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Most overrated cricketer

Coronis

International Coach
With the exception of Mitchell, I'd say all are better than him. And there are at least a few with lower averages than him I'd take over Boycott as well, just due to their ability to shift their batting into a match-winning mode.
I wasn’t saying that he was superior to the others or anything, just that your average argument specifically holds little weight imo. Anyway, most of the top tier openers had low SR’s, its mainly been more recently with guys like Sehwag, Hayden and Smith where there have been great aggressive openers. I’m sure Boycott did have a few innings where he was more aggressive as necessary (could be wrong tho)
 

shortpitched713

International Captain
Given that his reputation is precisely the opposite, and even that he was selfish, no I don't think we can just assume he had many innings where he ramped up the aggression just to make a match winning contribution.

Normally I assume that cricketers are doing their best to help the team, but in the case when their contemporaries are stating otherwise, I have to make an exception.
 

Coronis

International Coach
Given that his reputation is precisely the opposite, and even that he was selfish, no I don't think we can just assume he had many innings where he ramped up the aggression just to make a match winning contribution.

Normally I assume that cricketers are doing their best to help the team, but in the case when their contemporaries are stating otherwise, I have to make an exception.
Eh I’m guessing he got that reputation because he was the most talented batsman during his time for England but only struck at ~35 through his career. Tbf though, his teammates were all striking at 35-45 too, until Botham came along so I wouldn’t be calling him excessively selfish. Anyway England was the dominant team in Boycotts years so they should’ve stopped whinging.
 

peterhrt

U19 Vice-Captain

ataraxia

International Coach
Lovely aggressive cricket from Barrington that, went at 11 an over and snared notably dour [dire] Boycs, before departing for a duck to save the crowd from his own dourness :ph34r:
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
This may trigger some longtime posters here.

I think CW overrates the hell out of basically every cricketer from the past they didn't even watch play. Now, there's one thing if you look at an older cricketer's record, the anecdotes surrounding them and have a healthy amount of respect for what they achieved. But a lot of posters have "favourites" when it comes to black and white era players with minimal footage available (apart from guys like Bradman and Hobbs who were miles above the competition so naturally command a certain stature). That's going way too far. Especially when you're confidently saying they were way better than modern players with similar records.
Absolute cobblers. No one here does that, least of all me.

109914.jpg
 

Ashes81

State Vice-Captain
I mean, openers with a better average than him: Sutcliffe, Hobbs, Hutton, Gavaskar, Hayden, Sehwag, Mitchell, Smith.
Boycott was undoubtedly a pain in the arse as a bloke and was accused at times of being more concerned about his own record rather than the team, but he was a top notch opener.

He obviously played a lot in England, which is probably the toughest country to open in.

He averaged 45 in Australia, over 50 in the W Indies and had a great record in the SC.

He's certainly in the top level of English openers and I saw alot of him in the latter part of his career.

Sunny Gavaskar is rightly lauded as one of the great openers and for me Boycott wasn't far behind him.
 

Coronis

International Coach
I meant from a spectator's perspective. I'd love a 50% England loss rate, although I'm sure England supporters would much prefer a 50% England win rate. Neither of which a Boycott led team was going to deliver, mind.
Any team with a 50% win rate throughout a given player’s career is extremely unlikely.
 

shortpitched713

International Captain
Most draws for any Test cricketer is 75 (out of 131) by that tedious plodder Kapil Dev.
Which would have nothing to do with him, given that he was a bowler, and a hard hitting batsman, so really it's more down to the teammates surrounding him in that case.
 

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