Cricketweb's 5 most unfairly treated players

[bagapath]

I'm pretty sure the reference was to modern cricket (mid 1990s onwards), where ODI cricket is of much more importance than it ever was before.



The link is certainly more tenuous in this direction, but with the exception of Bevan, none of these would be the class of a true high quality ODI player such as Ponting, Tendulkar, Mcgrath, etc.

my mistake. vaughan should be in the other list. allan lamb should take his place here.

 

[fredfertang]

Like Bevan, amongst others, Neil Fairbrother is often cited as a player who was a world beater in ODI's but a poor Test player and the figures support that but personally I don't think either got a fair crack at the longer game

 

[Richard]

I'm pretty sure the reference was to modern cricket (mid 1990s onwards), where ODI cricket is of much more importance than it ever was before.

That's pretty much what I tend to refer to (I tend to say early-1990s onwards - a good exact starting-point if one is needed is the 1991/92 World Cup). Though nonetheless there were still plenty of players who could crack Tests and not ODIs (or at least not to anywhere near the same extent) in the 1970s and 1980s.

Some examples:

Test >>>>>> ODI:
Stephen Waugh
Mahela Jayawardene
Brian Lara
Rahul Dravid
Thilan Samaraweera
Andy Flower
Younis Khan
Virender Sehwag (though it's looking like he might be on the way to redressing the balance)
Ashwell Prince
Salim Malik
Justin Langer
VVS Laxman
Mark Richardson
Andrew Strauss
Daryll Cullinan
Hashan Tillikaratne
Simon Katich
Michael Slater
Richie Richardson
Michael Vaughan
Jimmy Adams
Asanka Gurasinha
Alec Stewart
Kepler Wessels
Mark Taylor
Michael Atherton
Nasser Hussain
John Crawley
Mark Butcher
Sherwin Campbell
Andrew Hudson
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Jacob Oram
Waqar Younis
Stuart Clark
Shane Warne
Dean Headley
Stuart MacGill
Dominic Cork
Matthew Hoggard
Daryl Tuffey
James Franklin
Venkatesh Prasad

Plus there's some (Jean-Paul Duminy, Jesse Ryder, Matthew Prior, Hashim Amla, Mohammad Asif, Dale Steyn, Umar Gul, Paul Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Monty Panesar) who I strongly suspect will be added to that group in due course.

ODI >>>>>>> Test:
Dean Jones
Michael Bevan
Mark Waugh
Yuvraj Singh
Chris Gayle
Sanath Jayasuriya
Shoaib Malik
Nathan Astle
Hansie Cronje
Jacques Rudolph
Graeme Hick
Ramnaresh Sarwan
Sourav Ganguly
Neil Fairbrother
Nick Knight
Roger Twose
Arjuna Ranatunga
Ajay Jadeja
Marcus Trescothick
Neil Johnson
Ijaz Ahmed
Russel Arnold
Andrew Symonds
Runako Morton *hides from Will*
Andrew Flintoff
Lance Klusener
Chris Harris
Shane Bond
Mark Ealham
Gavin Larsen
Saqlain Mushtaq
Harbhajan Singh
Brett Lee
Adam Dale
Alan Mullally
Daniel Vettori
Fanie de Villiers
Craig Matthews
Bryan Strang
Mushtaq Ahmed
Pat Symcox
Chaminda Vaas
Robert Croft
Kumara Dharmasena
Aaqib Javed
Ian Bradshaw
Steven Elworthy
Andrew Whittall (was serviceable in ODIs and one of the most ineffective ever in Tests)
Nathan Bracken
Chris Pringle

Those I suspect will be added in due course: Ross Taylor, Mahendra Dhoni, Martin Guptill, Grant Elliott, Salman Butt, Nuwan Kulasekara

So, as you can see, there are a great many who were\are notably better at one format than the other - either decent-to-good at Tests and outstanding at ODIs (or vice-versa) or good-to-excellent at Tests and hopeless at ODIs (or vice-versa). In fact I'd not be at all surprised if this number exceeded those who could be classed as "pretty good to excellent at both".

 

[Richard]

Like Bevan, amongst others, Neil Fairbrother is often cited as a player who was a world beater in ODI's but a poor Test player and the figures support that but personally I don't think either got a fair crack at the longer game

I think that, had fortune smiled on them a little more, both would have gotten longer cracks - I'm very confident Bevan could have made it, less sure about Fairbrother. However, it must be said that neither exactly produced results that demanded further opportunity in the Tests they did play.

 

[bagapath]

richard... mark waugh was a terrific test player apart form being a great one day bat. lara was as much a master of the short form of the game as he was in tests. your point is actually very narrow by definition. you should list players who would not have had international careers at all if they had played one form of the game alone; for example michael vaughan in ODIs or bevan in tests. each player being relatively stronger in one form of the game is actually not surprising at all. what is odd is finding a cricketer who is a master at one form but a mere journeyman in the other. lara, m.waugh were not journeymen in either form of the game. even steve waugh was a great one day cricketer if you add the 196 wickets and bowling at the death to his 7000 odd runs (IIRC)

 

[Richard]

Stephen Waugh was one of the best Test batsmen in history and merely just-about-adaquete in ODIs. That's as huge a disparity as, for instance, Hick who was one of England's best in ODIs but only briefly cracked Tests and was otherwise so dismal as to beggar belief.

The point I was trying to illustrate was that there are many players whose Test and ODI credentials differ considerably - some of the best ODI players (batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders) have been no more than just-about-adaquete in Tests and sometimes less even than that; some good or very good Test players have been below requirements in ODIs.

If you think Mark Waugh was much more than pretty good in Tests, meanwhile, I'd like you to speak to some Australians who followed Tests in the 1990s closely. I've heard several describe him as a "protected species" and I know for certain many are outraged that he was never once dropped. But in ODIs he is one of the best batsmen of the modern era - a serious contender for an all-time XI. In Tests he'd never come close to an Australian 1970-2009 team.

Lara meanwhile was certainly a very good ODI batsman but there's no way he was as good as he was in Tests. ODIs are too short to embrace what made him so special - the propensity to make colossal scores and change a game almost off his own bat.

 

[bagapath]

If you think Mark Waugh was much more than pretty good in Tests, meanwhile, I'd like you to speak to some Australians who followed Tests in the 1990s closely. I've heard several describe him as a "protected species" and I know for certain many are outraged that he was never once dropped. But in ODIs he is one of the best batsmen of the modern era - a serious contender for an all-time XI. In Tests he'd never come close to an Australian 1970-2009 team.

Lara meanwhile was certainly a very good ODI batsman but there's no way he was as good as he was in Tests. ODIs are too short to embrace what made him so special - the propensity to make colossal scores and change a game almost off his own bat.

disagree on both points. mark was good enough to play 120 tests for australia when they could have fielded two international xis with the fc cricketers available for international selection. 20 centuries at 41 avg go very well with 18 centuries at 39.

lara scored 150+ scores three times in ODI. averaged above 40 at a good SR. scored 13 match winning 100s away from home against big teams, IIRC. good enough to be a top 10 ODI middle order batsman, the same as he is in tests.

 

[Uppercut]

So, as you can see, there are a great many who were\are notably better at one format than the other - either decent-to-good at Tests and outstanding at ODIs (or vice-versa) or good-to-excellent at Tests and hopeless at ODIs (or vice-versa). In fact I'd not be at all surprised if this number exceeded those who could be classed as "pretty good to excellent at both".

What's your point? Some players are better at ODIs than they are at tests, and vice versa?

You may as well have listed every player in the history of the game, they all fit into one category or the other. You've listed Shane ****ing Warne in the "no good at ODIs" camp! Quite often I think it's a case of a player having a poor run of form or luck at the start of their careers in one format and hence being discarded from there for the rest of their career (Sehwag, for example, looked like he was heading that way, while I think Nathan Bracken had a lot to offer the test side at one stage).

Only about half of those listed were really not good enough to play the other format (and that's being fairly conservative about it- you know how I feel about players like Dravid etc in ODIs). It would be a tedious exercise to list all the players who have been of an acceptable class at both, but I'd say there are more of those than there are out-and-out specialists.

Have a look through the scorecard of any recent ODI- let's take the most recent India-Australia game. There are a few "good at one but not the other player"- Yuvraj and Watson, and to a lesser extent Nehra and White, fall into this category. Ben Hilfenhaus and Ishant Sharma are arguably the opposite.

There are a lot of players who are yet to play a test so we don't really know how they'll go- Praveen Kumar, Tim Paine, Shaun Marsh, Suresh Raina and Adam Voges. Intuitively we might have our own ideas about how they'd do, but we don't really know.

But most of the players are good at one but better at the other- Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Ponting, Hussey, Siddle, Johnson, Hauritz and Siddle.

You might disagree with a few of those, but don't miss the general point.

 

[GIMH]

They are essentially separate sports in my book, but there are plenty of skills that cross over, same way in fact there are plenty of skills that cross over in football and rugby and many other combinations.

I don't really think the separation goes too far sometimes. Can you give me some examples of what you mean?

Nothing specific, but like if someone bowls a demon ball in an ODI/T20 it gets overlooked because it was 'only' a LOI. Meh, I'm rushing because I need to get on with my work so I'll come back to this later.

 

[Richard]

disagree on both points. mark was good enough to play 120 tests for australia when they could have fielded two international xis with the fc cricketers available for international selection. 20 centuries at 41 avg go very well with 18 centuries at 39.

His ODI record is far better, in my book. Yes, he was a Test-class batsman, and never really out-and-out deserved to be dropped. But he was no more than good enough - he was far from outstanding at Test batting. At ODI batting however he absolutely was outstanding - one of the very best of all, especially as an opener.

lara scored 150+ scores three times in ODI. averaged above 40 at a good SR. scored 13 match winning 100s away from home against big teams, IIRC. good enough to be a top 10 ODI middle order batsman, the same as he is in tests.

I'd say Lara was better as a ODI opener than middle-order batsman, same as Tendulkar, but either way, he was no more than pretty good in ODIs. In Tests he is up with the best ever to have played. He's not even an automatic pick for a 1990s-and-onwards ODI XI, though obviously he's certainly a fair contender.

 

[Richard]

What's your point? Some players are better at ODIs than they are at tests, and vice versa?

You may as well have listed every player in the history of the game, they all fit into one category or the other. You've listed Shane ****ing Warne in the "no good at ODIs" camp! Quite often I think it's a case of a player having a poor run of form or luck at the start of their careers in one format and hence being discarded from there for the rest of their career (Sehwag, for example, looked like he was heading that way, while I think Nathan Bracken had a lot to offer the test side at one stage).

Only about half of those listed were really not good enough to play the other format (and that's being fairly conservative about it- you know how I feel about players like Dravid etc in ODIs). It would be a tedious exercise to list all the players who have been of an acceptable class at both, but I'd say there are more of those than there are out-and-out specialists.

Have a look through the scorecard of any recent ODI- let's take the most recent India-Australia game. There are a few "good at one but not the other player"- Yuvraj and Watson, and to a lesser extent Nehra and White, fall into this category. Ben Hilfenhaus and Ishant Sharma are arguably the opposite.

There are a lot of players who are yet to play a test so we don't really know how they'll go- Praveen Kumar, Tim Paine, Shaun Marsh, Suresh Raina and Adam Voges. Intuitively we might have our own ideas about how they'd do, but we don't really know.

But most of the players are good at one but better at the other- Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Ponting, Hussey, Siddle, Johnson, Hauritz and Siddle.

You might disagree with a few of those, but don't miss the general point.

I think you've missed my general point - emphasised by your comment that I've "listed Shane ****ing Warne in the 'no good at ODIs' camp" - I haven't, not at all. I've listed Warne in the "much better at Tests than ODIs". Warne was nothing more than a pretty good ODI bowler, he was far from one of the best of the modern era. Whereas there are some who think (very wrongly IMO but there we go) that he's the best Test bowler in history. Undoubtedly he is one of the better Test bowlers in history - having him in a top-ten, for instance, would be perfectly fair enough. I could easily, however, list 10 ODI bowlers better than him in the 1990s\2000s era (just FTR - Pollock, Murali, McGrath, Wasim Akram, Ambrose, Fraser, Walsh, Donald, Gough, Bracken).

Everyone I listed was notably better at either Tests or ODIs than the other. It's fair to say that some got the chance to show how good they were at one format and not at the other - Bracken being one of the better examples. But such cases are relatively few, and there's no gurantee in any such case that they would have proven as good at <insert format at which they did not get a fair crack>.

If half of those were genuinely not even good enough for one format that merely emphasises the point further.

I'll just go through each briefly to show what I mean:
Stephen Waugh - one of the best ever in Tests, merely just-about-good-enough in ODIs
Mahela Jayawardene - excellent Test batsman, merely just-about-good-enough in ODIs
Brian Lara - one of the best ever in Tests, merely very good in ODIs
Rahul Dravid - as above
Thilan Samaraweera - pretty damn excellent in Tests, not much crack at ODIs
Andy Flower - see Jayawardene, M
Younis Khan - as above
Virender Sehwag - until recently excellent in Tests and crap in ODIs
Ashwell Prince - pretty damn good in Tests, barely good enough in ODIs
Salim Malik - see Younis Khan
Justin Langer - good Test batsman, barely even played ODIs
VVS Laxman - see Salim Malik
Mark Richardson - OK-ish Test batsman, nowhere near good enough for ODIs
Andrew Strauss - good Test batsman, still doubt he'll be much good at ODIs
Daryll Cullinan - see Laxman
Hashan Tillikaratne - see Samaraweera
Simon Katich - decent Test batsman, not much crack at ODIs
Michael Slater - good Test batsman, crap at ODIs
Richie Richardson - see Cullinan
Michael Vaughan - see Slater
Jimmy Adams - as above
Asanka Gurasinha - as above
Alec Stewart - good Test batsman, no-more-than-OK ODI one
Kepler Wessels - see Richardson
Mark Taylor - as above
Michael Atherton - good Test batsman, not much crack at ODIs
Nasser Hussain - as above
John Crawley - not-far-from-Test-class batsman, nowhere near ODI-class
Mark Butcher - just-about-good-enough Test batsman, so bad at OD cricket he never even played ODIs
Sherwin Campbell - decent Test batsman, not much crack at ODIs
Andrew Hudson - as above
Tillakaratne Dilshan - as above
Jacob Oram - good Test all-rounder, ODI-class one but only, only just
Waqar Younis - superlative Test bowler for a time, never had control in ODIs though took wickets
Stuart Clark - excellent Test bowler, not much crack at ODIs
Shane Warne - one of the best Test bowlers ever, merely pretty good at ODIs
Dean Headley - decent Test bowler, terrible ODI one
Stuart MacGill - borderline Test-class bowler, nowhere near ODI-class
Dominic Cork - OK-ish Test bowler (could've been better), nowhere near ODI-class
Matthew Hoggard - Test-class for a time, nowhere near ODI-class ever
Daryl Tuffey - as above
James Franklin - as above
Venkatesh Prasad - decent Test bowler, pretty awful ODI one
Dean Jones - one of the best ever ODI batsmen, no more than OK at Tests
Michael Bevan - arguably best-ever ODI batsman, not Test-class though might have been with more chance
Mark Waugh - see Jones, D
Yuvraj Singh - outstanding ODI batsman, barely Test-class
Chris Gayle - as above
Sanath Jayasuriya - one of the best in ODIs, merely just-about-good-enough in Tests
Shoaib Malik - good ODI batsman, crap Test one
Nathan Astle - excellent ODI batsman, merely decent Test one
Hansie Cronje - as above
Jacques Rudolph - see Yuvraj Singh
Graeme Hick - excellent ODI batsman, nowhere near Test class for over half his career
Ramnaresh Sarwan - see Jayasuriya
Sourav Ganguly - as above
Neil Fairbrother - excellent ODI-batsman, not Test-class in relatively few chances he got
Nick Knight - excellent ODI batsman, not Test-class
Roger Twose - as above
Arjuna Ranatunga - see Cronje
Ajay Jadeja - see Fairbrother
Marcus Trescothick - excellent ODI batsman, serviceable Test batsman if I'm being generous
Neil Johnson - excellent ODI all-rounder, frankly nowhere near Test-class though might have played more in happier circumstances
Ijaz Ahmed - see Ranatunga
Russel Arnold - see Knight
Andrew Symonds - see Arnold
Runako Morton - sorry to you, but despite being one of the worst-ever Test batsmen he's actually OK-ish at ODIs
Andrew Flintoff - outstanding ODI all-rounder for many years, only relatively briefly the same in Tests
Lance Klusener - as above
Chris Harris - outstanding ODI all-rounder, nowhere near Test-class
Shane Bond - one of the best ever in ODIs, never played much Test cricket and was merely OK when he did
Mark Ealham - excellent ODI bowler, nowhere near Test-class
Gavin Larsen - as above
Saqlain Mushtaq - outstanding ODI bowler, merely OK one in Tests
Harbhajan Singh - as above
Brett Lee - ODI-class, not Test-class for the vast majority of his career
Adam Dale - see Larsen
Alan Mullally - as above
Daniel Vettori - see Saqlain and Harbhajan
Fanie de Villiers - outstanding ODI bowler, decent Test one
Craig Matthews - as above
Bryan Strang - pretty good ODI bowler, awful Test one
Mushtaq Ahmed - good ODI bowler for many years, good Test one only briefly
Pat Symcox - good ODI bowler, not Test-class
Chaminda Vaas - consistently excellent ODI bowler, mind-numbingly inconsistent Test one
Robert Croft - see Vettori
Kumara Dharmasena - see Dale
Aaqib Javed - decent ODI bowler, nowhere near Test-class
Ian Bradshaw - good ODI bowler, not Test-class
Steven Elworthy - good ODI bowler, 33 before he even looked remotely like being Test-class (and wasn't BTW)
Andrew Whittall - serviceable in ODIs and one of the most ineffective ever in Tests
Nathan Bracken - excellent ODI bowler, not Test-class in his few chances
Chris Pringle - see Aaqib Javed

 

[Richard]

Nothing specific, but like if someone bowls a demon ball in an ODI/T20 it gets overlooked because it was 'only' a LOI. Meh, I'm rushing because I need to get on with my work so I'll come back to this later.

Haha, okeydoke. Obviously a quality delivery is a quality delivery but I doubt many would dispute that a bowler who bowls one in a Test has produced it in a more important match than when they produce it in a ODI (mostly anyway - obviously World Cup final is a slightly different matter).

 

[GIMH]

Haha, okeydoke. Obviously a quality delivery is a quality delivery but I doubt many would dispute that a bowler who bowls one in a Test has produced it in a more important match than when they produce it in a ODI (mostly anyway - obviously World Cup final is a slightly different matter).

well I wouldn't dispute that at all, but I don't really think the importance of the match is relevant to what we're talking about

 

[NZTailender]

and wtf to the Neil Broom selections....

guy with ok-ish domestic record gets a go and completely stinks up the joint, but it's harsh to criticise him

Would like to see him given a run up the order rather than being floated in the 6 & 7 spots. He's not that kind of player which admittedly speaks against him because, theoretically, good batsman can bat just about anywhere in the order (bar opening perhaps), but given our resource pool, it's not like he's alone.

 

[Flem274*]

That's pretty much what I tend to refer to (I tend to say early-1990s onwards - a good exact starting-point if one is needed is the 1991/92 World Cup). Though nonetheless there were still plenty of players who could crack Tests and not ODIs (or at least not to anywhere near the same extent) in the 1970s and 1980s.

Some examples:

Test >>>>>> ODI:
Stephen Waugh
Mahela Jayawardene
Brian Lara
Rahul Dravid
Thilan Samaraweera
Andy Flower
Younis Khan
Virender Sehwag (though it's looking like he might be on the way to redressing the balance)
Ashwell Prince
Salim Malik
Justin Langer
VVS Laxman
Mark Richardson
Andrew Strauss
Daryll Cullinan
Hashan Tillikaratne
Simon Katich
Michael Slater
Richie Richardson
Michael Vaughan
Jimmy Adams
Asanka Gurasinha
Alec Stewart
Kepler Wessels
Mark Taylor
Michael Atherton
Nasser Hussain
John Crawley
Mark Butcher
Sherwin Campbell
Andrew Hudson
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Jacob Oram
Waqar Younis
Stuart Clark
Shane Warne
Dean Headley
Stuart MacGill
Dominic Cork
Matthew Hoggard
Daryl Tuffey
James Franklin
Venkatesh Prasad

Plus there's some (Jean-Paul Duminy, Jesse Ryder, Matthew Prior, Hashim Amla, Mohammad Asif, Dale Steyn, Umar Gul, Paul Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Monty Panesar) who I strongly suspect will be added to that group in due course.

ODI >>>>>>> Test:
Dean Jones
Michael Bevan
Mark Waugh
Yuvraj Singh
Chris Gayle
Sanath Jayasuriya
Shoaib Malik
Nathan Astle
Hansie Cronje
Jacques Rudolph
Graeme Hick
Ramnaresh Sarwan
Sourav Ganguly
Neil Fairbrother
Nick Knight
Roger Twose
Arjuna Ranatunga
Ajay Jadeja
Marcus Trescothick
Neil Johnson
Ijaz Ahmed
Russel Arnold
Andrew Symonds
Runako Morton *hides from Will*
Andrew Flintoff
Lance Klusener
Chris Harris
Shane Bond
Mark Ealham
Gavin Larsen
Saqlain Mushtaq
Harbhajan Singh
Brett Lee
Adam Dale
Alan Mullally
Daniel Vettori
Fanie de Villiers
Craig Matthews
Bryan Strang
Mushtaq Ahmed
Pat Symcox
Chaminda Vaas
Robert Croft
Kumara Dharmasena
Aaqib Javed
Ian Bradshaw
Steven Elworthy
Andrew Whittall (was serviceable in ODIs and one of the most ineffective ever in Tests)
Nathan Bracken
Chris Pringle

Those I suspect will be added in due course: Ross Taylor, Mahendra Dhoni, Martin Guptill, Grant Elliott, Salman Butt, Nuwan Kulasekara

So, as you can see, there are a great many who were\are notably better at one format than the other - either decent-to-good at Tests and outstanding at ODIs (or vice-versa) or good-to-excellent at Tests and hopeless at ODIs (or vice-versa). In fact I'd not be at all surprised if this number exceeded those who could be classed as "pretty good to excellent at both".

 

[Richard]

Before laughing so uproariously, do you even understand what I'm saying? Some of the players you highlighted are those I know for certain you don't really have much interest in.

 

[Richard]

well I wouldn't dispute that at all, but I don't really think the importance of the match is relevant to what we're talking about

Ind33d - what you said in your previous post was rather different to what I was taking your meaning as.

 

[NUFAN]

I don't mind Richard's list actually, he's not saying Lara isn't great at ODI, but if we had a poll with the question "was Brian Lara a better Test Player or ODI player" Test would easily win.

I can't believe Flem that you are lol-ing at Richard suggesting SClark is a better Test player, I think that is fairly obvious.

I wouldn't agree with Harbajhan though, but I've seen him demolish the Aussies a few too many times.

 

[Flem274*]

I guess it depends on the extent Richard thinks they're bad.

If he thinks they're better at one form than the other then fine, I withdraw my loling.

If he thinks players a crap or not very good at a certain form, then I add several more lols to my post just for kicks.

 

[Flem274*]

Before laughing so uproariously, do you even understand what I'm saying? Some of the players you highlighted are those I know for certain you don't really have much interest in.

Just because I don't follow some players as much as others it doesn't mean I know zero about them.

Shane Warne not good in ODIs for instance-wtf?