10 Most Underappreciated Players in Cricket History

Ken Barrington changed his game to earn his place among the best

England: Ken Barrington (6806 runs @ 58.67)

Barrington seems to feature only sporadically in conversations about the greatest batsman of all time, but his superb record shows that this should not be the case.

Of all the batsmen to have scored 5000 Test runs, only Steve Smith and Sir Donald Bradman have higher averages than Barrington.

Barrington was initially quite an entertaining batsman. But he was not highly effective. In the early 1960s, over five years into his career, Barrington was only averaging in the low forties. He was a good batter, but not a brilliant one.

Barrington began to adapt his game to favour a more conservative approach. Limiting his stroke-play would pay dividends for Barrington, as from 1963 onward he would average 63.29. But this more defensive style of play is probably why Barrington does not get the recognition of many other batters with an inferior average.

It is not just that he didn't play in a particularly entertaining way, but also that his conservative methods were seen to be indicative of many of the problems in English cricket.

Barrington should, however, be seen as someone who earned his place among cricket's finest batsmen by having the intelligence and humility to make significant changes to his game.