England's Nervous Test XI

Here's my team.

I'm not including players who were never really good enough to qualify - or those (Tres, Trott) whose troubled waters appear to run rather deeper than the proverbial trembling of the small rodent caught in the headlights of glory.

This team is composed of those who have succumbed to yips, turned to stone or become semi-gibbering wrecks, and - in a word - flopped when they had the proven talent at less exalted, less exposed levels than in Test matches.

1. CB Fry (-18.04) *
2. Nick Compton (-12.69) or - esp as opener - Joe Root (-7.53 = overall figure)
3. John Crawley (-11.88)
4. Graeme Hick (-20.91)
5. Owais Shah (-15.04)
6. Mark Ramprakash (-24.82)
7. Chris Read (-17.43) +
8. Ravi Bopara (-9.54/+248.25)
9. Norman Cowans (+14.41)
10. Boyd Rankin (+53.28)
11. Simon Kerrigan ( ∞ )

The figures after the names indicate the differential between Test & FC averages - one kind of objective indicator.

Inclusion in this team may yet prove to be unfair in a couple of cases (where a career is still running).

Honourable shoutouts to Chris Tavare' (the ultimate Snickmeister - though remarkably, he's only -6.29) and Keith Medlycott (not capped, but arguably the worst case of yips of the lot, in that he ended up unable to release the ball at all - at county level).

It's an interesting collection, I think - most of them appear to have something "marginal" about them, from poor boys perhaps too desperately aspiring to high society, through actual or perceived "foreignness" (arguably also ethnicity questions) or long qualification periods, to unpopularity/apparent unwantedness with their captain. Maybe an extra 'pressure factor' in some cases.


Has anyone got alternative nominations?

Or has anyone got a "parallel panic" team for another country?

Tic Freeman?

Chris Tremorlet?

Bhagwat Chandrashaker?

How about Frank Hayes? Physically ill before batting on the 73/74 tour to the Caribbean. And that after a ton on debut.

Chris Lewis FFS?

Who was the leftie swing bowler who was having a stellar County season so was picked for England at Headingley in the 97 Ashes? Thorpe dropped a sitter off Matthew Elliott from him early, who went on to make 199 and, with Punter, smashed the poor bugger all over the park. I think he also went close to making a pair.

Looked him up. It were Mike Smith of Gloucs. 533 FC wickets at 24.7. In his only Test took 0-89 off 23 and made 0 & 4*. In that 97 County season he took 83 wkts at 17.

I guess the same could be said of a plethora of bowlers used against Aus in 89 and 93 (and beyond). Jarvis, Newport, Illot, Igglesden, McCague. Of the batsmen in that period, Barnett, Curtis, Stephenson & Lathwell come to mind.

Most of those were just crap county trundlers who didn't have the pace or weapons for the top level, rather than being unable to cope with the pressure.

The archetypal gash weasel... at least on my watch

Which one?

A team of the opposite, players who outperformed their FC stats in Tests:

Vaughan
Trescothick
Gower
Barrington
Collingwood
Greig
Knott
Swann
S Jones
Fraser
(struggling for another bowler, unless we go back a century or so...)

Eddie Paynter averaged 59 in Tests and 42 at FC level.

skully wrote:Chris Lewis FFS?

Who was the leftie swing bowler who was having a stellar County season so was picked for England at Headingley in the 97 Ashes? Thorpe dropped a sitter off Matthew Elliott from him early, who went on to make 199 and, with Punter, smashed the poor bugger all over the park. I think he also went close to making a pair.

Looked him up. It were Mike Smith of Gloucs. 533 FC wickets at 24.7. In his only Test took 0-89 off 23 and made 0 & 4*. In that 97 County season he took 83 wkts at 17.

I guess the same could be said of a plethora of bowlers used against Aus in 89 and 93 (and beyond). Jarvis, Newport, Illot, Igglesden, McCague. Of the batsmen in that period, Barnett, Curtis, Stephenson & Lathwell come to mind.

Mike Smith was never a test bowler. Never had the attributes. It was just a Gloucstershire pick from Gloucstershire's chairman of selectors David Graveney. And it all went Gloucstershire.

Carberry deserves a mention as well, I guess.

Henry wrote:

skully wrote:Chris Lewis FFS?

Who was the leftie swing bowler who was having a stellar County season so was picked for England at Headingley in the 97 Ashes? Thorpe dropped a sitter off Matthew Elliott from him early, who went on to make 199 and, with Punter, smashed the poor bugger all over the park. I think he also went close to making a pair.

Looked him up. It were Mike Smith of Gloucs. 533 FC wickets at 24.7. In his only Test took 0-89 off 23 and made 0 & 4*. In that 97 County season he took 83 wkts at 17.

I guess the same could be said of a plethora of bowlers used against Aus in 89 and 93 (and beyond). Jarvis, Newport, Illot, Igglesden, McCague. Of the batsmen in that period, Barnett, Curtis, Stephenson & Lathwell come to mind.

Mike Smith was never a test bowler. Never had the attributes. It was just a Gloucstershire pick from Gloucstershire's chairman of selectors David Graveney. And it all went Gloucstershire.

Lathwell is a good shout, picked very young, but didn't even sustain it at county level after that and was out of the game before the age of 30 I think.

Barnett, Curtis and Stephenson were just in the "not quite good enough" category, like many others in the late 80s stick-a-pin-in-the-county-scorecards selection policy. Although the former two did average 40 in FC I suppose.

beamer wrote:A team of the opposite, players who outperformed their FC stats in Tests:

Vaughan
Trescothick
Gower
Barrington
Collingwood
Greig
Knott
Swann
S Jones
Fraser
(struggling for another bowler, unless we go back a century or so...)

Aks Danny about a certain Typhoon-related quick

PeterCS wrote:

beamer wrote:A team of the opposite, players who outperformed their FC stats in Tests:

Vaughan
Trescothick
Gower
Barrington
Collingwood
Greig
Knott
Swann
S Jones
Fraser
(struggling for another bowler, unless we go back a century or so...)

Aks Danny about a certain Typhoon-related quick  

Ed Giddins?

Or, slightly more recently, if less sensationally, the doughty and underrated Ken Higgs.

(Neil Mallender - Northants again - and as Trev says Ed Giddins, even Rikki Clarke - but those three all on a narrow combined total of 8 Tests!)