Buttler gets in easily now.
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CW's 50 Best ODI Cricketers of all time - The Countdown
- Thread starter NUFAN
- Start date
Fuller Pilch
Hall of Fame Member
Plus Taylor, Starc, and Boult.
ankitj
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
He was in top 10 in 2nd edition of this ranking.
Red_Ink_Squid
Global Moderator
I believe his "slippy888" account is currently banned.
Fuller Pilch
Hall of Fame Member
Twose was better than both of them.
Howe_zat
Audio File
Neil Fairbrother was maybe the 3rd or 4th best batsman in the England team for most of his career. The story of him being the best player in the team and likened to modern 'finishers' like Dhoni and Bevan was made up in hindsight and got popular for a while, which not only made him featured in this thread, it also stopped a bunch of other players from being rated fairly.
Even if we restrict the figures to to the years in which Fairbrother played (1987-1999), Graeme Hick scored 5 centuries and 22 fifties compared to Fairbrother's 1 and 16, and did so at a better strike rate. Allan Lamb also hit more runs at a better strike rate, Graeme Thorpe had a better average and strike rate. Stewart and Knight scored plenty more hundreds, if you want to look at all batsmen and not just middle order.
If you wanted to examine his role as a finisher, you could look at how many times he hit a fifty and finished not out in a win. He did it four times. That's the same number as both Hick and Thorpe. Of the three, Fairbrother again has the lowest strike rate. Again, this is only if we restrict it to Fairbrother's career - Collingwood, Pietersen and Trescothick have all done it more, as well as those already mentioned.
What about world cups? He had one really good world cup tournament, in 1992, where he hit three fifties, including a great chase against SA (Alec Stewart was top scorer and won POTM though) and in the final, where he was the 7th man out in a decisive moment. In 1996 and 1999 though, he averaged under 30 with a strike rate in the 50s and a high score of 36 from 10 matches. England's best players in those tournaments were again Thorpe and Hick.
He was a good ODI player and presumably a perfectly nice guy so he doesn't deserve a takedown either. It's just so strange to me that he became this mythical player that was supposed to be the only England player worth a damn in the format, decades after the fact.
Even if we restrict the figures to to the years in which Fairbrother played (1987-1999), Graeme Hick scored 5 centuries and 22 fifties compared to Fairbrother's 1 and 16, and did so at a better strike rate. Allan Lamb also hit more runs at a better strike rate, Graeme Thorpe had a better average and strike rate. Stewart and Knight scored plenty more hundreds, if you want to look at all batsmen and not just middle order.
If you wanted to examine his role as a finisher, you could look at how many times he hit a fifty and finished not out in a win. He did it four times. That's the same number as both Hick and Thorpe. Of the three, Fairbrother again has the lowest strike rate. Again, this is only if we restrict it to Fairbrother's career - Collingwood, Pietersen and Trescothick have all done it more, as well as those already mentioned.
What about world cups? He had one really good world cup tournament, in 1992, where he hit three fifties, including a great chase against SA (Alec Stewart was top scorer and won POTM though) and in the final, where he was the 7th man out in a decisive moment. In 1996 and 1999 though, he averaged under 30 with a strike rate in the 50s and a high score of 36 from 10 matches. England's best players in those tournaments were again Thorpe and Hick.
He was a good ODI player and presumably a perfectly nice guy so he doesn't deserve a takedown either. It's just so strange to me that he became this mythical player that was supposed to be the only England player worth a damn in the format, decades after the fact.
CricAddict
Cricketer Of The Year
Right now, so many like Buttler, Bairstow and Stokes could potentially get in to that top 50.
OverratedSanity
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Fairbrother was rated highly by guys like Wasim I think (probably because he played with him at Lancashire) , which added to his status probably a tad undeservingly
Fuller Pilch
Hall of Fame Member
Still pretty cool that a guy named after a lefthanded international batsman became a lefthanded international batsman.
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morgieb
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Didn't that one have Ian Harvey of all people in the Top 30? lmao
It wasn't just team-mates like Wasim who rated him - I remember people like Compton and Benaud saying he looked a classy batsman, and his county record (especially in one-day matches, but his FC record was also decent) justifies that.
I think he was also the first player (for England at least) to have a lengthy ODI career while never succeeding in Tests, and the view of him as an "ODI specialist" probably also boosts his reputation in that sphere.
ankitj
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Somewhere in between 45 and 50 afair
Migara
International Coach
Nah.
Ranatunga was way ahead of his time even if he played for a minnow team most of his career. SR of 77 to go with average of 36 is some serious ****, considering he debuted in 1982. Twose has a lower SR than Ranatunga even after starting more than a decade later. And he score more than twice runs.