Worst cricketer to play 100 tests

[Majestic]

Who is the worst cricketer to play 100 or more tests in international cricket?

 

Some names in contention :-

 

Mark Boucher

Ian Bell

Mike Atherton

Daniel Vettori

Ishant Sharma

Saleem Malik

Carl Hooper

Harbhajan Singh

 

A case can be made for a few more.

Discuss!

 

[goose]

Ishant Sharma....daylight....Ishant Sharma.

[vvvslaxman]

Ishant despite playing 100 tests was always a back up lol. If Tendulkar's son makes debut now Ishant will be his back up.

[The Realist]

I. Sharma. Not even close.

[Trichromatic]

If Ian Bell is in the list, why not Ganguly then?

[Majestic]

8 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

If Ian Bell is in the list, why not Ganguly then?

Ganguly was a great captain and a part time seamer.

 

Bell was more of a home track minnow basher.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Majestic

[First class]

Salim Malik was fixer, no doubt about it but was great cricketer otherwise , deserved to play 100 test if he was not a fixer. Boucher , Vittori and Hooper all were worth 100 tests player.

 

Worst player to play 100 tests would be Azhar Ali , if he played 9 more for Pakistan , I hope not .

[kosingh]

Probably Bell. How much they would love to have someone like Bell in the current. That average of 37 in Australia looks very useful now. 

[R!TTER]

Limp d*** Sharma 

India's Ishant Sharma says 100 Tests just a number

[coffee_rules]

Some in list don’t deserve to be in the list. Mark Boucher - didn’t he have ARG wkt stats till recently or still has? 
I sharma of course, but he also benefited from TINA for a long time when India only produced trundles like Praveen , Vinay, Unadkat, etc

[putrevus]

48 minutes ago, Majestic said:

Ganguly was a great captain and a part time seamer.

 

Bell was more of a home track minnow basher.

Non sense Bell was far superior batsman than Ganguly.

[Vijy]

27 minutes ago, putrevus said:

Non sense Bell was far superior batsman than Ganguly.

he had a better technique and looked "pretty" when batting, but was an underachiever. Ganguly had clear technical limitations (e.g., bounce), and did as well as he could under the circumstances.

[Vijy]

Carl Hooper was a big underachiever. However, WI batting was uneven in 90s, which is why it makes sense he played 100 tests. My vote for the most undeserving player for 100 tests is Ishant, even though I am grateful for his contributions for the last 3-4 yrs.

[Majestic]

42 minutes ago, putrevus said:

Non sense Bell was far superior batsman than Ganguly.

Clearly you have not followed their careers well enough. Ganguly had an average of 49 till 1999 after which he took the captaincy and his batting saw dip. Yes, he had technical limitations but he still has produced enough memorable moments/performances to be rated as much better player than Bell.

 

With Ganguly, you can think of his Brisbane knock which was on genuine bouncy wickets of Brisbane in 2003. Back then, Adelaide and Sydney were more suited to us but Ganguly played that knock on Brisbane. He also has a batting average of 60+ in England.

 

With Bell though, you can't really come out with any such iconic knock away from home in tough conditions. He was mostly a support batsman to Cook and KP and by the time around 2014-15, when he had the chance to lead the England batting after KP left and Cook was going through bad patch, he was overshadowed by younger men like Root who were playing more impactful knocks while Bell used to go missing batting higher up the order (2015 Ashes).

 

You just add what Ganguly achieved as captain and this becomes simply a no brainer.

[LordPrabhzy]

Ishant.... played over 100 tests yet nowhere close to 400 wickets

[Texan]

Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh

 

I think people are not seeing through how useless Harbhajan was in his last few years in the team. Since 2006, he had a bowling average of 37 overall and even in India, it was 35. We were just carrying an extra deadweight everywhere we played. 

[Texan]

By the way, why are Boucher, Bell, Vettori, Mallik in the list?

 

Mallik, Bell averaged 43, 42 respectively. Those averages aren't great but not bad either. If these guys made it to the list, then why not Ganguly, Fleming, Strauss and Mark Waugh? Mark Waugh in my opinion was one of the most overrated batsmen of all time, who kept his place in a strong Australian lineup blocking better players like Dean Jones, Darren Lehmann and Stuart Law from playing.

 

Also, why is Boucher in this list? He played in a team that had all-rounders like Pollock, Kallis, Klusener and even Symcox, so his batting was not all that needed and he often had to just score some quick runs to enable a declaration. His keeping was topnotch and his batting was better than Dave Richardson, who he had replaced in the team.

 

I also don't get why Vettori is in this list either. If you look purely at his bowling average, then yes, he wasn't that great purely as a bowler. But, he has a batting average of 30 with 6 hundreds. So, he was a useful bowler who could bat really well. 

[rangeelaraja]

None other than Sanath Jayasuriya.

 

Averaged 25 odd in Sena countries over a 20 year cricket and 110 tests.

 

Colombo and Sharjah FTB

[Majestic]

7 hours ago, rangeelaraja said:

None other than Sanath Jayasuriya.

 

Averaged 25 odd in Sena countries over a 20 year cricket and 110 tests.

 

Colombo and Sharjah FTB

Jayasuriya was aggressive opener and has close to 100 test wickets too. That's more than good enough.

[rangeelaraja]

1 hour ago, Majestic said:

Jayasuriya was aggressive opener and has close to 100 test wickets too. That's more than good enough.

 

70 % of his wickets are home wickets just like his one sided batting performance and dud performances in SENA countries.

 

He was the quintessential flat track/home track bully  who was an absolute FLOP in tests in SENA countries.