5 least influential Cricketers of all time

[Top_Cat]

My nomination for this thread is Geoff Marsh. How he played 50 Tests is beyond me...

Was one of the best gully fielders in the world and was a brilliant partner to whoever else was opening, basically. Plus he was one of OZ's best LOI batters for much of his career. Maxed out his talent and played some top knocks along the way so I'd dispute he wasn't influential. Wasn't obscenely talented but you knew exactly what you were going to get which enabled the more gun batters like Jones, Taylor, Waugh and Boon to play their natural games.

AB threatened to pull out of the Perth Test in '91 when he was dropped, so valuable a player did he think Marsh was. Don't think AB ever went into bat for anyone else like that.

 

[abmk]

People seem to have not seen much of Dizzy at his peak, he was REALLY fast, like on the 97 tour to SA, he scared the crap out of those guys especially in the 2nd test, and on the 97 Ashes tour he was really fast too. Always remember his great bowling during the Adelaide test of 2000/01 vs WI, Michael Holding had questioned his place in the Aussie team and questioned if he was really a fast bowler- thanks Mr HOlding for handing us the series, you really fired up Dizzy big time! and of course on the 04 Indian tour, he didnt bowl that bad in 2001 either. Seems like some huge majority of cricket fans only first saw him during the 05 Ashes, which of course is stupidly unfair on Dizzy as it was easily his worse bowling in his career.

Speaking of which, do you have highlights of dizzy's spells ready to go ? If so , can you please upload them ? If you don't , I'll make specific requests, which you can put in your list .

 

[robelinda]

No I dont have any ready to go, request away!

 

[abmk]

1) his 7-for vs England at Headingly in 97

2) 6-for in the 4th innings vs WI in melbourne in 2000 ; 3) 5-for in the same series at adelaide

4)9 wickets in the nagpur test vs India in 2004 ( 5 in the first, 4 in the second ) ; 5) 4 wickets in the first innings in Mumbai in the same series

6) 8 wickets vs SA at Port Elizabeth in 97 ( 5 in the first and 3 in the second )

7) his 4 wickets + mcgrath's 5 wickets , well basically WI's 4th innings in the Port of Spain test in 99, when they were shot out for 51, their lowest ever test score

 

[robelinda]

All of them were terrific spells of bowling!

 

[Top_Cat]

This spell of Dizzy's would be good.

The Home of CricketArchive

No need for highlights of the rest of the match, thanks.

 

[benchmark00]

abmk may have mentioned it (not sure), but there was an over of Gillespie's against the Windies in Australia, just before the close of play. Australia were dismissed (or declared) latish in the day. Anyways, Dizzy bowled an over to Lara which was absolutely amazing. Beat the bat a few times then eventually knocked him over just before stumps. Was penomenal bowling.

Pretty vague, don't expect you to know what i'm talking about.

 

[benchmark00]

This spell of Dizzy's would be good.

The Home of CricketArchive

No need for highlights of the rest of the match, thanks.

MacGilla making runs

 

[robelinda]

abmk may have mentioned it (not sure), but there was an over of Gillespie's against the Windies in Australia, just before the close of play. Australia were dismissed (or declared) latish on day one. Anyways, Dizzy bowled an over to Lara which was absolutely amazing. Beat the bat a few times then eventually knocked him over just before stumps. Was penomenal bowling.

Pretty vague, don't expect you to know what i'm talking about.

MCG test 2000. GREAT spell of bowling. I know exactly what you are talking about! It was Day 4, Aus had declared their 2nd innings just after tea and WI were all out by stumpsI will upload that over tomorrow.....actually ive found the over, uploading now!!!!! How fast am I....

 

[Noble One]

Some more names I thought of when reading this thread (sorry if someone has already mentioned them):

- Roshan Mahanama: One of the batsman linking the dark periods of Sri Lankan cricket with the great. But an unfashionable batsman with an average record who had to scrap for every run scored.

- Jonty Rhodes: I speak purely from a Test cricket perspective. An average Test cricketer who's fielding influence didn't quite turn games in this format. Does everyone picture Rhodes in the South Africa green whenever they hear his name? I do.

- Deryck Murray: A fine wicket-keeper batsman who is rarely mentioned because the man who followed him was one of the greatest and played in the far more dominating team.

- Danish Kaneria: In ten years time few will remember much of Danish Kaneria. A fantastic record, but built upon grinding out many overs and dominating weaker lineups. The odd match-winning spell, but few great memories from 61 games.

 

[Top_Cat]

MacGilla making runs

Pretty sure this was the exact moment South Australia realised Harrity was crap.

 

[abmk]

abmk may have mentioned it (not sure), but there was an over of Gillespie's against the Windies in Australia, just before the close of play. Australia were dismissed (or declared) latish in the day. Anyways, Dizzy bowled an over to Lara which was absolutely amazing. Beat the bat a few times then eventually knocked him over just before stumps. Was penomenal bowling.

Pretty vague, don't expect you to know what i'm talking about.

MCG test 2000. GREAT spell of bowling. I know exactly what you are talking about! It was Day 4, Aus had declared their 2nd innings just after tea and WI were all out by stumpsI will upload that over tomorrow.....actually ive found the over, uploading now!!!!! How fast am I....

I hadn't watched that. Read that it was an excellent spell of bowling. Hence requested Rob for the upload.

That was awesome from dizzy, the way he set Lara up.

Thanks for uploading that video, Rob

 

[benchmark00]

Cheers Rob, great bowling.

 

[Spark]

People who mention Ramps are forgetting the bloke has over 100 FC tons ffs.

Isn't that sort of the point, though?

 

[Top_Cat]

Yeh, he's the archetype for the subject of the thread.

 

[Jacknife]

Isn't that sort of the point, though?

I don't know, he had some success, especially against the worlds best attack at the time, Australia and there have been plenty of players worse then him. Personally, I wouldn't include him in a list of least influential cricketers, that goes for Dizzy and Kaneria as well.

 

[Spark]

Yeah but the point is that he's been basically forgotten, which is more or less the thread criteria.

 

[nexxus]

Five names that came to mind.

Dave Richardson (only played 44 Tests but deserves mention)

Bit harsh on Dave that, he was solid keeper & a nuggety batsman who often chipped in with useful innings, provided a calm stability to a side whose middle order was a bit light & dropped very few without looking spectacular.

Some more names I thought of when reading this thread - Jonty Rhodes: I speak purely from a Test cricket perspective. An average Test cricketer who's fielding influence didn't quite turn games in this format. Does everyone picture Rhodes in the South Africa green whenever they hear his name? I do.

Was very successful in the latter part of his career, averaged mid 40s I think. Almost completely cutting off cover as a run scoring area was really useful for a captain like Cronje who often used the tactic of drying up the runs.

Someone else mentioned Mark Boucher & that isn't even worthy of a reply, but here's one anyway, current record holder for most catches in Test cricket much?

On behalf of SA, I put forward Andre Nel, he who built an entire career on hitting Alan Donald in the head & not much else. All huff & no puff.

The glorious Nicky Boje, representing that uniquely South African species of left arm spinner whose stock ball is the one that holds it's line, offering such variations as the one that almost turned, the one that hit a crack and went straight on & the arm ball.

Mornantu Hayward, so remarkably stroppy, yet magnificently ordinary.

Surely there must be a whole clutch of new age West Indians in this list? Nixon McLean, Darren Sammy, Fidel Edwards, etc.

 

[Howe_zat]

I wouldn't say Ramps has been forgotten at all. His record is pretty unique and he's become a symbol of all those players exceptional at county level but seemingly unable to succeed in Tests. In turn, his ongoing selection came to be rightly-or-wrongly symbolic of the problems with 1990s English cricket.

I've seen plenty of people arguing Bopara, Bell and the like to be dropped just because they reminded the poster of Ramprakash.

 

[Top_Cat]

I wouldn't say Ramps has been forgotten at all. His record is pretty unique and he's become a symbol of all those players exceptional at county level but seemingly unable to succeed in Tests. In turn, his ongoing selection came to be rightly-or-wrongly symbolic of the problems with 1990s English cricket.

I've seen plenty of people arguing Bopara, Bell and the like to be dropped just because they reminded the poster of Ramprakash.

I don't take the thread that way, tbh. 'Least influential' for me is 'least influential on the course of a match' and, particularly in games against Australia, Ramps fits the bill. I know his numbers against Australia look good prima facie but especially in that series of half-tons he scored, didn't really do much from a team perspective.

I personally would even argue that his presence in team was negative; he scored many of those runs so stodgily that he put pressure on the bloke at the other end. In my view, this cost England wickets when Stewart, Hussain, etc. tried to up the rate because the Aussies were all over them and Ramps was sitting on his handle at the other end. In that situation, you owe your team a big score and that he didn't go on with it after eating up a ton of balls () is damn-near unforgivable.

His best runs against OZ came in his first Test against them at The Oval. From that point it was one inconsequential run after another.