Weakest tails ever?

England’s 1999 effort of Caddick-Mullally-Giddins-Tufnell is the stuff of legends, and the benchmark for every procession of rabbits that’s been seen since. But India’s four at Lord’s has to give them a run for their money.

England 1999
Caddick: Test average 10.37, FC average 14.89
Mullally: Test 5.52, FC 8.59
Giddins: Test 2.50, FC 5.28
Tufnell: Test 5.09, FC 9.69
Overall: Test 5.87, FC 9.61

India 2021
Shami: Test 11.23, FC 11.64
Ishant: Test 8.25, FC 8.70
Bumrah: Test 3.55, FC 8.36
Siraj: Test 11.50, FC 8.06
Overall: Test 8.63, FC 9.19

So on Test record it’s a clear “win” for the England class of ‘99, but India’s ‘21 vintage sneaks it on overall first-class record. Jadeja is a rather more solid number 7 ahead of them than Chris Read was for England back then, with Read averaging just 18.94 in Tests though nearly twice that in his long FC career.

Any other candidates? Snoozers must have had a few with Chris Martin and Iain O’Brien, but did they ever pick two more bunnies alongside them?

the Aust tail when Darren Gough took a hat-trick which was:
Warne
MacGill
Miller
McGrath

Any Australian team that 'ad both 'Urst 'n 'Iggs in it in the late 70s would 'ave to be a contender

The other 'alf of that tail most of that time were 'Ogg (who played a couple of handy innings for Australia including top-scoring on debut) and Geoff Dymock, who made a ton in his last year for Queensland, two half-centuries in successive seasons on the MCG, and a total of one other 50 in 126 FC matches over 11 years. His best effort at Test level was 31 not out.

Of course WSC was not the time to start getting snobbish about whether bowlers could bat or not, Most of that time we were flat chat finding enough batsmen who could bat....

Nath wrote:the Aust tail when Darren Gough took a hat-trick which was:
Warne
MacGill
Miller
McGrath

Yeah, that is quite impressive, though Warne was no rabbit (surprised he averaged under 20 really).

I’d forgotten that line-up, what possessed Australia to play three spinners in a home Test, and have they ever done so since?

By about day 3 the pitch was turning at right angles, MacGill took 12 for the match, Miller could bowl both spin and medium pace (can't remember what he bowled in this particular match).

But mainly His Warneship was coming back from injury and hadn't played any of the previous Tests, and a certain Australian media mogul (with the same initials as a recent England batsman of South African ethnicity), now deceased, basically ordered the CA to pick him for the last Test. As he got through the match without breaking down, it left the Oz selectors with no reason not to send him to the Windies (except that he had always struggled there even when fully fit, which he wasn't within a bulls roar of this time). A fairly well-publicised breach of team harmony happened when he lost his spot in the Test team, and for a while the internal chest-thumping threatened to derail Australia's WC campaign. (It didn't, but the chest-thumping remains to this day, mainly from Warne)

Bumrah: Test 3.55, FC 8.36


It is astonishing that anyone can average that low in modern day Test cricket.

beamer wrote:

Nath wrote:the Aust tail when Darren Gough took a hat-trick which was:
Warne
MacGill
Miller
McGrath

Yeah, that is quite impressive, though Warne was no rabbit (surprised he averaged under 20 really).

I’d forgotten that line-up, what possessed Australia to play three spinners in a home Test, and have they ever done so since?

A year later, Funky was hitting Courtney Walsh for 6.

JGK wrote:Bumrah: Test 3.55, FC 8.36


It is astonishing that anyone can average that low in modern day Test cricket.

Yeah, he’s only played 21 Tests but his record in other forms of international cricket isn’t much better. He does have an FC fifty to his name though, would be interested to know the circumstances given it makes up more than 20% of his career aggregate! Siraj must be bad to be batting below him, he has a perhaps inflated double-figure Test average based on a few not-outs but his FC average is just above 8.

Most tailenders these days are reasonably competent as either biffers or blockers, the former tend to be pushed higher in the order as they have counter-attacking potential, whereas the latter do a job supporting a better batsman and are often technically better than their average suggests. Not sure T20/100b cricket is helping tailenders though, as they generally only get a few balls to swing the bat at, if they get in at all. So maybe we’ll start getting more Chris Martins for that reason.

Jasprit’s Listed at 9 for this innings!

Hasn’t come in at 9 though…

Yeah.  Shami is shit too.

JGK has an amazing talent.

Forget all the above, this lot should be batting top six.

I was thinking beforehand, actually… how much of the difference between being a top order and a lower order player is just down to mindset and practice?

I think it’s a fair bet that, maybe barring a handful of the very least talented with the bat, pretty much any Test tailender could transform himself into a competent number 7 averaging 25-30 if he were to focus solely on batting for a year or so.

As discussed at length on their recent Test threads, Bangladesh as of now must be serious contenders for this title.

Miraz (number 8) is rather generously described as an all-rounder by Cricinfo, but his average of 18.77 makes him still comfortably better than a Caddick or Shami. (I know, we’ve since disqualified India 2021 for getting shitloads of runs against England as soon as they were touted…)

The other three speak for themselves (Ebadot 2.53, Shoriful 6.33, Khaled 0.45). Add them together and you get Jimmy Anderson. Sadly for the Manics, that’s only the Burnley Lara part as opposed to the King of Swing.