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Why are England so overrated?

Varun

Varun

Senior Test Player
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I don't get why England are considered one of the sides to beat when their performances have been distinctly average for many many years now. Is it because they're one of the big 3? Here are their statistics of late:

* Couldn't beat Bangladesh in Bangladesh
* Lost to Lanka at home
* Couldn't beat Pakistan at home
* 5-0 whitewash in Australia
* 4-0 defeat in India
* Have not beaten West Indies away in the last 2 series
* Couldn't beat New Zealand at home
* Back to back whitewashes in the UAE
* Couldn't beat Lanka during their last tour

Their 50-over cricket has improved, but only because they were lackadaisical for many decades previously. Even so, it's not like they've won any major tournament either.
 
The correct answer on PP is because Pakistan drew a series there.

In general, they dominate the cricketing media and set the narrative.
 
No team wins every single series so I don't know what you're trying to prove here. England play so many Test series and are thus bound to lose a few. If your motive behind this is for people to tell you that India is the better side, then here you go. India are the better side.
 
England are a good team. Nothing more.

They have the power of media
 
They defeated South Africa both home and away. However, either way I would rate Australia, India and South Africa as superior teams over England in the last 10 years or so combining all formats even though these 10 years were England's better years.
 
It's the English media spin. If they win a couple of games, they're the best team ever. If they lose, then it's national mourning and contemplation. There's no in between. It's the same for their football team.
 
A bit like India playing at home, I suppose.

I do enjoy watching England more than any other side when they [we?] play at home.

The best series' in the last few years have involved England for a reason, and it's because they are not the perfect side and will give the opposition a glimmer at competing.
 
Batting is overrated apart from Cook and Root it's inconsistency and new players still settling in.
No world class spinner will struggle again in Asia.
 
ExpressPacer said:
No team wins every single series so I don't know what you're trying to prove here. England play so many Test series and are thus bound to lose a few. If your motive behind this is for people to tell you that India is the better side, then here you go. India are the better side.
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A few.

England have better W/L ratio than WI, Ban, Zim and SL in last 3 years. Otherwise they were worse among top 6 teams - Ind, Aus, SA, NZ and Pak.

They are no 7 in W/L ratio at home thanks to 4 recent wins and they have behind top 5 sides in away wins.
 
However reliant that England become on home conditions, they will always be less reliant on home conditions than India.
 
ExpressPacer said:
No team wins every single series so I don't know what you're trying to prove here. England play so many Test series and are thus bound to lose a few. If your motive behind this is for people to tell you that India is the better side, then here you go. India are the better side.
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Exactly, the fact that some of the losses he's stated are 3 years ago when a lot of the side wasn't even the same as now just shows the agenda.
 
I have always thought England and India have been overrated by the media. I know South Africa have had a poor summer, but I have always thought they have been much the better side than these two. Pakistan with better leadership both on and off the field will overtake England and match India if not better them. Pakistan have always produced penetrative bowlers who have bowled sides out. If West Indies can sort their Cricket out I feel they can produce a side capable of being towards the top of the rankings.
 
Why are so many threads on PP about what and who is "overrated"? It a desi cultural thing to overrate or underrate?
 
I think, it's because of media power. It's not only England, but being former colony, we are actually follow British sports & media more. For example, Yanks are even more arrogant with their sports - they call MLB final as World Series, they called NBA champs as world Champion, every two year their arrogance before Ryder Cup is ...

More than cricket, I feel British media hypes their hoofballers ..............
 
Even in shorter formats, England could not win CT at home or WT20 with all these hitters.
 
Sherlock said:
A bit like India playing at home, I suppose.

I do enjoy watching England more than any other side when they [we?] play at home.

The best series' in the last few years have involved England for a reason, and it's because they are not the perfect side and will give the opposition a glimmer at competing.
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sure. more like India? India lost only one of the last 20 test matches at home. yes they are giving glimmer at competing.:)
 
Yup "good" side at best. Far from being dominant
 
Sin Nombre said:
The correct answer on PP is because Pakistan drew a series there.

In general, they dominate the cricketing media and set the narrative.
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This!! Has always been this way .... so in order to explain ineptitude at ODI cricket they just downgrade that format. If they Win a 50 over WC or the CT suddenly you might find a different narrative emerging.

It helps immensely that Asian masses blindly believe in anything said by their media. This is why I liked it when Ashwin was in Andersons face reminding him of his crappy record in India. For way tooo long we allowed them to get away with the "Ohh you are not a proper cricketer unless you do well in England" nonsense.
 
thehub said:
sure. more like India? India lost only one of the last 20 test matches at home. yes they are giving glimmer at competing.:)
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I think you've totally jumped the proverbial there...

The first paragraph is about how both are good-to-decent at home but struggle away.The last sentence there is how England give the opposition more of a sniff at a decent series at home.


Tsk Tsk Tsk.
 
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Robert said:
Why are so many threads on PP about what and who is "overrated"? It a desi cultural thing to overrate or underrate?
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faar better than the English culture of fake elitism that tries to keep pretending that anything before 1980s = Proper Cricket and everything else is crap ..........
 
Everyone knows England is rubbish at Test cricket, only [MENTION=7774]Robert[/MENTION] disagrees, his beloved Ingahland are invincible :mv
 
Sherlock said:
I think you're missing the "comparison" threads too. Hideous :facepalm:
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Let's do a comparison between comparison threads and overrated threads to see which is the most overrated type of thread.

Using my English fake elitism powers I can tell you that overrated threads since 1990 are all overrated and all those before are underrated.
 
India are over-rated because they play at home and WI & SL.

England are over-rated because they win at home and drew vs WI.

SA just loss badly vs Eng, so they cant be rated too high, can they?

Aus can't play spin, that's half the top cricketing destinations they are horrible at.

NZ, WI & SL - really?

So shall we rate PNG as the best side in cricket? Because apparently unless you beat all sides home & away and do so in a convincing manner only then are you deserving of any props otherwise you are over-rated.
 
The phrase 'Over-rated' has lost its meaning in PP. Just about everyone who plays is over-rated, everything that happens is over-rated.
 
They have a well balanced side right now, plenty of options in all departments and a ridiculously long tail. Though performances haven't been that great i think they've been playing beneath their potential for some time now.
 
England's weakness is their batting.

Cook cannot score against good bowlers. Root is awesome. But he fails to converts his 50's to big hundreds.

The rest of the top and middle order is terrible.

Their lower order is their strength and England always looks up to the likes of Stokes/Bairstow/Ali to bail them out of miserable situations. To their credit, their lower order indeed saved England from many horrible collapses. Guys like Bairstow/Ali and Stokes are batting a bit too low. Stokes is okay. But Ali and JB needs to move up the order.

Bowling does not do much when the ball is not swinging. Anderson can bully with the new cherry. But when the ball gets old, at best he can be economical. Broad blows hot and cold. Mostly average.

Woakes does not look the same bowler. their 4th bowler is a joke. Ali is bowling well. But cannot expect him to win them every Test.

Overall a good team with a lot of voids to fill.
 
England have always been overrated.Their media hypes them to no end.Think that today when we can watch their players they overhype them so much,How overhyped are the players before 1950s?
 
I think it's because they beat India in India in 2011 and bash them every time at home to
 
shaz619 said:
I think it's because they beat India in India in 2011 and bash them every time at home to
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Think we also beat England in the last 10 yrs. We also beat them convincingly at home recently.

India does not lose to sides like WI.
 
troodon said:
Think we also beat England in the last 10 yrs. We also beat them convincingly at home recently.

India does not lose to sides like WI.
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A correction on the earlier post it was 2012/13 its still fresh in people's mind because it was a 4 match series where England won 2 Tests as well, England bash India for laffs and then people think they're overrated, perhaps they're on to something.
 
There - they've now gone and lost a test at home to the West Indies of all sides.

With England anybody has a chance.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">England an exception to the stronger teams in the world today. Loses Tests quite often at home.</p>— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) <a href="https://twitter.com/sanjaymanjrekar/status/902640363642515456">August 29, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
England have now lost 7 out of 20 tests they have played at home in last 3 years. That's 35% of their matches, won 12 matches - 60%.

India 1 out 17
Aus 2 out of 16
SA 2 out of 12
Pak 2 of 11 in UAE
Ban 2 out of 11
NZ 3 out of 13
 
James said:
However reliant that England become on home conditions, they will always be less reliant on home conditions than India.
Click to expand...

The recent home run for India included pitches which were flat and even one which was not conducive(Think it was Edens) but India still crushed oppositions like a man (or Woman for feminazis) crushes an ant.
 
Coz the media,very similar to their footie team but fans around the world know better now.

They take cricket kinda lightly,almost like participation is enough kind,good if we win bad if we don't, nothing more which is great in terms of maturity level but will not guarantee wins esp in Championship,was hoping Root and Stokes would change that but highly unlikely.
 
England tour of India had few of the most flattest pitches ever and still India apparently is dependent upon home,England let someone make 300 maiden hundred (Karun) and all they had to do was bat out a day on flat track and couldn't,still we got the blame for home pitches, remarkable!
 
troodon said:
England's weakness is their batting.

Cook cannot score against good bowlers. Root is awesome. But he fails to converts his 50's to big hundreds.

The rest of the top and middle order is terrible.

Their lower order is their strength and England always looks up to the likes of Stokes/Bairstow/Ali to bail them out of miserable situations. To their credit, their lower order indeed saved England from many horrible collapses. Guys like Bairstow/Ali and Stokes are batting a bit too low. Stokes is okay. But Ali and JB needs to move up the order.

Bowling does not do much when the ball is not swinging. Anderson can bully with the new cherry. But when the ball gets old, at best he can be economical. Broad blows hot and cold. Mostly average.

Woakes does not look the same bowler. their 4th bowler is a joke. Ali is bowling well. But cannot expect him to win them every Test.

Overall a good team with a lot of voids to fill.
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Thing is their batting isn't necessarily bad. You've got three batsmen in Cook, Root, Bairstow (well Bairstow used to be until recently and I think he'll get back up there) who are in the top 10 and Bairstow has got into the top 10 batting at 7 which is fairly hard to do.

England probably have the strongest tail, their bowlers can bat. And Moeen at 8 is the level of a batsman which most teams do not have.

Batting strength looks far stronger than most teams. In fact it seems to be comfortably the second best batting side after India. Your points are right, but other batting sides face far more problems than England's do.

I'm not totally sure what's wrong, on paper really they should be a stronger side than they are.
 
cricketjoshila said:
England have always been overrated.Their media hypes them to no end.Think that today when we can watch their players they overhype them so much,How overhyped are the players before 1950s?
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Exactly !! And it is very blatant when you look at how Hobbs was ranked in top 5 and they still celebrate Boycotts 100 FC hundreds ... :facepalm:

Hyperbole comes naturally to the English ... and it helps immensely when there are gullible who actually buy all that hyperbole and further propagate it adding their own masala to it.
[MENTION=132916]Junaids[/MENTION].
 
Bairstow should bat at 5 and England need to give gloves to someone else.

With Cook only good against above avg bowlers and Root only good for regular 50s, its important that they have someone else also who can play big innings which Bairstow can never do batting at 6-7.

Its time he gets his stats and averages where he belongs to.Just 3 hundreds out of 44 tests and avg of 40 isn't where he should be staying.
 
Power of Sky Sports hyping them to no end. Same with the English Premier League. A lot of PPers are fed the Sky media line....which is that England are great, and nothing can beat them.

English media so powerful, that no one really questions the idiocy of basing a whole team building strategy around beating a single team every 18/24 months in a global game/competition.

The other thing is that a lot of PPers would 'secretly' prefer the idea of England being the best team out there, as opposed to the one that's topping the ICC Rankings at the moment.
 
Ab Fan said:
Root only good for regular 50s,
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Two centuries in his last six tests.

But I agree without about Son of Bluey. Too good to hamper with the gloves, like Stewart before him.
 
Robert said:
Two centuries in his last six tests.

But I agree without about Son of Bluey. Too good to hamper with the gloves, like Stewart before him.
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Yeah, that post wasn't meant for any sort of criticism related to Root but just stating that England need one more player in top 5 who could play big inning because Root's conversion isn't that good and that guy has to be Johnny Bairstow only. He should be playing in top5 rather than scoring those breezy 60s at no.6-7 alongside Moen, Woakes and tail.
 
Ab Fan said:
Yeah, that post wasn't meant for any sort of criticism related to Root but just stating that England need one more player in top 5 who could play big inning because Root's conversion isn't that good and that guy has to be Johnny Bairstow only. He should be playing in top5 rather than scoring those breezy 60s at no.6-7 alongside Moen, Woakes and tail.
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I don't think the low conversion rate matters given the sheer weight of runs Root is hitting. And he's still hitting a century every four tests. He just has a small standard deviation from his excellent average!

The problem is #2, #3 and #5. Promoting Bairstow and bringing Hameed back at #3 should fix it.
 
Don't think anyone rates that highly these days. Except for winning a series in South Africa, they have done nothing remarkable in test cricket for nearly five years now. Also, like Pakistan, they lose test matches to mediocre teams like the Windies both home and away.
 
Robert said:
I don't think the low conversion rate matters given the sheer weight of runs Root is hitting. And he's still hitting a century every four tests. He just has a small standard deviation from his excellent average!

The problem is #2, #3 and #5. Promoting Bairstow and bringing Hameed back at #3 should fix it.
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Lost the plot there..
 
By and large I don't think the England fanbase buys into the hype about its own team. If anything it is the English fans that are the first to ask for various players to be dropped, for the captain to be stepped down and for the coach to be sacked whenever there has been a heavy loss.
 
James said:
By and large I don't think the England fanbase buys into the hype about its own team. If anything it is the English fans that are the first to ask for various players to be dropped, for the captain to be stepped down and for the coach to be sacked whenever there has been a heavy loss.
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Robert must work for sky then :))
 
Every team nowadays is overrated due to their performances at home, in reality no team is an outstanding one as they all fail overseas barring some rare victories.
 
AlizeeFan said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">England an exception to the stronger teams in the world today. Loses Tests quite often at home.</p>— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) <a href="https://twitter.com/sanjaymanjrekar/status/902640363642515456">August 29, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Click to expand...

Strange comment. At least England have won away series in India. Can't remember the last India won in England, SA or Australia.

England just beat SA and will win the series against Windies. I think they have a decent chance of winning the Ashes away too. Every team has weaknesses and England are producing a lot of decent cricketers, just need a world class spinner and they will be up there.
 
KingKhanWC said:
Strange comment. At least England have won away series in India. Can't remember the last India won in England, SA or Australia.

England just beat SA and will win the series against Windies. I think they have a decent chance of winning the Ashes away too. Every team has weaknesses and England are producing a lot of decent cricketers, just need a world class spinner and they will be up there.
Click to expand...

England winning in SA or AUS or NZ is like Indian winning in SL or UAE or BD.Conditions that are similar to home.

India beats everyone at home.Lost 1 test in last 17.Lost 3 series in last 30 years at home.
 
KingKhanWC said:
Strange comment. At least England have won away series in India. Can't remember the last India won in England, SA or Australia.

England just beat SA and will win the series against Windies. I think they have a decent chance of winning the Ashes away too. Every team has weaknesses and England are producing a lot of decent cricketers, just need a world class spinner and they will be up there.
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What's strange about that? England's home W/L ratio is poorer than Ind, Aus, SA, Pak(UAE), NZ and Ban in last 3 years.

Away W/L ratio has been poorer than Ind, Aus, SA, Pak, NZ.

Lost 7 out of last 19 tests at home and won 11.
 
Perhaps Cook should move to #4 and bring back Hamid to open.

Root, Cook, and Bairstow can be the middle order England is missing.
 
cricketjoshila said:
England winning in SA or AUS or NZ is like Indian winning in SL or UAE or BD.Conditions that are similar to home.

India beats everyone at home.Lost 1 test in last 17.Lost 3 series in last 30 years at home.
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It's only really NZ that has similar conditions to England. Conditions in SA and Ozzie are always very challenging for English cricketers.
 
KingKhanWC said:
Strange comment. At least England have won away series in India. Can't remember the last India won in England, SA or Australia.

England just beat SA and will win the series against Windies. I think they have a decent chance of winning the Ashes away too. Every team has weaknesses and England are producing a lot of decent cricketers, just need a world class spinner and they will be up there.
Click to expand...

India won a series in England in 2007, don't group england with australia and south africa, england is very mediocre.
 
The_Odd_One said:
Perhaps Cook should move to #4 and bring back Hamid to open.

Root, Cook, and Bairstow can be the middle order England is missing.
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Cook did start as a #3 and only moved up to open when Trescothick became ill on tour.

That would plug the problem position at #3 but we would have no test openers.

Hameed is the #3 I think.
 
Having a long batting lineup is a luxury England Possesses which makes it a reasonably good competitor home or away. What they need are two good middle order batters alongside Root and one solid opener with Cook. Their team combo with two world class all rounders in Ali and Stokes is pretty good.

Their Batting depth is the reason to rate them anywhere but their specialized batters and bowlers often let them down.
 
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They are not overrated, they are not the best test side atm as per me. India is ahead of everyone else currently when playing at home matters while I believe South Africa is the only team that shows any fight outside home conditions.

The thing is many posters from PakPassion is from England so naturally they hype up their players, like obviously we do with our Pakistani players. If you ask any Bangla fan here he/she would claim Bangla to be easily better than the likes of Pakistan.

So if you ask any home boy he would always say his side is the best. To understand ratings always ask a neutral guy what he thinks.
 
Extra_Cover said:
The thing is many posters from PakPassion is from England so naturally they hype up their players, like obviously we do with our Pakistani players. If you ask any Bangla fan here he/she would claim Bangla to be easily better than the likes of Pakistan.
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Yeah, I never knew England was even rate before I joined the online forums, never took the english cricket team seriously before the whitewash in 2011, England has been the most boring and mediocre team since I started watching cricket, they had a few good moments here and there like the ashes 2005 and the bashing of India from 2011 to 2014, but apart form this, they have been mediocre and unworthy of any attention since 1990
 
cricketjoshila said:
England winning in SA or AUS or NZ is like Indian winning in SL or UAE or BD.Conditions that are similar to home.

India beats everyone at home.Lost 1 test in last 17.Lost 3 series in last 30 years at home.
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lol. You forget SA,AUS and NZ are much better than SL or BD. And India haven't even played in the UAE for you to suggest they would win.

India gets hammered away in most places barring SL,WI and Bangladesh, the weakest teams in the world.
 
LOL, an Indian fan calling us rubbish. Not seen that one before!
 
KingKhanWC said:
lol. You forget SA,AUS and NZ are much better than SL or BD. And India haven't even played in the UAE for you to suggest they would win.

India gets hammered away in most places barring SL,WI and Bangladesh, the weakest teams in the world.
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Number 1 ranked test team.Thats what ICC rankings say.Alas thats what matters.
 
sachin100 said:
May be u r not happy with India being number 1.
What u feel has no bearing on icc and cricket world.
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What has no.1 got to do with the thread subject? Let me help you out, the discussion is regarding if England are over rated. I replied to a tweet by an ex Indian cricketer who claimed England loses test often at home. To which I replied England have won more away than India ever has, this is a fact.

A hardcore Indian supporter suggested rankings proved otherwise. But India are below Paksitan and Windies in T20 rankings when they have the IPL. Does this mean India are a worse team in T20 and will lose to Pak and Windies all the time? Of course not, rankings change and dont mean much in this discussion at all.
 
India is the best team in the world right now but they need to at least draw a series in one of England, Australia, or SA to be called a great test team.
 
KingKhanWC said:
What has no.1 got to do with the thread subject? Let me help you out, the discussion is regarding if England are over rated. I replied to a tweet by an ex Indian cricketer who claimed England loses test often at home. To which I replied England have won more away than India ever has, this is a fact.

A hardcore Indian supporter suggested rankings proved otherwise. But India are below Paksitan and Windies in T20 rankings when they have the IPL. Does this mean India are a worse team in T20 and will lose to Pak and Windies all the time? Of course not, rankings change and dont mean much in this discussion at all.
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Are you seriously comparing test ranking with T20 ranking ?
 
The_Odd_One said:
India is the best team in the world right now but they need to at least draw a series in one of England, Australia, or SA to be called a great test team.
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They need to draw/ win series at every one of those venues to be called great teams tbh

Right now they are far off the target
 
To op I agree; apart from winning a prestigious series in SA, England haven't done much.

But not sure about the title overrated. Everyone accepts that they are merely a good team; nothing more or less
 
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