Your favourite nobodies

[stephen]

From memory, nobody outside the cricketing establishment wanted Johnson to play that series based on his previous failures. It was the one time the selectors really got it right when the pundits didn't.

 

[honestbharani]

He had gotten into solid form though.. I remember in the IPL when he basically won MI the trophy with some really good fast bowling in the final. I think both Michael Clarke and Shane Warne were predicting that he will be MoS if he played in the Ashes in Australia. Spooky, just like how Tony Greig and Sunil Gavaskar predicted who would do well in the WC semifinal in 1999 in the Indian broadcast.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I liked Peter Such, that long 0 he got at Old Trafford was amazing.

 

[Dan]

From memory, nobody outside the cricketing establishment wanted Johnson to play that series based on his previous failures. It was the one time the selectors really got it right when the pundits didn't.

Pretty sure I made some galaxy brain posts about how I'd rather Butterworth or Cutting played. Bad, but still not quite a Hilf-level taste though.

 

[Victor Ian]

Greg Ritchie

 

[Bahnz]

From a NZ domestic cricket point of view, Mayu Pasupati was pretty great.

Richard Petrie was a personal favourite for Wellington back in the 90's. Pretty average player when you look at his stats, but he had that capability to produce 1 or 2 magic performances a season and win a game from nowhere.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

Peter Lever

 

[morgieb]

Yeah the Faulkner selection was a bit of a weird one. Both teams debuted bowling all-rounders, but in England's case they'd brought in Woakes and batted him at 6 (?) for the purpose of playing Kerrigan as a second spinner alongside Swann. I can't recall the reasoning for Faulkner, but I'm going to guess it related to the Oval being regarded as pretty flat and most of the depth batting options having done pretty poorly throughout.

He did fine, but he was never going to be good enough to justify playing in a four man attack at home. Next Test was the start 13/14 Ashes, so if he was retained as part of a four man attack on the basis of his Oval results it probably would have been at the expense of Johnson's recall - which is a pretty hilarious alternate history to think about tbh.

IIRC Faulkner's selection was mostly down to wanting to drop Khawaja, not wanting to recall Hughes or Cowan and having no other options on tour.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Great problem for the selectors to have "we don't really want to pick anyone . . . but I guess we need 11 players"

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Great problem for the selectors to have "we don't really want to pick anyone . . . but I guess we need 11 players"

Story of my career