Jump to content

Players that one was initially wrong about


Vijy

Recommended Posts

I thought it would be interesting to hear from ICFers about players that they outright dismissed or strongly underrated at first, and who came back strongly and finished as a great player (or even an ATG). In a sense, this thread is about acknowledging our fallibility, which is fine in my opinion because everyone makes mistakes. I will start off this thread with some notable examples:

 

1. Steve Waugh and Damien Martyn - I saw both toward the beginning of their careers, where they were either ARs or pseudo-ARs. Hence, I did not rate them very highly as batters, and one became an ATG (Waugh) and the other became a great player (Martyn). I had seen some of Steven Smith's knocks in Oz domestic cricket, so I was not completely taken aback by his eventual Test success.

2. Mohinder Amarnath - Having seen him before his purple run(s), I had no idea of the heights he was capable of, or his immense capacity to play true fast bowling. I thought that he would be a utility cricketer who would finish with a Peter Willey-like batting avg of around 30 along with some useful bowling. Went on to become an Indian ATG, albeit not a world ATG.

Edited by Vijy
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Majestic said:

For India in test cricket, it is none other than the Lord, Shardul Thakur.

lord's career is only a few tests old, whereas my post was more about players who have played for a long period and accumulated enough body of work

Link to comment

Shane Warne. Got thrashed around like a ragdoll in a raging river in his first test against India. I had never heard about him, and didn't even remember his name after the series ended. Fast forward to a couple of years later, he was the spin wizard hailed the world over. I was like "wait a second! Is this the guy our batters thrashed around all over the park in that test match a while ago?". 

Link to comment
6 hours ago, Vijy said:

lord's career is only a few tests old, whereas my post was more about players who have played for a long period and accumulated enough body of work

It is tough to mention such names but yes if you ask the opposite of it(that is the players who we thought will be the next best thing but ended up as a joke), then there is a good list of such players we have got.

Edited by Majestic
Link to comment
On 6/13/2022 at 8:26 AM, Sean Bradley said:

Vijay Shankar, everyone here on ICF thought he's going to be the next Kapil Dev, but God! you guys were so wrong :aetsch:

To his credit he batted well in a odi game in NZ at 4, plus looked a decent player in the t20s and later at home against aus. He can bat but a bit of touch player, takes time.

Link to comment
On 6/12/2022 at 10:11 AM, Vijy said:

I thought it would be interesting to hear from ICFers about players that they outright dismissed or strongly underrated at first, and who came back strongly and finished as a great player (or even an ATG). In a sense, this thread is about acknowledging our fallibility, which is fine in my opinion because everyone makes mistakes. I will start off this thread with some notable examples:

 

1. Steve Waugh and Damien Martyn - I saw both toward the beginning of their careers, where they were either ARs or pseudo-ARs. Hence, I did not rate them very highly as batters, and one became an ATG (Waugh) and the other became a great player (Martyn). I had seen some of Steven Smith's knocks in Oz domestic cricket, so I was not completely taken aback by his eventual Test success.

2. Mohinder Amarnath - Having seen him before his purple run(s), I had no idea of the heights he was capable of, or his immense capacity to play true fast bowling. I thought that he would be a utility cricketer who would finish with a Peter Willey-like batting avg of around 30 along with some useful bowling. Went on to become an Indian ATG, albeit not a world ATG.

Never took you to be an old geezer . In my list 
Vengsarkar . Was immensely miserable at the start of his career, worse than MAmarnath. Only because of Bombay lobby he survived, just like Ravi Shastri.

 

Ravi Shastri

Shane Warne

Robin Singh - punched above his weight 

Atapattu 

Sidhu - he had a decent ODI career

Raina

Steve Waugh - certainly 

Steven Smith

 

 

 

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Mesky99 said:

To his credit he batted well in a odi game in NZ at 4, plus looked a decent player in the t20s and later at home against aus. He can bat but a bit of touch player, takes time.

He also broke parkis into tukada tukads pieces. 

Link to comment
36 minutes ago, Jay said:

He also broke parkis into tukada tukads pieces. 

Even kedar broke momin pukstan boys, that was some crazy level hammering by our boys, dhawan and Rohit were having a net basically, lassan trashed, so was Shaheen etc 

Link to comment
17 minutes ago, Mesky99 said:

Even kedar broke momin pukstan boys, that was some crazy level hammering by our boys, dhawan and Rohit were having a net basically, lassan trashed, so was Shaheen etc 

shaheen dint play that game bro. amir did. wahab did. shaheen got butchered in the asia cup by dhawan so bad. rohit as well. 

but that was a pre prime shaheen. he is now in his prime vs our old farts who have declined. prime rohit and dhawan would definitely dispatch shaheen with ease. dhaawan is clutch. moreso than any of the other 3 which includes kohli, roro and kela. 

Edited by Jay
Link to comment
On 6/14/2022 at 6:27 PM, coffee_rules said:

Never took you to be an old geezer . In my list 
Vengsarkar . Was immensely miserable at the start of his career, worse than MAmarnath. Only because of Bombay lobby he survived, just like Ravi Shastri.

 

Ravi Shastri

Shane Warne

Robin Singh - punched above his weight 

Atapattu 

Sidhu - he had a decent ODI career

Raina

Steve Waugh - certainly 

Steven Smith

 

 

 

you gotta have some old geezers (comparatively speaking) to keep it lively.

 

Shastri is a great pick. I was surprised by how good a test batter he eventually became

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...