Underrated players?

[Scritty]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alrounder80 View Post
I'll only name the obvious good players and not potentially good youngsters:

Kieron Pollard (West Indies)
Marlon Samuels (West Indies)
M.Dhoni (India)
Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)
Umar Gul (Pakistan)
Francois Du Plessis(South Africa)
Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka)
Nasir Hossain (Bangladesh)
Masrafe Mortaza (Bangladesh)
Adbur Razzak (Bangladesh)
Shafiul Islam (Bangladesh)
Kyle Jarvis (Zimbabwe)
Vusi Sibanda (Zimbabwe)
Christopher Mpofu (Zimbabwe)
Daniel Vettori (New Zealand)
Brendon McCullum (New Zealand)

There are probably a few more international ones but I got most of them. Some of these players may not be amazing, but all of them get picked for their national teams regularly. In the game, these players are either 1) not picked at all 2)picked for a few games at the beginning before being dropped permanently 3) significantly underperform (M DHONI!)
I can add Sean Abbott, Michael Clarke, Pat Cummins, Saeed Ajmal, Dwayne Bravo, Brad Haddin, Ben Hilfenhaus, Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Vettori, M Hafeez, TM Dilshan, Paul Stirling, Ross Taylor, Josh Hazelwood, Kevin O'Brien and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan to that list.

Ah - 32 players in all, and not one English player there.
Don't notice many English players on these lists no matter where they are posted (even threads on the same topic for other cricket sims)
Number 1 test side (skin of their teeth admiteddly) number 1 T20, T20 champs and number 2 ODI site, and no-one wants a single player.

Nothing against this thread, it's always been that way since cricket games existed. I think what made Botham and Flintoff stand out was they were the only players people from outside the UK would ever even consider picking in an XI..and even then many really strongly disliked them.

Cooke scored 6 centuries my first year as England captain (2014), Trott 4.
Finn took almost 50 test wickets and was rated number 2 in the world and was still very cheap (£67,000) but of course was centrally contracted by then so really cost nothing for the 4 games a year he could play. Swann retired in 2016 and finished by taking 20 wickets in a 3 test series. James Taylor, Scott Borthwick and Shazad (now of Lancs) were excellent and Graham Napier dominated T20 taking buckets of wickets and scoring at about 160.

Luke Wright opening in IPL was awesome. Ravi Bopara took 16 wickets in IPL 2015 and scored over 200 runs.
On the other side of the coin

Pietersen was a massive failure from 2014 onwards. Bad luck? Maybe, but I gave up on him in as soon as I took over (CPU was playing him consistently till then, even though his results were very poor) and James Taylor took his place and averaged mid thirties in his first year and improved test series after test series.

Strauss never averaged over 35 in a series and I retired him as soon as I took over as well.

Bresnan's bowling slipped a bit then recovered and he played in all threee formats, Broad and Anderson both waned very quickly and Broad had a 3 test series where he took 5 wickets (including 3 in an innings) and he was dropped as well (for good) Anderson recovered and is still playing.
Seems realistic. A bit hit and miss as to who goes well and who fades, but I suppose that's realistic. You never really know.

Overall England managing to stay top 3 in tests but lost T20 crown (losing semi finalists to Aus the eventual winners) managed to stay in top 3 for ODI and T20 rankings thogh and made the final of the ODI world cup in Oz (losing to Pakistan)

Overall very consistent side. Challenging hard in most competitions in most formats. Rarely out of top 3 for anything. Loads of good cover in case of injury and great young regens coming thorugh. Seems entirely realistic and plausible to me. Doing well, though not quite as highly ranked as they are right now.

But in a list of 30 odd players you see half a dozen Zims, same number of Bangs,and not a single English player

I guess people don't like England. Simple as that.

[Imager36]

I guess people don't like England. Simple as that.

To be honest with you, I don't like some players in the England setup, and I'm English!

I think it may have to do with the fact that Chris and Sureshot are both English and, as such, the English database is done with a greater knowledge of the players than the other countries, where more importance will be placed on the average-based generated skill points. Therefore, the English ratings, are, perhaps, more accurate. There are many English players who are underrated, of course, but I feel that many of these are players are young, and would never be in the England setup apart from in their wildest dreams, and so anyone who doesn't know much about the county scene will not notice these players (Coles has been mentioned, my biased view is Wells at Sussex is, definitely Azeem Rafiq at Yorkshire too). Actually, it's not so much that they are underrated, more that they do not improve enough. This does mean that the regens come to the fore slightly quicker than is ideal, although this has been improved.

As such, ratings like this will always be subjective. I would argue that Dhoni, for example, is not underrated, but simply lacks the 'nerveless' quality that makes him a great finisher in real life. Time and time again, when he is not under pressure, he does not perform, for example in test matches, where the correctly-rated Matt Prior is a far better player.

This argument has rather petered out. I would have liked a big finish, or at least a conclusion. Never mind.

[Alrounder80]

I guess people don't like England. Simple as that.

That would be very unpatriotic of me as I'm English! But I see your point. I didn't put down names of any English players as there were no obvious ones that were underrated. They are the best team to pick in ICC2012. All of the XI in real life that are picked are as good as they should be. I'm sure there are many underrated in the domestic scene but I was only mentioning international players.
I named one from South Africa as he was the obviously underrated player. Du Plessis never gets picked for South Africa whereas he an automatic pick IRL.
Anyways, there were several players of English domestic players that people wanted improved. Of the top of my head:

Jamie Overton
Craig Overton
Sam Billings
Michael Bates
Matt Coles
Tymal Mills

And these are just of the top of my head
Of these guys, only Matt Coles hasn't been improved yet.

With regards to your comment of Botham and Flintoff being one of the few players that would get into their XI, I'm sure the likes of Len Hutton, Wally Hammond, Jim Laker, etc would be considered in their XI. I'd certainly consider them in mine.

[bryce87]

I think it may have to do with the fact that Chris and Sureshot are both English and, as such, the English database is done with a greater knowledge of the players than the other countries

.seemed obvious

[KGKOOLKAT777]

Ian Holland of Victoria needs a massive increase!