Your opinions and mine differ then. Atherton was talked up constantly and constantly failed to perform. His end career record fairly reflects the failure to live up to the hype and so called 'flawless technique' that he was supposed to have. To be fair to the English media, they didn't really have anyone else to write up that wasn't old (Gooch, Gatting, Gower), foreign (Lamb, Smith, Hick) or just plain crap (Lathwell, Morris, Morris, James etc. etc.)
He was overrated because he was constantly talked up but more often than not failed to perform.
That's not something I'm disputing. I don't read masses of media coverage, just a select few papers, but it's hard to miss the fact that they go OTT about good players sometimes. It's hard to be a decent English player and not be overrated.
The fact is, though, Atherton was NOT a lesser player after an injury, because what he in fact had was a heriditary condition (ankylosing spondylitis) which was with him virtually all his career, but flared-up and affected his play on just 3 occasions, against WI in 1991, in Zimbabwe in 1996\97, and in Australia in 1998\99. He should not have been playing on any of those occasions, and I tend to knock said games out of his career record when assessing him. Likewise his first 2 and last 10 Tests.
I'm not saying he had a flawless technique, but he was a damn fine player who succeeded against virtually all he was put up against, despite the fact that certain bowlers dismissed him quite a few times.
Presuming you're talking about Steve James, BTW, he wasn't crap and by the time of his 2 Tests the Atherton-mania had pretty well burnt-out anyway. He could perfectly conceivably had a decent Test career if enough opportunity had been available.
