Cricketweb's 5 most unfairly treated players

[ankitj]

Gautam Gambhir too, but not for his ability, just because he's always made out to be much more of a dick than he actually is.

Spot on.

 

[Himannv]

Suraj Randiv, Darren Sammy, Umar Gul, Mohammed Sami, Carlton Baugh

 

[Teja.]

Chris Cairns - was injury prone obviously but considering he played over 15 years and has absolutely amazing stats, you'd say he was underrated.

Not too dissimilar in injury record or stat record to one Ian Terrance Botham actually, though Botham had a better peak and England played considerably more tests over Botham's time than NZ did during Cairns' time.

34 with the bat and 29 with the ball is awesome.

 

[Jacknife]

Yeah, came in here to say that KP gets a really raw deal, although mainly thinking about the press and general fans. Find that older pundits and fans often approach him with a somewhat dissaproving tone and the casual fans are always ready to jump on him when things go wrong , blaming the 'South African.' A couple of poor performances and people are all to quick to want to discard him which is frankly ridiculous, for all his failings he is still at this point the best English batsman of my time watching cricket.

Totally agree with all that, all you have to do is take a look at crapinfo today for confirmation, tbh in last couple of years it's got to the point of being a bit of a witch hunt against him by certain quarters of the press, they love nothing more than a poor run of form from KP and on slow cricket days a article about him always pops up for no particular reason than to have a dig.

 

[zaremba]

Yeah, came in here to say that KP gets a really raw deal, although mainly thinking about the press and general fans. Find that older pundits and fans often approach him with a somewhat dissaproving tone and the casual fans are always ready to jump on him when things go wrong , blaming the 'South African.' A couple of poor performances and people are all to quick to want to discard him which is frankly ridiculous, for all his failings he is still at this point the best English batsman of my time watching cricket.

Yep. Everyone's favourite scapegoat. Test average of 49 is pretty ok if you ask me, or even if you don't.

 

[fredfertang]

Yep. Everyone's favourite scapegoat. Test average of 49 is pretty ok if you ask me, or even if you don't.

..... but it should be a lot higher

 

[zaremba]

don't you start, Fred, don't you start

 

[sledger]

Can we count the players who are also given unfair praise?

 

[fredfertang]

don't you start, Fred, don't you start

just calling it as I see it

 

[amanuensis]

don't you start, Fred, don't you start

It increasingly flatters him however. He's scored b*gger all runs in recent years against better bowling - failed in SA, failed against Pakistan last time too.

 

[Burgey]

Can we count the players who are also given unfair praise?

Don't see why not.

 

[zaremba]

It increasingly flatters him however. He's scored b*gger all runs in recent years against better bowling - failed in SA, failed against Pakistan last time too.

I don't think it does. He's hit and miss, but people take the hits for granted and hold the misses against him every time.

 

[zaremba]

He sets himself up for it, of course, by being a bit of a pillock, but as soon as I learned to treat him as basically Tigger, I learned to accept him for what he is

 

[Jacknife]

It increasingly flatters him however. He's scored b*gger all runs in recent years against better bowling - failed in SA, failed against Pakistan last time too.

Don't see how it does, all way through his career he's been prone to having a bad series of games then suddenly make a series of big runs, also considering how many people average in the 50's I definitely don't agree that it flatters him at all.
As far as failing in SA, imo he shouldn't have been, if you watched it you could see he was nowhere near fit, he even limped his way through most of that tour after the Achilles operation, tbh it's one of Flower and the England staff's poorer calls they've made rushing him back to play in SA.
He obviously suffered with form when he had that injury during the Ashes in 09 and that form loss lasted from when he came back in the SA tour in 09/10 until the end of the English summer but he still managed to average 40 during the course of all this.

 

[Spark]

The thing about KP is that he was and sometimes still is talked about as "the most talented English player of his generation", a notion he has tried his utmost to push, and the first truly great English batsman in donkey's years. Now, an average of 49 is good but given that he was seemingly on track for greatness several years ago, to "fall" to that level which doesn't really place him above his major contemporaries such as Clarke, Hussey, ABdV, Amla (who IIRC all have averages just below 50 or just above in Hussey's case), it means people will look on him a bit harsher than they do others, because they're using a slightly different yardstick - his yardstick. I mean, it's not hard - but perhaps unfair - to come to the conclusion that he's been on the decline for several years now and at his age, that's really quite alarming.

I don't think what happened to him with the captaincy helps his case at all.

 

[hazsa19]

The biggest problem for KP's reputation is that he can be so spectacularly good, and so spectacularly bad.

Every failure seems like he's wasting his talent. When really many of his successes are gambles that come off.

 

[uvelocity]

Don't think he is as much of a **** as people make out either. Purple hair did him no favours, but did some charitible things when we had the floods on last year which moved him up a few pegs in my mind.

 

[Jono]

Over the next 12-18 months, Trent Copeland will make this list, as people see him for the first time and decry his lack of pace.

May never be mentioned again in the next 12-18 months now it seems. Man the cricketing worlds can change so quickly.

 

[Jacknife]

The thing about KP is that he was and sometimes still is talked about as "the most talented English player of his generation", a notion he has tried his utmost to push, and the first truly great English batsman in donkey's years. Now, an average of 49 is good but given that he was seemingly on track for greatness several years ago, to "fall" to that level which doesn't really place him above his major contemporaries such as Clarke, Hussey, ABdV, Amla (who IIRC all have averages just below 50 or just above in Hussey's case), it means people will look on him a bit harsher than they do others, because they're using a slightly different yardstick - his yardstick. I mean, it's not hard - but perhaps unfair - to come to the conclusion that he's been on the decline for several years now and at his age, that's really quite alarming.

I don't think what happened to him with the captaincy helps his case at all.

Yes, good points.

 

[Xuhaib]

Rehman.People think he's the 2nd coming of Paul Harris what people don't realize he's an intelligent bowler who will keep it tight when conditions don't favour him but as soon as you give him a helpful track he will get you the wickets.