Print

[Alvaro]

Jon Lewis was a really high class, successful one day bowler in a country utterly bereft of them apart from Darren Gough. 

The fact he looks like a Plantagenet is an added bonus.

[FattusCattus]

Here's one I bet you've all forgotten:

Jamie Dalrymple - very good batter at 5,6 or 7 - very much a dasher and scamperer, would have been a good finisher.

Very goo ODi spinner, bowling flatm containing off-spin.

Rumours are he had the talent, but not the mental toughness to play at the highest level.

[WalkingWicket37]

Shaun Udal
Very good player for Hampshire for many years, but never really given a go at international level.

Ian Blackwell
A 1 test wonder and a few ODIs under his belt.
Another player who did a job at county level, but was given limited chances to do so on the international stage.

Tim Bresnan
Maybe not a nearly man as he had a good run in the side. Vastly underrated and just vanished after his injury.

[liscon12]

A chap from my county, a one Paul Nixon?

Top gloveman who could hold a bat, I have fond memories of him using a GM Catalyst down under in 2007 where we actually won the ODi series after the 5-0 drubbing the test team had received.

[WalkingWicket37]

A chap from my county, a one Paul Nixon?

Top gloveman who could hold a bat, I have fond memories of him using a GM Catalyst down under in 2007 where we actually won the ODi series after the 5-0 drubbing the test team had received.

I also remember him reverse sweeping Murali for 6 in the World Cup(?) that followed the Tri-Series win against Australia and New Zealand.

[liscon12]

I also remember Mal Loye sweeping Bret Lee for 6 in that tri-series as well, lovely stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PGIj6yBEq0

[mdg20]

Ali Brown I think got a chance here and there - he was never good enough for Test cricket.

Never got a chance at test cricket, one of the best batsmen to never play a test for England, would have been more than capable. If Aftab Habib, Chris Adams and Ian Ward were deemed good enough to earn a cap then Brown more than certainly should have done.

[Turn Of Pace]

Essex contingent of James Foster, Mark Ilott and big Ronnie Irani. All terrific county players, Foster was especially unlucky, he had some golden years when he was head and shoulders above everyone else behind the stumps, however his batting was never dynamic enough. I think Ilott got a chance in an Ashes series in the early nineties and picked up a couple of wickets however took a lot of tap in the process (as did all the England bowlers) and never got another go after that. I loved watching big Ronnie Irani, a wholehearted cricketer and a genuine entertainer who worked wonders for Essex with bat and ball in county cricket and played in some ODI's but was probably always short of being test match quality.

[Manormanic]

Tim Bresnan
Maybe not a nearly man as he had a good run in the side. Vastly underrated and just vanished after his injury.

He did "the right thing" for the team and played on through a really bad elbow injury for the best part of a year, which makes it kind of galling that he got so little upport from England's management when he came back.   He had a very good season in 2015 - averaged 40 with the bat - and seemed to have regained a yard of pace with the ball.  But...its difficult to pick him as a frontline seamer for England when he seems to be third change (behind Sidey, Brooks and either Plunkett or Patto) for Yorkshire.  Also, the job at which he was so valuable - unbreakable seamer happy to bowl 20 overs a day uphill and into the wind - no longer exists now we have Ben Stokes and therefore the ability to play five bowlers...

He is a better bet than either Woakes or Jordan though... 

[Bats_Entertainment]

I always think that Ravi Bopara has underachieved. But can you call someone who's played a hundred ODIs a 'nearly man'?

[northernboy1987]

Maybe more of an "unfulfilled potential" than a nearly man but I always liked Joe Denly from Kent, he seems to have really struggled for form in recent years but I remeber him smashing it about at the top of the order in county white ball stuff a few years back and thinking he'd be a good ODI player but he was never really able to take his chance. Got about 10 caps though.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk