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The Most Selfish Players you've Seen

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Interesting that throughout this thread, players that bat overly aggressive (Afridi, Sehwag) have been accused as selfish, yet players who bat for the most part conservatively (Kallis, Chanderpaul) have also been called slefish.

Funny.
Why? Why does selfish have to be one or the other? All selfish is is putting your own interests before the side. That can be your marketability (being a shotplayer and getting the prestige being more important than actually making runs for your team) or it can be your average (being more concerned about getting a not-out than scoring quickly - which in all honesty really doesn't present the chance to happen all that often).

BTW I don't think anyone's actually accused Sehwag of being selfish, just made a throwaway comment following on from what I said about Afridi.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Interesting that throughout this thread, players that bat overly aggressive (Afridi, Sehwag) have been accused as selfish, yet players who bat for the most part conservatively (Kallis, Chanderpaul) have also been called slefish.

Funny.
I dont see a problem with them even if I disagree with some of the nominations.

Failure to adapt to the game situation and continuing to play how you want to rather than playing how the team needs can lead you to be judged selfish. That may be either conservative or aggressive depending on the player. An unwillingness to adapt and sacrifice from what a player wants to do is not specific to a certain type.
 

asty80

School Boy/Girl Captain
I think Sehwag is the extreme opposite of selfish.

A selfish player is one who potters around in the 90's for an eternity before he gathers a few nudges here and there to push past his century when the team needs more than 6 per over a.k.a Ganguly.

Sehwag moves from 94 to 100 with a 6. So the suggestion that HE is selfish is just mind boggling.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
A selfish player is one who potters around in the 90's for an eternity before he gathers a few nudges here and there to push past his century when the team needs more than 6 per over a.k.a Ganguly.
That might be one example of selfish - one cannot be absolutely certain that such a thing equates to selfishness and it is certainly not the only thing that may do.

And I repeat - no-one has actually labelled Sehwag selfish in this thread, unless I've missed quite a bit.
 

Isura

U19 Captain
Yeah, it'd be so much better for their teams to have them batting further up the order and being less productive wouldn't it?(!)
I haven't checked their records up the order (probably an small size anyways), but they might be helping their own average at the expense of exposing weaker teammates to the fresh bowling attack. Each batsmen doesn't bat in isolation.
 

Isura

U19 Captain
Sorry thought Sarwan batted there. Na they should clearly entirely forsake a lower order so they just totally collapse when Chanderpaul gets out, good plan.
Okay, why don't teams order lineups in reverse based on skill? Surely it's better to have your tail enders open to prop up the tail right?
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I think the argument may be (with the HBS, Sreesanth and Symonds examples) that if you behave in such a way as these guys have at times, you're being pretty selfish in the sense you've got no regard for your team mates or the game itself.

I maybe wrong though.
 
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Xuhaib

International Coach
Afridi is not aselfish he is not good enough to alter his batting with the situation he is at best just a lower order hitter.
 

Uppercut

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Symonds is anything but selfish on the pitch. It's the contempt with which he treats his team-mates off it that gets him the label, I presume.
 

Nate

You'll Never Walk Alone
Chanders is just weird as ****. He's generally a defensive batsman but sometimes- for reasons only known to himself- decides to play consecutive slog-sweeps for boundaries, regardless of whether the match situation requires it. And he never seems to get out playing them.

If Chanders says he's batting at five, then he's batting at five.
Haha, awesome post.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
No surprise to see the ill-informed slagging off of Geoff Boycott.

One man who was selfish and admitted it was Gordon Greenidge. He's says in his 1980 autobiography that after the 1975/76 tour of Australia he decided to put himself before the team.
 

JimmyGS

First Class Debutant
The vast majority of posts in this thread are ridiculous. You have no idea what goes on in team meetings and changing rooms about batting tactics etc that could have made a player play the way they did in a certain game. Calling them selfish from the outside with no information is idiotic.

The only way to know if a player is selfish is if you've spent time with them playing, in camp, touring etc.
 

thierry henry

International Coach
The vast majority of posts in this thread are ridiculous. You have no idea what goes on in team meetings and changing rooms about batting tactics etc that could have made a player play the way they did in a certain game. Calling them selfish from the outside with no information is idiotic.

The only way to know if a player is selfish is if you've spent time with them playing, in camp, touring etc.
[/endforum]
 

age_master

Hall of Fame Member
Bevan was another who was accused quite a bit at some stages of being selfish, especially towards the end of his career where expected rates at the end of the innings had begun to climb, 60 off the last 10 wasn't really as acceptable as it was during his prime.
Yeah i felt like Bevan was batting for his average a bit towards the end of his career.
 

Julian87

State Captain
Shahid Afridi.

Don't know what he goes out trying to do most innings', but it sure isn't score runs and thus try to benefit his team (because, you know, scoring runs benefits your team). Maybe he cares more about his marketability as the ultra-aggressor than his team's fortunes?
I think he just cares more about his bowling...
 

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