• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

The nadir of each test side

Mr Mxyzptlk

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Nadir
For West Indies, it's probably the 5-0, 6-1 thrashing in South Africa in 1998/99. That said, the experience in England and Australia in 2000 was pretty heartbreaking too.

Ironically it was that series that got me interested in cricket.
 

Kweek

Cricketer Of The Year
Learned a new word at school CDM?
or random dictionary look up? should take a look at the section S or P or V could educate you even more.
 

KiWiNiNjA

International Coach
Oh dear, this is the nadir of my day.

I was thinking that Shoaib Nadir was a really awful player, so a Nadir is someone who is crap, the opposite of a Bradman.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I don't think there's much doubts about anyone bar one TBH...

England - February 1986 to August 1989 (P 40 W 3 D 18 L 19)
Australia - March 1984 to February 1989 (P 46 W 7 D 20 L 18)
South Africa - March 1889 to November 1902, a time they weren't a Test-class team (P 11 D 1 L 10)
West Indies - June 2000 to June 2007 (against Test-class teams P 75 W 8 D 19 L 48)
India - any time away from home except the late-1960s\early-1970s and 2001 to current day (P 129 W 4 D 65 L 60)
New Zealand - Jaunary 1930 to March 1959, a time when they weren't a Test-class team (P 52 W 1 D 24 L 27)
Pakistan - difficult to say
Sri Lanka - December 1986 to September 1992 (P 19 D 10 L 9)
Zimbabwe - May 2003 to September 2005, a time when they weren't a Test-class team (against Test-class teams P 14 D 1 L 13)
Bangladesh - everything they've ever played (against Test-class teams their record reads P 49 D 3 L 46, with 2 out of the 3 draws seeing severe rain disruption)
 

subshakerz

International Coach
For Pakistan, the nadir was last year when they failed to beat Ireland and were kicked out oft he World Cup.

For Australia, it must be losing at home to New Zealand in 1985/86.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
For Pakistan, the nadir was last year when they failed to beat Ireland and were kicked out oft he World Cup.
Was thinking about Test nadirs TBH. And it'd need to be more than just a single game TBH, else I suppose you could maybe say The Oval 2006.
For Australia, it must be losing at home to New Zealand in 1985/86.
That was contained in the period above, and was indeed probably the lowest point of it, but the whole of '84-'88/89 was wretched for 'em.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Ind's inability to win tests abroad b/w 1986 and 2000, iirc
Yea, that part was bad, but we were consistently very good at home during the nineties - the current curators could learn from the pitches from that era. In any case, I would still probably agree, though I would say we've been pretty consistently horrible throughout our history in terms of match winning ability abroad, with Ganguly and Wright really starting to put an end to that era. And obviously that small period of time in the early seventies when we were among the best (before Lillee came along in Aus). So pretty much agree with Richard.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
I've often read of England's nadir being when we were ranked 9 out of 9 in 99...but it wasn't our worst side. Inclined to agree with Rich, from what I have read, even though in that period we won the Ashes in Australia which has never looked like happening again...they weren't too hot then either though
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
The worst "low" I've ever seen from a major test nation was definitely the tour of Australia in 00/01 by the West Indies. They were just so bad.
 

andruid

Cricketer Of The Year
The worst "low" I've ever seen from a major test nation was definitely the tour of Australia in 00/01 by the West Indies. They were just so bad.
This is the worst showing by England I have seen with my own eyes. If I remember correctly England were so demoralized they forgot to appeal for a definite nick from Steve Waugh.
 

Shaggy Alfresco

State Captain
Was thinking about Test nadirs TBH. And it'd need to be more than just a single game TBH, else I suppose you could maybe say The Oval 2006.
The definition of a nadir is "the lowest point", directly opposite a zenith. A 40 test period wouldn't be a nadir, but a single test would.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
The definition of a nadir is "the lowest point", directly opposite a zenith. A 40 test period wouldn't be a nadir, but a single test would.
Why not? Why can't a low-point last 40 Tests? If there's little change, I don't see why it can't.

A single Test wouldn't be good enough - it'd need to be a single delivery in a single Test - if you were going to go that far.

TBH.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
This is the worst showing by England I have seen with my own eyes. If I remember correctly England were so demoralized they forgot to appeal for a definite nick from Steve Waugh.
That wasn't the Test. The Test where said failure to appeal happened was the second-innings of the next game, at The MCG. Ironically, at the time they failed to appeal for said Waugh nick (not that it really mattered) they were playing some of the better cricket they'd played all series. They were utterly outclassed in the First Test, Second Test, Third Test and first-innings of the Fourth Test. But in the second-innings of the Fourth Test and the Fifth, they played good cricket and pretty easily outplayed Australia. It was far too little too late and came at a time when England's injury epidemic was spreading to Australia as well, but the lowest point of that particular series was the loss of the sixth wicket in that first-innings. White's 85*, smashing the mediocre MacGill for quite a few, was the turning-point of that Test series. As I say, the turn came after the result was a foregone conclusion, but it was a turn.
 

Top