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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

slowfinger

International Debutant
Before ,say 80's,there was no such thing as a 'decent'tailender and these days Australia have totally responsible (well keep it at) tailenders.How?Where?

Nd who is the best one?
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
The best tailender?

Hard to say, really - if you're good enough, you're not a tailender at all!

Suppose the only question that could be asked would be who's the best of those who play as specialist bowlers (eg, Ashley Giles did, Andrew Flintoff didn't).
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Well, what position do you consider a tailender? Warne came in at eight. Kumble will come in at nine this match and he has a Test century.
 

slowfinger

International Debutant
Well tbh, these are all good tail enders and I find that they are very confident players ( sorry for spelling Harbrajhan wrong:unsure: )Keep it going!
 

The Baconator

International Vice-Captain
I think there was actually some stats thing on cricinfo that showed that the averages from 8-11 haven't actually increased, much if at all, over the years. Could just be that teams care more about it these days, so the issue gets more attention.
 

haroon510

International 12th Man
it has to Anil Kumble.. the guy always counts his wicket.. the best tailender has to be the indians if they play Kumble, Harbajin Singh, Pathan and Zaheer Khan..
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Well, what position do you consider a tailender?
I consider someone a tailender based on their ability and performance, not the position they've batted in in a certain game.

The number of specialist bowlers selected varies. Some specialist bowlers are tailenders - ie, rabbits (Philip Tufnell, Peter Such), some are bowlers who bat a bit (Robert Croft, Dominic Cork), some are bowling-all-rounders (Craig White, Andrew Flintoff). Sometimes, teams might pick eight-to-elevens with no genuine tail-enders (White, Cork, Caddick, Gough for instance), sometimes they might pick them comprised entirely of them (Sidebottom, Hoggard, Harmison, Panesar).
 

Top_Cat

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I think there was actually some stats thing on cricinfo that showed that the averages from 8-11 haven't actually increased, much if at all, over the years. Could just be that teams care more about it these days, so the issue gets more attention.
It's such a hard issue to analyse, though. And lumping in players 8-11 is a bit of a furphy. I'd be very interested in 9, 10, and 11 analysed individually because I'd very surprised if there's been no improvement in 11's batting. A county-by-country analysis would be interesting. Aside from Glenn McGrath, I don't remember a batting bunny for Australia for a while and even he managed a Test 50.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
McGrath wasn't a bunny at the time he scored his half-century, though - from about 2002 or so onwards he was actually relatively competant.

Tait's no great shakes though is he?

Bruce Reid's batting ineptitude was famous, though obviously he rarely played 4 Tests on the trot.

Not sure about the likes of McDermott, Hughes.
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
McGrath wasn't a bunny at the time he scored his half-century, though - from about 2002 or so onwards he was actually relatively competant.

Tait's no great shakes though is he?

Bruce Reid's batting ineptitude was famous, though obviously he rarely played 4 Tests on the trot.

Not sure about the likes of McDermott, Hughes.
Hughes highest score was 72 I think...he also scored at least one other 50.
 

NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
Gillespie would have to be a shot for the title, a 200 and two (iirc) half-centuries.
Scored the 200 as a nightwatchman tbf. But still, he would be considered a tailender in general so Gillespie would have to be up there.
But where do you draw the line? Franklin and Vettori bat where you would consider them as "tailenders" but given their more-than-capable talent with the bat I guess you would consider them "lower-order."

I guess we'd have to go on genuine tailenders - those who would be able to score a 20 or 30 in good time batting at 9-11, like your Lees, Khans or Bonds.
But then I've always rated Lee's batting; but would you consider him a lower order batsman? I'm not sure.
 

Flem274*

123/5
Well if its 9-11 I'll go for Franklin. If we're allowed number 8s then Vettori. It seems NZ can only produce good tail end batsmen lately.
 

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