cricketers that had potential

[Richard]

Mullally only ever swung the ball from time to time though. Had he been a regular swing bowler, who could get the ball to go in the majority of his spells, he'd have been a hell of a prospect. But he wasn't, so he wasn't.

 

[Julian87]

Matt Elliott
Matt Sinclair
Mark Higgs
Greg Blewett
Mark Butcher
Nathan Bracken
Lanka de Silva

 

[bagapath]

All of us I suppose

ha ha. yeah. me, for sure.

laxman sivaramakrishnan was a sad case of tons of promise thrown away for no reason. i dont think too many cricketers were talented enough to take 6 wicket hauls on three consecutive innings. he had the support of a sympathetic captain in kapil dev. and genuine encouragement from veterans like gavaskar, vengsarkar and amarnath. he made some stupid choices in his life outside the cricket ground and ended up creating a huge gap in the indian spin tradition between bedi-chandra-prasanna and kumble-bhajji. and he is killing us from the commentary box these days.

 

[Top_Cat]

It's arguable that Fairbrother and Mullally could've been decent Test players (they certainly couldn't have been much more than that) but again, both did at least achieve the outcome of being outstanding ODI players for a time.

Fairbrother maybe but I do remember reading an old article from years ago where top ex-Test players (Benords, Chappells, etc.) were asked who the best up-and-coming cricketer in Aus was at the time. Pretty much all of them nominated Mullally and a few like Benords intimated he'd be in the Aus Test side very shortly. Not bad to stand out for a team who were winning everything (WA won three Shields in a row at that time) and had their own world-class leftie in the side (Bruce Reid).

Myself, I thought he was a very talented bowler. I think the county grind got to him because the more cricket he played in England, the slower he got. He kept taking county wickets but I reckon he was a much better bowler when he could just attack. When he was running in trying to knock the oppo over with big swingers and cutters, coupled with good height and being tall in the delivery stride, would have been a pretty awkward prospect to face.

As far as cricketers with potential who didn't fully realise it, there are heaps I could name but the aforementioned Bruce Reid is one. I also thought Mohammed Wasim was a great player to watch, one of the smoothest batters I've seen.

 

[amokk1]

Ajit Agarkar.
Shoaib Aktar.
Salman Butt
Sreeshant
Afridi
Justin Kemp
Shane Bond
Craig McMilian

 

[BoyBrumby]

Fairbrother maybe but I do remember reading an old article from years ago where top ex-Test players (Benords, Chappells, etc.) were asked who the best up-and-coming cricketer in Aus was at the time. Pretty much all of them nominated Mullally and a few like Benords intimated he'd be in the Aus Test side very shortly. Not bad to stand out for a team who were winning everything (WA won three Shields in a row at that time) and had their own world-class leftie in the side (Bruce Reid).

Myself, I thought he was a very talented bowler. I think the county grind got to him because the more cricket he played in England, the slower he got. He kept taking county wickets but I reckon he was a much better bowler when he could just attack. When he was running in trying to knock the oppo over with big swingers and cutters, coupled with good height and being tall in the delivery stride, would have been a pretty awkward prospect to face.

As far as cricketers with potential who didn't fully realise it, there are heaps I could name but the aforementioned Bruce Reid is one. I also thought Mohammed Wasim was a great player to watch, one of the smoothest batters I've seen.

Obviously I didn't see a ball he bowled for WA in the late 80s/early 90s but his record isn't anything flash at all. Best he managed (and it's by an awfully long way too) was was 23 wickets @ 32.82 in 88/89.

Looks more the record of a bloke who'd struggle to get a stage gig to me.

 

[Richard]

Fairbrother maybe but I do remember reading an old article from years ago where top ex-Test players (Benords, Chappells, etc.) were asked who the best up-and-coming cricketer in Aus was at the time. Pretty much all of them nominated Mullally and a few like Benords intimated he'd be in the Aus Test side very shortly. Not bad to stand out for a team who were winning everything (WA won three Shields in a row at that time) and had their own world-class leftie in the side (Bruce Reid).

Myself, I thought he was a very talented bowler. I think the county grind got to him because the more cricket he played in England, the slower he got. He kept taking county wickets but I reckon he was a much better bowler when he could just attack. When he was running in trying to knock the oppo over with big swingers and cutters, coupled with good height and being tall in the delivery stride, would have been a pretty awkward prospect to face.

I obviously only laid eyes on Mullally for the first time in 1996, by which time he was 26 going-on 27. I have examined his record for WA in the late-1980s and it doesn't exactly make good - or extensive - reading, so I can only presume he was doing great things in second XI or grade cricket.

So all I can say is that by the time he reached the Test level he was neither especially quick nor did he swing the ball that much. His action was flawed - his collapsed front leg did not make maximum use of his height, and if you put his action in a mirror and look at it as a right-arm one you'll be horrified. It's no surprise he never swung it much.

In my time watching, all Mullally really had going for him was the fact he was really, really accurate - for a period the most accurate bowler in the country. He did swing it from time to time but not totally unlike Mitchell Johnson it was a case of everything had to be right, else forget it. And he didn't have Johnson's natural off-cutter nor his knack for getting wickets with nothing deliveries - mostly he would just slide the ball accross the right-hander and they'd leave it all day long.

 

[zaremba]

Lathwell never had much potential IMO - he hated the limelight, and with that sort of mindset he had no hope at all of being a good international cricketer.

I see what you're getting at. But when he was called up for England in 1993 it was on the basis of what was almost universally regarded as great potential and a very special talent. Infamously he wasn't ready and said so (as did his mother), and his career nosedived from there. But I doubt that anyone who followed the English game back in 1993 would hesitate to put Lathwell in the "had potential, never realised it" bracket.

 

[TT Boy]

Atherton said Mullally's biggest problem was that he was far too concerned on not getting hit that he very rarely threatened or had the confidence to pitch the ball up or attack the stumps. He was far more content on bowling outside off and showing that he was doing his 'job'. Said he was a frustrating cricketer to captain.

 

[Top_Cat]

Obviously I didn't see a ball he bowled for WA in the late 80s/early 90s but his record isn't anything flash at all. Best he managed (and it's by an awfully long way too) was was 23 wickets @ 32.82 in 88/89.

Looks more the record of a bloke who'd struggle to get a stage gig to me.

Was in-and-out a bit due to the aforementioned Reid. People raving about him were all about the potential rather than his numbers to that point; think he wasn't yet 20 at the time and getting a regular spot in that WA line-up wouldn't have been easy.

Career really went south (so to speak) when he moved to Vic. Either way, was rated highly.

 

[Xuhaib]

Fairbrother maybe but I do remember reading an old article from years ago where top ex-Test players (Benords, Chappells, etc.) were asked who the best up-and-coming cricketer in Aus was at the time. Pretty much all of them nominated Mullally and a few like Benords intimated he'd be in the Aus Test side very shortly. Not bad to stand out for a team who were winning everything (WA won three Shields in a row at that time) and had their own world-class leftie in the side (Bruce Reid).

Myself, I thought he was a very talented bowler. I think the county grind got to him because the more cricket he played in England, the slower he got. He kept taking county wickets but I reckon he was a much better bowler when he could just attack. When he was running in trying to knock the oppo over with big swingers and cutters, coupled with good height and being tall in the delivery stride, would have been a pretty awkward prospect to face.

As far as cricketers with potential who didn't fully realise it, there are heaps I could name but the aforementioned Bruce Reid is one. I also thought Mohammed Wasim was a great player to watch, one of the smoothest batters I've seen.

Wasim Akram was very critical of him said he was a sulker only wanted to bat 3 ofcourse Ijaz was already established at that position so no chance.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Was in-and-out a bit due to the aforementioned Reid. People raving about him were all about the potential rather than his numbers to that point; think he wasn't yet 20 at the time and getting a regular spot in that WA line-up wouldn't have been easy.

Career really went south (so to speak) when he moved to Vic. Either way, was rated highly.

Very fair point, actually. He's actually younger than I imagined. No small effort to break into any SS side in his teens. Makes you wonder how his career might've shaped up if he hadn't had the UK passport to fall back on.

How was Craig White regarded down under before he got requainted with his Yorkshire roots? If at all, looks to have barely played for Vic.

 

[Richard]

I see what you're getting at. But when he was called up for England in 1993 it was on the basis of what was almost universally regarded as great potential and a very special talent. Infamously he wasn't ready and said so (as did his mother), and his career nosedived from there. But I doubt that anyone who followed the English game back in 1993 would hesitate to put Lathwell in the "had potential, never realised it" bracket.

Maybe so. However it's not true at all to say his career nosedived from 1993 onwards, and it always surprises me that anyone thinks it did. It was only 1996 (or may have been 1997) that it started to do that. The thing is though it wasn't a case of him not being ready in 1993, merely not being ready ever. Lathwell just hated the limelight - that never changed all career, was never going to change all career, so he was never (with hindsight, having found this out) going to make an international cricketer.

He was a talented batsman and as long as the spotlight was off he was capable of batting very well, but when it was on he was totally uncomfortable. A feeling I can certainly understand.

 

[Richard]

Atherton said Mullally's biggest problem was that he was far too concerned on not getting hit that he very rarely threatened or had the confidence to pitch the ball up or attack the stumps. He was far more content on bowling outside off and showing that he was doing his 'job'. Said he was a frustrating cricketer to captain.

On the rare occasions Mullally pitched it up he didn't swing it much anyway, because his seam position wasn't very good. If he'd had a better bowling action he'd have been a terrific bowler, but it wasn't length, it was seam position, that stopped him swinging it and going from defensive to attacking bowler.

 

[Richard]

Very fair point, actually. He's actually younger than I imagined. No small effort to break into any SS side in his teens. Makes you wonder how his career might've shaped up if he hadn't had the UK passport to fall back on.

How was Craig White regarded down under before he got requainted with his Yorkshire roots? If at all, looks to have barely played for Vic.

Played for Australian age-group teams though. White was a batting fingerspinner in his mid-teens though, and a specialist batsman in his late-teens and early-20s. Certainly no way of knowing how his career would've panned-out if he, like Mullally, hadn't had British heritage.

 

[zaremba]

Maybe so. However it's not true at all to say his career nosedived from 1993 onwards, and it always surprises me that anyone thinks it did.

Well in terms of his perceived potential, which is what I think I'm really talking about, it certainly did nosedive, and you can identify the moment of that nosedive at around the time of his call-up to the England team in 1993. Up until that time it looked as though he could achieve more or less anything in the game. He was a frightening talent. And then the call-up happened, his Mum said he wasn't ready before his debut, he flopped against the Aussies and it was clear that he wasn't going to make it. And that was the end of the Mark Lathwell story and it felt like a minor tragedy. The fact that he may have scored a few runs in county cricket in the following couple of years didn't change that at all. He had nosedived and it was game over as far as Mark Lathwell was concerned.

As for his character making him fundamentally unsuitable for Test cricket, you're probably right (and I write as someone who's never met the guy, obviously!). In his recent book on the Ashes, Marcus Berkmann consistently refers to him as "Gentle Mark Lathwell". Which sums it up nicely.

 

[Mupariwa_Magic]

A few Zimbabwean cricketers:
Eddo Brandes
Henry Olonga
Tatenda Taibu
Paul Strang

 

[Richard]

The fact that he may have scored a few runs in county cricket in the following couple of years didn't change that at all.

The point, I suppose, is that what had made his name was the fact that he scored runs in county cricket. It's difficult to nosedive if you don't have somewhere to be "up" on ITFP. Lathwell from 1994 to 1995(?) did the same as he had up to 1993; scored plenty of runs for Somerset. It's true that his England career nosedived - well, perhaps actually it's more true to say it was stillborn. It barely even got going.

Make no mistake, I don't dispute that 1993 was a pivotal moment in Lathwell's career - it was the time when the realisations, maybe on his own part as well as others', were made that he wasn't going to make it as a top-level cricketer the way so many had for a fair while expected him to. But it's not really true to say that he stopped doing that year something he had been doing previously.

 

[Inferiority]

Aviska Gunawardene
Ishara Amerasinghe
Lasith Malinga (debatable but still has a chance to come back)
Marvan Atappatu (underacheived)
Thilan Samaraweera (as an off spinner lol)
Rangana Herath
Stuart McGill
Phil Jaques
Brad Hodge (definitely)

 

[Richard]

Take it from reading other posts that this was a "reincarnation" of MendisNuffSaid?