5 most under-utilised cricketers in IPL history

4) George Bailey

Many of you might get surprised by seeing this name on the list, but George Bailey has never got his due credit for his white-ball skills. The former Australian skipper has been one of the under-rated cricketers in the limited-overs format. His legacy doesn’t lie in the number of international runs he has scored, but it is his leadership qualities that held the Kangaroos as a unit in the most trying times.

Having said that, that Bailey wasn’t a mug with the bat. In 2013 he was the second-ranked ODI batsman. And who can forget his dream-run in India when he piled on 480 runs in a bilateral series. In T20s also Bailey became a useful middle-order batsman with his measured batting approach.

He has been one of the leading run-scorers in BBL history. Other than that, he has also been part of IPL for some years. In fact, he was the skipper of the Kings XI Punjab when they made it to the finals in the 2014 edition. Batting wise, he hasn’t scored a ton of runs in the league, and it is because of his lower batting position.

Unfortunately, Bailey’s IPL career never took off, and it is because of his improper utilisation by all the franchises. Instead of using him as a middle-order batsman, he was used as a floater. As a skipper also, Kings XI dropped him after an indifferent season in 2015. His presence would have given them the consistency factor, which has been a perennial problem for the franchise.