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Why are there good tail-enders coming in now?

Who is the best tail-ender?

  • Mitchel Johnson

    Votes: 8 38.1%
  • Stuart Clark

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • Sohail Tanvir

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • Harbrijan Singh

    Votes: 7 33.3%

  • Total voters
    21

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
That raises a point, actually. With Fletcher in charge the ability to wield the willow with at least some degree of adequacy seemed to be a pre-requisite for his spinners. Guys like Batty, Dawson, Udal & Blackwell all got a go when Keedy, who's a batter bowler than any on a bad day but a non-batsman, was consistently ignored. Swann was only overlooked because he (apparently) blotted his copybook when picked for our tour to SA in 99/00.

Even when Monty got a run it was only because Ash Giles's hips had misaligned again. As soon as Gilo was (half) fit Monty was dropped. Yet he never demanded batting competency from his seamers, always picking the best (in his opinion) we had available.
Yeah, Keedy and Jason Brown never got a look in because of their batting weaknesses. Probably too late for both of them now though.

He did at times faff about with the seamers too. Plunkeres and Saj were meant to have some batting ability (utterly mythical imho) and that may have got them picked instead of others with some level of adequacy.
 
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Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
That raises a point, actually. With Fletcher in charge the ability to wield the willow with at least some degree of adequacy seemed to be a pre-requisite for his spinners. Guys like Batty, Dawson, Udal & Blackwell all got a go when Keedy, who's a batter bowler than any on a bad day but a non-batsman, was consistently ignored. Swann was only overlooked because he (apparently) blotted his copybook when picked for our tour to SA in 99/00.

Even when Monty got a run it was only because Ash Giles's hips had misaligned again. As soon as Gilo was (half) fit Monty was dropped. Yet he never demanded batting competency from his seamers, always picking the best (in his opinion) we had available.
TBH, Keedy only came into the equation in 2003\04, when Dawson had already long since come and gone, and Batty had been performing for longer.

In all honesty, there's no way we can say for certain Keedy is better than Batty and I certainly don't think he's as good as Udal. He just profits from the fact he hasn't played Tests on flat pitches and been belted.

'Tis a little baffling that Blackwell ever played ahead of him, mind.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Couple of spinners who can hold a bat might come into the selectors thoughts this year. There's Rashid at Yorkshire, obviously & a bloke by the name of Saqlain down at Surrey.... :ph34r:
Rashid could almost be classified a batsman who bowls. Note: I did say almost.
 

stumpski

International Captain
Perhaps just worth mentioning that there's a feature on this very subject in the new Wisden Cricketer magazine which dropped through my letter box a couple of days ago. :) Not going to try and summarise the article as it may well appear on Cricinfo in the near future but it starts with the old story about Bert Ironmonger's wife phoning as he was going out to bat, and saying "it's alright, I'll hold" - and contrasting that with Kumble's Oval 100. The three factors given by the writer were more batsman-friendly conditions (if top-order batsmen are averaging more, you'd expect tailenders to do the same), the need to make late order runs in OD cricket and greater professionalism in general.
 

gettingbetter

State Vice-Captain
Rashid could almost be classified a batsman who bowls. Note: I did say almost.
Probably is ATM. If he works hard enough on his batting, he'll probably get picked for England. Lets hope he can average > 32 this season with the ball, but he does have a long way to go.
 

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