, NZ and for a while now the WI have had some pretty dodgy batting sides especially away from home.

.

Ind, Pak, and NZ of the 60s were minnows

 

[smash84]

I'd imagine that a bowler able to adapt to all conditions would have a better average and strike rate than an equivalent one trick pony. 91 vs 63 does not lie.

Yeah. I don't have a problem with Sobers being GOAT but no matter how I try to spin it a wicket every 15.1 overs is difficult to justify for any frontline bowler. Far easier to accept his bowling being over rated.

 

[fredfertang]

I'd imagine that a bowler able to adapt to all conditions would have a better average and strike rate than an equivalent one trick pony. 91 vs 63 does not lie.

Kallis never had to bowl to Kenny Barrington or Bill Lawry

 

[the big bambino]

Ind, Pak, and NZ of the 60s were minnows

They weren't good but they weren't BD and Zim bad.

I'd imagine that a bowler able to adapt to all conditions would have a better average and strike rate than an equivalent one trick pony. 91 vs 63 does not lie.

It doesn't lie but it can be misunderstood. If Kallis was asked to bowl his fast medium stuff over upon over on an unforgiving pitch to stop an end he'd have been dropped long before his SR would've suffered.

 

[Pratters]

Nz were pretty bad and so was India. Pakistan a bit better afaik.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Ind, Pak, and NZ of the 60s were minnows

Nonsense. There's a difference between a bad team and a minnow.

 

[the big bambino]

Exactly. The WI are bad now. We were crap for much of the 80s. Not minnows though.

 

[harsh.ag]

Tbf, Zimbabwe of the late 90s and early 00s also belong in the bad team category. Capable of holding their own.

 

[kyear2]

Small never misses an opportunity to try to attack Sir Garry's record.

Smali constantly raises Sober record vs Pakistan, conveniently omitting he only played them at the beginning of his career and as a spinner on the dead Caribbean pitches and in one particular series that saw two 300 plus individual scores.

Agree with Fred here. One has to look at the batsmen of the day and the strike rates they scored at. Most bowlers of the era had a higher strike rate than bowlers today. Gibbs is a, without doubt an ATG spinner and his strike rate isn't far from Sobers.

Alan Davidson had a strike rate of 62 and Ray Lindwall one of 60 and they are both top tier fast bowlers.

Finally, the Pakistan team had Fazal and Hanif in '54. Hard to call them minnows. Added to that, Sobers didn't only play in the 60's and faced many of the great Indian spinners in the SC

 

[smash84]

Nonsense. There's a difference between a bad team and a minnow.

So what is your definition of a minnow? Zimbos of mid 90s to early 00s were possibly > Pak, NZ, Ind of 60s

 

[the big bambino]

 

[smash84]

Small never misses an opportunity to try to attack Sir Garry's record.

Smali constantly raises Sober record vs Pakistan, conveniently omitting he only played them at the beginning of his career and as a spinner on the dead Caribbean pitches and in one particular series that saw two 300 plus individual scores.

Mommy, there's a monster out there, save me

 

[the big bambino]

One has to look at the batsmen of the day and the strike rates they scored at. Most bowlers of the era had a higher strike rate than bowlers today. Gibbs is a, without doubt an ATG spinner and his strike rate isn't far from Sobers.

Alan Davidson had a strike rate of 62 and Ray Lindwall one of 60 and they are both top tier fast bowlers.

Finally, the Pakistan team had Fazal and Hanif in '54. Hard to call them minnows. Added to that, Sobers didn't only play in the 60's and faced many of the great Indian spinners in the SC

This is the point that is often missed by fans. Cricket is a different, more carefree game now. Tests were traditionally attritional and run rates only really started to accelerate in the mid to late 90s. I think S Waugh set the benchmark by insisting on a RR of 4 per over. As a result bowlers are afforded more opportunities to take wkts. Averages remain much the same but there is a divergence in ER and SR

 

[The Sean]

Sobers' quality as a bowler is always an interesting one to mull. His S/R is certainly unimpressive, but it's worth noting that he played a lot of his career in an era of largely defensive cricket where across the board S/R tended to be poor by today's standards, but economy rates were very good. This was true even of the great fast men of the time - Fred Trueman was something of an exception among those with significant careers in that he had more "modern" stats of an exceptional strike rate but a relatively high economy rate.

When Sobers was at his peak (and bowling fast more often than slow) he had a 30 Test period between early 1962 and late 1968 - nearly seven years - in which he took 113 wickets at 27. That's very good indeed, if a notch or two short of genuinely great, particularly when you think that during the same period he found time to average a lazy 65 with the bat.

As a left-arm quick, contemporaries and keen observers tended to rate Sobers very, very highly. CLR James and Christopher Martin Jenkins both note that for a period of time he was as dangerous with the new ball as anyone in the world, while Tom Graveney (in his wonderful Top 10s book that I tend to reference with every other post of mine) ranked him in 1982 to be both the second greatest left-arm quick (after Davidson, but ahead of Johnston, Goddard and Collinge among others) and the second greatest fast-medium bowler (after Bedser, but ahead of Fazal, Botham, Johnston, Bailey and Garner - who he considered a better bowler when he dropped his pace) since the war. I'm personally not sure I would rate him quite that highly, and while he did a useful job as a stock spinner he was undeniably not a wicket-taker when bowling his slow stuff, but it's still significant that those who saw him close at hand considered him to be as good as they did.

 

[marc71178]

There are like 3 players all-time who would make the team like that.. Sobers wouldn't make the team imo. His bowling was overrated.

Based on your spreadsheets again no doubt.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Oh dear I know what the next 10 pages will be like

kyear: Sobers ftw
smali: I wear Imran undies
kyear: Imran averaged 28+ overseas
smali: Sobers averaged in the 40s away from home
kyear: Sobers bowled a lot
smali: SR 92= worse than mohammad sami and ajit agarkar combined
kyear: But he had to bowl on pancakes at home
smali: Well, he had a home average of 60. Ha, what an FTB
kyear: He ran in all day. He was The Siddle before Siddle.
smali: Imran ran in all day, too. Didn't need 92 balls to get someone out hurrdurr
kyear: Imran wasn't even a good enough fielder to catch all the panties that dropped in front of him
smali: If only Sobers lived up to his name he wouldn't be a drunk bum

Did I cover everything? Someone vm me if these two ****s contribute something new.

 

[The Sean]

As far as the original question is concerned, I'd say that in these parts Hayden and Sehwag qualify for the underrated list. Neither man was technically perfect and both had their problems at various times, but it seems to me that CW as a whole tends to focus an inordinate amount on their (relatively few) flaws and struggles while giving short shrift to the enormous success both men sustained for the majority of their long careers.

 

[harsh.ag]

Yes, the thread title!

So far, I have listed, at various times, Jeffrey Stollmeyer and Khan Mohammad, and endorsed Brian Statham.

Let me add to that Bruce Taylor from New Zealand, who seems to have been a valuable cricketer, especially with the ball. Haven't heard much about him at all, strange considering that New Zealand pace stocks have had few better historically.

Bruce Taylor was a tall (6'3") allrounder who batted with aggression and bowled at fast-medium with an ability to move the ball both ways even on the least responsive pitches. His Test debut was dramatic - he smacked 105 in 158 minutes against India at Calcutta in 1964-65 and followed with 5 for 86 in India's first innings. In his next match he took 5 for 26. Thereafter, he was a regular in New Zealand's side, touring England three times (1965, 1969, 1973) , Pakistan (1964-65, 1969-70) and West Indies (1971-72). In England he struggled on pitches expected to favour him, but otherwise he was a model of consistency. He retired after his last England tour, but returned successfully for Wellington in 1978-79.

 

[harsh.ag]

3 massively underrated New Zealand test players;

1) John F Reid
2) Dion Nash
3) Bruce Taylor

Apologies to Zinzan, who beat me to it.

 

[kyear2]

Oh dear I know what the next 10 pages will be like

kyear: Sobers ftw
smali: I wear Imran undies
kyear: Imran averaged 28+ overseas
smali: Sobers averaged in the 40s away from home
kyear: Sobers bowled a lot
smali: SR 92= worse than mohammad sami and ajit agarkar combined
kyear: But he had to bowl on pancakes at home
smali: Well, he had a home average of 60. Ha, what an FTB
kyear: He ran in all day. He was The Siddle before Siddle.
smali: Imran ran in all day, too. Didn't need 92 balls to get someone out hurrdurr
kyear: Imran wasn't even a good enough fielder to catch all the panties that dropped in front of him
smali: If only Sobers lived up to his name he wouldn't be a drunk bum

Did I cover everything? Someone vm me if these two ****s contribute something new.

Wasn't going there. Ignored if for a while and made my one and only contribution on the topic. No intent to go after Imran or anyone else.