Best (and worst) lower order ever?

Can anyone think of a line-up as good as Prior, Bresnan, Broad, Swann, Anderson for a 7-11 in Test cricket, for England or someone else?

At the other end of the scale, I think we once had Read, Caddick, Mullally, Giddins, Tufnell. Surely there isn't a tail in Test history to rival that?

What about Fraser, Tufnell, Malcolm. Did that ever happen?

Yorkie Jill wrote:What about Fraser, Tufnell, Malcolm. Did that ever happen?

Probably, but Giddins was at least as bad as Devon, and Caddick at 8 just makes that other one complete. He might have batted 11 in today's team!

Caddick in after Stewart was a bit scary, really.

At the Oval '01 it must've been Caddick, Gough, Ormond, Tufnell. Actually it was Ormond before Gough and he scored 18 and 17, so not that bad!

Nothing beats yours, I reckon. Not England anyhoo.

In the 50's Aus probably had the likes of Benaud, Davidson, Lindwall, Ian Johnson in their bottom 5. Maybe Ron Archer too. Not sure how they all weight up really. I've not seen much of their batting, obvo, and have read how decent they were so it's hard to gauge.

"Number 11" Anderson averages nearly 12. "Number 8" Caddick averaged just over 10...

Best = South Africa vs Australia at Adelaide in 1998.

With Donald (presumably) injured they had an 8, 9, 10, 11 of:

Pollock - 32.31
Klusener - 32.86
Symcox - 28.50
Richardson - 24.26

Richardson ended up going in night-watchman at 6 in the first innings, meaning Brian McMillan (39.36) was at number 8. Against an attack of Warne, MacGill, Kasprowicz and Bichel they added 69 for the eighth wicket, 69 more for the ninth and 74 for the tenth as SA scored 500+, but a century by Mark Waugh saved the game for Aus.

Yeah, Taips said about a similar line-up. Tasty! They'd rack up 700 now.

beamer wrote:

Yorkie Jill wrote:What about Fraser, Tufnell, Malcolm. Did that ever happen?

Probably, but Giddins was at least as bad as Devon, and Caddick at 8 just makes that other one complete. He might have batted 11 in today's team!

Funny thing about that series was they put Caddick at 8 and he (briefly) started batting like a number 8. With Aftab Habib at 6 and a 20 year old Chris Read* at 7 it was almost a relief when Caddick came in and started biffing it.

At Lords England were 45/7 against New Zealand (New Zealand) before Caddick top scored with 33 and in partnership with Alex Tudor got the first innings deficit below 100. Then Tudor famously was promoted from number 9 to score 99* and win the match,

In the next game Nasser Hussain popped one of his poppadoms and the England batting line-up in the second innings should have been the weakest ever (Habib at 5, Headley at 6, Read 7, Caddick 8, Mullally 9 and Tufnell 10) - but Caddick again top scored from 8 with 45 and they all except Tufnell managed to get double figures.

Finally at the Oval they dropped Read and drafted in Irani to allegedly strengthen the batting and England's tail reached its nadir:

1st Innings

7. Irani............................1
8. Caddick.....................15
9. Mullally......................5
10. Tufnell......................0*
11. Giddens.....................0

2nd Innings
7. Irani............................9
8. Caddick......................3
9. Mullally......................3
10. Tufnell.....................1
11. Giddens....................0*

They were rather put to shame by Cairns hitting 80 from number 8 and Vettori getting a half century at 10, as NZ won a low scoring game. But in their own way they were beautiful.






* that's the 20 year old Chris Read, not the batting behemoth and destroyer of bowling attacks he was destined to become.

Why is Caddick grinning?

Wasn't Saj batting at 8 with Monty and one or two similar after him only about four years ago?

PeterCS wrote:Why is Caddick grinning?

Because he's scored lots of runs?

Ah, in the Hair Test of almost exactly 5 years ago.

Read, Mahmood, Hoggard, Harmison, Panesar. Not bad.

And Saj played at 8 again in the last 3 Ashes Tests of 2006-07, with Read or GOJo, and with Jimmy in for Hoggy at 11 in the (and Saj's) final Test.

Gary 111 wrote:Best = South Africa vs Australia at Adelaide in 1998.

With Donald (presumably) injured they had an 8, 9, 10, 11 of:

Pollock - 32.31
Klusener - 32.86
Symcox - 28.50
Richardson - 24.26

Richardson ended up going in night-watchman at 6 in the first innings, meaning Brian McMillan (39.36) was at number 8. Against an attack of Warne, MacGill, Kasprowicz and Bichel they added 69 for the eighth wicket, 69 more for the ninth and 74 for the tenth as SA scored 500+, but a century by Mark Waugh saved the game for Aus.

Yeah, that's a side that you'd feel "God, how are we gonna get 10 wickets here quickly?" And then you throw the ball to Warnie and McGrath. Job done.

And nowadays you could have flipped the ball to Midge, Ruggy, Beer, Smith and co, and watched the four figures being racked up ...

Gary 111 wrote:

beamer wrote:

Yorkie Jill wrote:What about Fraser, Tufnell, Malcolm. Did that ever happen?

Probably, but Giddins was at least as bad as Devon, and Caddick at 8 just makes that other one complete. He might have batted 11 in today's team!

Funny thing about that series was they put Caddick at 8 and he (briefly) started batting like a number 8. With Aftab Habib at 6 and a 20 year old Chris Read* at 7 it was almost a relief when Caddick came in and started biffing it.

At Lords England were 45/7 against New Zealand (New Zealand) before Caddick top scored with 33 and in partnership with Alex Tudor got the first innings deficit below 100. Then Tudor famously was promoted from number 9 to score 99* and win the match,

In the next game Nasser Hussain popped one of his poppadoms and the England batting line-up in the second innings should have been the weakest ever (Habib at 5, Headley at 6, Read 7, Caddick 8, Mullally 9 and Tufnell 10) - but Caddick again top scored from 8 with 45 and they all except Tufnell managed to get double figures.

Finally at the Oval they dropped Read and drafted in Irani to allegedly strengthen the batting and England's tail reached its nadir:

1st Innings

7. Irani............................1
8. Caddick.....................15
9. Mullally......................5
10. Tufnell......................0*
11. Giddens.....................0

2nd Innings
7. Irani............................9
8. Caddick......................3
9. Mullally......................3
10. Tufnell.....................1
11. Giddens....................0*

They were rather put to shame by Cairns hitting 80 from number 8 and Vettori getting a half century at 10, as NZ won a low scoring game. But in their own way they were beautiful.






* that's the 20 year old Chris Read, not the batting behemoth and destroyer of bowling attacks he was destined to become.

Almost enough to make you misty eyed. England winning from 45/7 with that craptacular tail! I did wonder if Habib would've featured in a weak line up.

THAT LINE UP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

beamer wrote:Can anyone think of a line-up as good as Prior, Bresnan, Broad, Swann, Anderson for a 7-11 in Test cricket, for England or someone else?

Bradman, McCabe, Darling, Sievers and Oldfield









Granted not strictly within the spirit of the question

Hehe, sage. But Stan failed with only 22. Didn't matter much given the 6th and 7th bats put on 346.

England had a similar game where they put Hutton in at 8 & Compton at 9, but the fact our wicket-keeper at the time (McIntyre) batting at 7 had a Test batting average of 3 rather lets the side down.

This Indian team from 1962 had a strong lower order. All of their bowlers were decent batsmen. It didn't help them. They lost by 7 wickets.

http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=0528

To be fair though, they were playing against a half-decent side.

WideWally wrote:This Indian team from 1962 had a strong lower order. All of their bowlers were decent batsmen. It didn't help them. They lost by 7 wickets.

http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=0528

What was the story with Frank batting at 9 in that match?

embee wrote:

WideWally wrote:This Indian team from 1962 had a strong lower order. All of their bowlers were decent batsmen. It didn't help them. They lost by 7 wickets.

http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard.asp?MatchCode=0528

What was the story with Frank batting at 9 in that match?

The only thing I can think of is replacing injured player/s with new talent and wanting them to play up the order. Either that or messing around with combinations in a dead rubber. Rodriquez debuted in that match I think.

Maybe he wanted to give India a chance?

Kanhai batted at 9 in the next (5th) Test "because of a pulled muscle" - maybe it was something like that.

I notice he only bowled the 3 overs in the match as well. But then, I suppose he didn't need to bowl more ...