My only argument to that is, I have watched all of Shiv's career and while his solidly will be missed, his legacy will never approach that of Lara's because of the (very real) perception that he played for him self and placed his numbers above the team.
Yeah, wel said. this is exacty what has made me stop posting in this thread for 5 times or so now. Either I mention someone that isn't really underrated, or I mention someone thta is simply not as good as I think he is/was.
Oh, but I'm not saying Lara = Chanderpaul. What I'm saying is that Chanderpaul is considered way inferior to Lara, whereas 20 years from now he will be considered a lot more comparable (although still not as good). We tend to be very kneejerk about these sorts of things. Guys like SRT and Steyn are the extreme examples. People are happy to give them elite status because they seemingly have/had no flaws. For other elite players who had slight weaknesses, we tend to focus on those weaknesses excessively. Dravid, Kallis, Chanderpaul - too slow; Pollock - not good enough at taking lots of wickets; Sangakarra - flat track bully. Players of old had similar things that plagued their careers. They get rated fairly now, but during their time they probably got excessively criticised in the grand scope of ATGs. Guys like Chanderpaul, Pollock and Sangakarra will all probably rank higher in the minds of future cricket analysts because they don't deal with the emotions we judge them with.
Its ironic that we are wary of generational chauvinism as stemming from the past. I think it comes mainly from the modern day fan running down the past in their ignorance of it.
...which is rubbish from first to last.
This is so great.
Also have Dravid, Hayden, G Smith rounding it out. Not bad at all.
They can cop it on the nut.
