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12 batsmen who under-achieved the most in Test cricket

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Harsh Thakor

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My list in order of merit of batsmen who did not do justice to their true talent and under achieved for their true potential.I am comparing their ability with statistics in examining level they under achieved.

1.Majid Khan
2.Lawrence Rowe
3.Gundappa Vishwanath
4.Rohan Kanhai
5 David Gower
6.Colin Cowdrey
7.Martin Crowe
8.Alvin Kalicharan
9.V.V.S.Laxman
10.Kim Hughes
11.Sandeep Patil
12.Mohsin Khan


Majid Khan averaged around 39 who could bat as well as a Viv Richards on his day and better than anybody on bad wicket.Imagination of a Brian Lara.Morally amongst the best 5 batsmen of the 1970's in the class of Chappel brothers,Gavaskar or Viv.

Lawrence Rowe was technically sounder than any West Indian batsmen with phenomenal talent and ability to make big scores.


Vishwanath was simply the magician of batting taking artistry to its highest zenith.Arguably better on bad and fast wickets than team mate Sunil Gavaskar,who rated Vishy the best batsmen he ever saw .



Rohan Kanhai encompassed regions Bradman failed to in batting taking creativity to regions of the sublime.Would have averaged around 60 if he did justice to his potential.

David Gower posessed the natural talent of the greatest batsmen and executed simply treated a cricket ball like a child taking grace to region s of the divine.Lillee thought Gower was harder to bowl to than Graeme Pollock or Greg Chappell.Rarely seen a right- hander tackle lethal bowling with such ease as Gower.


Colin Cowdrey posessed the gift of the gods and on his day looked the perfect batsmen.If he did not impose restraint and got rid of inhibitions would have joined Walter Hammond or Len Hutton.Played some of cricket's finest innings like his 102 out of 191 at Melbourne in 1954 and 114 and 97 at Kingston in 1959-60.


Martin Crowe was an epitome of elegance.Few batsmen ever posessed Crowe's composure and flair for dominating oposition.Wasim Akram rated Crowe as the most difficult batsmen he ever bowled to.




Alvin Kalicharan was like a left-handed Kanhai arguably technically better than any left-handed batsmen.Averaged over 50 at one stage of his career and looked set to join the all-time greats.


V.V.S.Laxman took creative genius to depths rarely reached and won more matches in run chases than any batting great.


Kim Hughes at one stage looked like joining the club of the Greg Chappell s like when scoring 117 and 84 at Lords in 1980 ,scoring an unbeaten century against West Indies at Melbourne in 1981-82 and averaging over 59 in India.


Sandep Patil was flamboyance personified .When scoring 171 at Adelaide in 1980-81 and 129 n.o at Old Trafford in 1982 joined the gods of olympus.

Mohsin Khan revealed great technical skill when scoring an unbeaten 200 at Lords and 149 and 152 in tsets in Australia in 1983-84.Sadly peterd out early.
 
Write something later, but first glaring miss I can see is Mike Athers - must have to be there. He was way, way better player than averaging <38.

Mazid Khan at top definitely for me as well, may be Wasim Raza also from PAK somewhere in this list; but you missed another gem - Carl Hooper, guy could have been king. His Test stats of 36 with bat (and probably 49+ with ball) simply doesn’t tell how good a cricketer he was & he was easily among best few slip catchers I have ever seen.

Mohsin doesn’t belong here - he over achieved at Lord’s & AUS 1983/84. Give more time in this and come with a refresh list (may be with some data) - topic is excellent. Ravi (yes the director guy), Roy Dias, Intekhab, Tiger Pataudi, Collis Kings, Anthony Grey, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Qadir, Manider, Lax Shiva, VK (The Bollywood actor guy), Noren Hirwani ...... you have to give much more time in this.

Also, can add players under archived for a sad incident - Archie Jackson, Collie Smith, Colin Milburn, may be Ian Bishop.
 
Gower.... yeah. He would make a beautiful 70 when you knew he had 150 in him. That pulled his average down.

Still averaged 50 away, though.
 
MMHS said:
Write something later, but first glaring miss I can see is Mike Athers - must have to be there. He was way, way better player than averaging <38.

Mazid Khan at top definitely for me as well, may be Wasim Raza also from PAK somewhere in this list; but you missed another gem - Carl Hooper, guy could have been king. His Test stats of 36 with bat (and probably 49+ with ball) simply doesn’t tell how good a cricketer he was & he was easily among best few slip catchers I have ever seen.

Mohsin doesn’t belong here - he over achieved at Lord’s & AUS 1983/84. Give more time in this and come with a refresh list (may be with some data) - topic is excellent. Ravi (yes the director guy), Roy Dias, Intekhab, Tiger Pataudi, Collis Kings, Anthony Grey, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Qadir, Manider, Lax Shiva, VK (The Bollywood actor guy), Noren Hirwani ...... you have to give much more time in this.

Also, can add players under archived for a sad incident - Archie Jackson, Collie Smith, Colin Milburn, may be Ian Bishop.
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Only batsmen here
 
Honestly.

Wasim Akram should of done more with the bat. He could actually bat and was a all rounder.

He should of averages another 10 runs more.
 
For me, the batsman who underachieved the most given his talent and ability is Mark Ramprakash. No doubt in my mind, he could easily have averaged 50 at test level. On the rare occasions it came off for him, for example at Barbados in 1998 or at the Oval in 2001 there was no other batsman I'd rather have been watching instead. He is easily one of the biggest underachievers in the history of cricket.

Out of the ones I've seen only:

1. Ramprakash
2. Hooper
3. M. Waugh
4. Stewart
5. Sharma
6. Anwar
7. Astle
8. Gibbs
9. Cullinan
10. Laxman
 
Last Monetarist said:
For me, the batsman who underachieved the most given his talent and ability is Mark Ramprakash. No doubt in my mind, he could easily have averaged 50 at test level. On the rare occasions it came off for him, for example at Barbados in 1998 or at the Oval in 2001 there was no other batsman I'd rather have been watching instead. He is easily one of the biggest underachievers in the history of cricket.

Out of the ones I've seen only:

1. Ramprakash
2. Hooper
3. M. Waugh
4. Stewart
5. Sharma
6. Anwar
7. Astle
8. Gibbs
9. Cullinan
10. Laxman
Click to expand...
Great effort and list even if I differ
 
Rohan Kanhai

An artist, a trail blazer, a batting phenom. One of the most outrageous batting talents the game has ever seen. It’s fair to say that there hasn’t been a batsman of same class ever since.
 
Last Monetarist said:
For me, the batsman who underachieved the most given his talent and ability is Mark Ramprakash. No doubt in my mind, he could easily have averaged 50 at test level. On the rare occasions it came off for him, for example at Barbados in 1998 or at the Oval in 2001 there was no other batsman I'd rather have been watching instead. He is easily one of the biggest underachievers in the history of cricket.

Out of the ones I've seen only:

1. Ramprakash
2. Hooper
3. M. Waugh
4. Stewart
5. Sharma
6. Anwar
7. Astle
8. Gibbs
9. Cullinan
10. Laxman
Click to expand...

freelance_cricketer said:
Rohan Kanhai

An artist, a trail blazer, a batting phenom. One of the most outrageous batting talents the game has ever seen. It’s fair to say that there hasn’t been a batsman of same class ever since.
Click to expand...

Brilliant choice of Kanhai who at his best and potentially was the greatest of them all.
 
Stephen Fleming - only averaged 40 and scored just 9 centuries in over 100 tests, yet scored brilliant double hundreds away against Steyn in South Africa and Murali in SL.

Got more classy 50s than Joe Root.

Likewise, Jesse Ryder should've been a modern-day great but ruined his career by drinking
 
I fear Root might end up on this list if he doesn’t score 30+ tons by the end of his career. He has underachieved massively so far, but he is entering his peak years now. 2019-2023 period will determine his legacy.
 
[MENTION=79064]MMHS[/MENTION]

Can you tell me why you think Hooper underachieved so much ? No doubt both with bat and ball he was pretty good. Was he somewhat like Aravinda Silva ? He also looked so good on wicket.
 
Last Monetarist said:
For me, the batsman who underachieved the most given his talent and ability is Mark Ramprakash. No doubt in my mind, he could easily have averaged 50 at test level
Click to expand...

Absolutely. He was the last Englishman to score 100 FC hundreds, probably ever. He had a hard start, verses the Windies on a horror wicket in 1991 then W&W a year later but they gave him fifty tests and average 28 was just a nonsense.
 
Why none mentioned ABD? Arguably one of the most gifted player to have played the game. Should have hit 40 hundreds in his career but ended with meagre 22.
 
Not sure if you'd consider him to have achieved enough, but considering test matches I think Azharuddin underachieved. For someone who was more of a test player than a one day player, he has 9300+ ODI runs but only 6200+ test runs and 22 test centuries. I think Azhar should have been a 10k test player with 30+ centuries, but in those days they played far more ODI cricket than tests.
 
sam_ahm said:
Not sure if you'd consider him to have achieved enough, but considering test matches I think Azharuddin underachieved. For someone who was more of a test player than a one day player, he has 9300+ ODI runs but only 6200+ test runs and 22 test centuries. I think Azhar should have been a 10k test player with 30+ centuries, but in those days they played far more ODI cricket than tests.
Click to expand...

99 tests in 15-16 years of cricket. That’s quite poor really.
 
Robert said:
Absolutely. He was the last Englishman to score 100 FC hundreds, probably ever. He had a hard start, verses the Windies on a horror wicket in 1991 then W&W a year later but they gave him fifty tests and average 28 was just a nonsense.
Click to expand...

You know what, I think Ramprakash reached his peak between 2003 and 2007, he batted beautifully during those years, the perfect epitome of a batsman fully aware of his talent and who knew how to mould it to his advantage out in the middle. He had become calm and serene probably once realization hit that he will never play for England again. His unfulfilled career is one of cricket's biggest tragedies.
 
I'm not a fan of such lists, particularly if it includes players who've had full careers. The reason of course is that such lists are almost always skewed towards averages and anyone with a little understanding of cricket knows that averages hardly ever tell the complete story.

The perfect example is that of the Great Viv Richards. There are probably at least 50 cricketers who average higher than Viv in test cricket history, including people before and after his time. Does that mean Viv underachieved? A man who dominated test cricket for 15 years, won 2 world cups, and averaged higher than any of his peers? I don't think so. Could Viv have averaged higher? Sure he could. Holding once said Viv would often carelessly throw his wicket away once he knew they had enough runs to bowl the opposition out.
So assuming Viv didn't underachieve, and he was unquestionably the best batsmen of his era, how are we determining the Martin Crowe did? Or Majid Khan did? Their average relative to Viv seems a fair reflection of their talent and ability.

Anyway, for the sake of discussion, other batsmen that come to mind who've been giants of the game but statistically underachieved include KP, Arvinda De Silva, Saeed Anwar, Brian Lara. Again though, frankly i think they've been wonderful cricketers and don't generally believe they've underachieved.
 
Mute Witness said:
I'm not a fan of such lists, particularly if it includes players who've had full careers. The reason of course is that such lists are almost always skewed towards averages and anyone with a little understanding of cricket knows that averages hardly ever tell the complete story.

The perfect example is that of the Great Viv Richards. There are probably at least 50 cricketers who average higher than Viv in test cricket history, including people before and after his time. Does that mean Viv underachieved? A man who dominated test cricket for 15 years, won 2 world cups, and averaged higher than any of his peers? I don't think so. Could Viv have averaged higher? Sure he could. Holding once said Viv would often carelessly throw his wicket away once he knew they had enough runs to bowl the opposition out.
So assuming Viv didn't underachieve, and he was unquestionably the best batsmen of his era, how are we determining the Martin Crowe did? Or Majid Khan did? Their average relative to Viv seems a fair reflection of their talent and ability.

Anyway, for the sake of discussion, other batsmen that come to mind who've been giants of the game but statistically underachieved include KP, Arvinda De Silva, Saeed Anwar, Brian Lara. Again though, frankly i think they've been wonderful cricketers and don't generally believe they've underachieved.
Click to expand...

Very well written sir Still Viv And Lara averaged above 50 unlike Kanhai,Majid,Gower,Crowe,Kalicharan etc.This is what I considered.WhT was expressed here was batsmen whose stats did not do justice to their true ability or even moral performances.This was not the case of Viv,Lara or Even Aravinda to such an extent.Just examine the natural talent of Gower ,Crowe ,Kanhai ,Vishwanath or Majid and compare their averages.
 
Justcrazy said:
[MENTION=79064]MMHS[/MENTION]

Can you tell me why you think Hooper underachieved so much ? No doubt both with bat and ball he was pretty good. Was he somewhat like Aravinda Silva ? He also looked so good on wicket.
Click to expand...

I think, he played in an era when Test cricket was ultimate game, but guy probably didn't esteemed much to be a Test great. He used to play lots of club games here & there and his focus was more to be a good all-rounder, rather than a master batsman. Some of the shots he played reminded his countrymen Kanhai, but struggled for focus for most part of career, too many classy 20s & 30s and then somehow got out when top of his game. I think, Benaud once said that "Carl is a king of classy 35s - I haven't seen many, so good instantly from the start of innings". He was quite casual as well, probably got run-out 10-12 times in Test match, which is a crime.

Also, I found him to be disengaged with WIN cricket. May be being a black minority in Guyana, he never felt the same attachment with WIN cricket. He played 1987 EC, then 1999 and retired at 36 after 2003 WC when the next WC was in his home. One of my favorites - his Test stats are like 36/49 with bat & ball - should have been 49/36, and that's his FC stats alike, mostly for Kent & Lancashire, when County cricket was quite high is standard.
 
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