Players that are the most overated by CW posters.

[Burgey]

Well then

 

[jimmy101]

A CC thread started by me that has upwards of 790 posts of (mostly) serious discussion. That must be a first.

Fingers crossed you haven't just jixed it :-)

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Another guy who is dreadfully overrated is McGrath. Good bowler, but clearly not as good s Hadlee, and nowhere near Steyn or Marshall.
Moderate upgrade over Anderson, if we are generous.

 

[jimmy101]

Wasn't he kinda **** as an attacker though?

Not sure. Tom Graveney commended him in one of his books for his powerful hitting down the wicket. Could have been a bit of a pocket rocket when he first hit the scene.

 

[h_hurricane]

I know this is a thread about cricketers over-rated, but isn't Barrington terribly under-rated ? He has pretty much the best average among any batsmen who played a considerable amount of time since 1960s (of course till Smith arrived). A player with that impressive a record has to be high quality.

 

[_00_deathscar]

I know this is a thread about cricketers over-rated, but isn't Barrington terribly under-rated ? He has pretty much the best average among any batsmen who played a considerable amount of time since 1960s (of course till Smith arrived). A player with that impressive a record has to be high quality.

Never saw him play, so can't really speak as to his ability, but I think it's an issue that modern players will certainly have in matching those averages.

Not playing as often is both a pro and a con (in comparison to modern day) for some of the older cricketers. The con is of course that they can't build up form necessarily as easily, but not playing as often or as many matches also offers more of an opportunity for the older cricketers to keep up a higher average.

Ken Barrington's 82 tests had a 58 average. And again, this is of course very selective, but Sachin's career between 1993 and 2002, he played 85 tests for a 62.30 average. Ponting's 87 tests between 1999-2006 yielded a 65.43 average.

In contrast, apart from the first year (1955) where he averaged 17.33 across 2 tests, Ken Barrington's average never once dipped below 40 in any year throughout the remainder of his career. And looking back at my earlier statement, he didn't play THAT many fewer matches than Sachin/Ponting each year (often playing 8-11 vs the 10-14 of the latter two), but basically had a much shorter career.

Modern cricketers play more, they're going to have (more) slumps, and those who play 10-20 years in today's world will inevitably have 2-3 slumps of sustained period of form.

A look at Ken's first class average (533 matches) of 45.63 shows how difficult a very high average is to maintain over an even greater number of matches (though inevitably first class matches will come with the added caveat of players playing too young/too old/out of form etc).

 

[jimmy101]

I'd say that Barrington tends to get a bit overrated by the stats-worshippers. I've never read about any of his colleagues placing him on such lofty pedestals.

 

[mr_mister]

Apparently his low FC stats were due to his county's home ground being the toughest place to bat in England back then

Always found it weird his test stats were so high, and after a fairly large amount of tests too

And I agree with Jimmy, it seems May and Compton are considered to be anecdotally better, but Barrington has the stats in his favour(at least in tests)

 

[jimmy101]

Yeah, good call. The Oval had a bit of a reputation back in those days, it's true.

Kenny deserves an absolute shed-load of credit for maintaining such a high average over 82 Tests though. Absolutely immense effort. I don't wanna rag on him too much. He was most certainly a world-class player during his time. JBMAC's thoughts on Barrington would be nice to hear. Having spoken to one of the old codgers at my local cricket club, he rates Barrington very highly as well.

 

[Bolo]

Barrington is basically Hussey. Sealed a spot in the team very late. Fully developed on arrival. Starts scoring heavily on arrival. Hussey saw his form dip. But if he had ended up averaging several more (arguably as high as barrington), ponting would be thought of as the superior bat. Pontings average suffers from his time as youngster. He maintained standards for many more years. And Hussey was never considered good enough to take Pontings spot.

 

[Burgey]

It suffers from his having played on too long too.

 

[Bolo]

It suffers from his having played on too long too.

For sure, a lot. But he retired at the same time and age as Hussey. It makes for an easy overall career average comparisons, as people are doing with barringtons peers.