10 Most Underappreciated Players in Cricket History
Players can be underappreciated for a number of reasons. They may spend much of their career in the shadows of another great, they may lack the flair of other players, or perhaps the selectors simply don't give them the chances they deserve.
There are also many players who were lauded in their day, but have since been forgotten.
Victor Trumper was immortalized through George Beldam's famous photograph of him lunging forward to play a straight drive. However, his statistics make it difficult to see why he was so celebrated in his day. Other players have not been as lucky as Trumper. Instead, their achievements have faded into history.
For the sake of balance, this article selects one player from each of the 10 established Test playing countries. This ensures that the players who make it to the list have done so for diverse reasons, as the divergent history's of the teams means players go underappreciated for different reasons.
For example, South Africa had many cricketers who the cricketing world saw all too little due to apartheid. Much of their cricketing history before they returned as a Test side has now largely been forgotten, along with the players who were part of it.
Yet, other teams like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe with much shorter histories as Test-playing nations, see players go undervalued for different reasons. With these sides still adapting to the international arena, the players who have fought to make them competitive often fail to receive the praise they would if they played for a stronger nation.
Alternatively, many of the more established nations have at times fielded teams so full of talent that certain players were overlooked. For example, in the 1980s the West Indies absurd amount of pace bowling talent meant that players who should have become household names barely managed to make it to the team.
The reasons for certain players failing to achieve the attention they deserved varies, but all made contributions to the game that should be praised.