World's worst Test XI (minimum 25 tests)

[Outswinger@Pace]

ENG: Ian Salisbury! Averages an awesome 76!
PAK: Shahid Afridi!! Awfully irresponsible for a top-order bat!
IND: Vinod Kambli, even Yuvraj Singh! (although latter hit 2 good centuries, he can't play quality bowling )

Salisbury doesn't satisfy the criteria. Easily, he and Rawl Lewis are the worst slow bowlers (I refuse to call them spinners ) one can imagine, but neither played 25 tests.

Kambli started brilliantly, didn't he? Wonder what went wrong down the line? I've heard a lot of inside stories (casteism, woeful loss of form, his self-destructive streak and selectorial issues), but am not sure what the truth is.

Afridi and Yuvraj are top shouts, but have played some reasonable innings. Neither man is test class, but I don't think they are the worst to ever pick up a bat.

Ashley Giles Match 54.. wickets 143.. SR 85.. Bowling Average 40

Fair nominee. I did consider him, but tbh, he was effective in patches. His contribution in the series win in Pakistan cannot be overemphasised. He was essentially meant to be a foil for the pacemen and did not do the worst job.

IMHO, Hussain used him better than Vaughan did. Additionally, +1 for batting and his catching at gully as well!

Daren Powell from the west indies ?

Paul Wiseman From Newzealand?

Both very good names in context. I am surprised to find that Wiseman played over 25 tests. Jeez! The guy never even made an effort to turn the ball. I wouldn't be distraught if both of them find a place in any worst XI side.


BoyBrumby, Ganga is a very peculiar case. Seemed to do everything right except make runs at the highest level. His twin centuries against a very good Aus attack (Guyana and POS, IIRC) discouraged me from putting his name in this team.

Could never figure out why he couldn't convert those 20s and 30s into good scores. Looked splendidly balanced in defense and in playing those offside strokes!

 

[Outswinger@Pace]

Mark Ramprakash says a big,fat hello to this thread.

Certainly one of the big 90s tragedies! Along with Graeme Hick, possibly. I wonder how much Illingworth's (mis)management had to do with their under-achievement at test level. Ramprakash, sadly, becomes a fair candidate for an all-time worst XI.

Other English candidates - Derek Pringle and, for my money, John Emburey. Perhaps the latter isn't the worst offie ever to play for us, but his appearances to achievement ratio was staggeringly poor.

Emburey, from what I gather, started out as an attacking spin bowler. The two rebel tours really put him off rhythm (in international cricket). Add to that the constant blunting in county cricket and too much one-day cricket turned him into a defensive bowler.

For completely different reasons, Venkatraghavan and Shastri fell victims to same mentality of pushing it flat rather than giving it air and trying to extract purchase off the wicket.

The fact that Emburey was perhaps the world's best off-spinner in the mid 80s says a lot about spin bowling standards in that era. Btw, how do you rate his Middlesex mate, Phil Tufnell, as a bowler?

 

[Outswinger@Pace]

Harsh to include Vic Pollard - played a couple of fine knocks in England in 1973 and also did well in 1965 - I think Ray Bright would be a better call

True. Pollard was a bit of a borderline case! I had a bit of a decision to make between Bright and Pocock as my main spinner.

It's just that I recently saw a video that tied Madras test of 1986 on YouTube after a long time. Did not have the heart to include Bright after seeing him bowl so gallantly in such inhumane conditions.

 

[Blaze 18]

ENG: Ian Salisbury! Averages an awesome 76!
PAK: Shahid Afridi!! Awfully irresponsible for a top-order bat!
IND: Vinod Kambli, even Yuvraj Singh! (although latter hit 2 good centuries, he can't play quality bowling )

 

[Daemon]

Yeah I thought that was pretty odd too, the guy averages 50+ and was rated so highly at one point of time..

 

[wpdavid]

Emburey, from what I gather, started out as an attacking spin bowler. The two rebel tours really put him off rhythm (in international cricket). Add to that the constant blunting in county cricket and too much one-day cricket turned him into a defensive bowler.

The fact that Emburey was perhaps the world's best off-spinner in the mid 80s says a lot about spin bowling standards in that era. Btw, how do you rate his Middlesex mate, Phil Tufnell, as a bowler?

Emburey was a more attacking bowler in his earlier days, and I agree that his 3-year absence after the first rebel tour pretty much did for him.

Tufnell, imo, is lightly over-rated in some quarters. He did a lot to win a few games for us early on in his test career, but there were plenty of times when he was massively ineffectual. Without checking, I'd guess that his average after 1992 was really unimpressive, compared to what had gone before.

 

[grecian]

I personally feel that finger-spinners got a raw deal for a long time, after uncovered pitches, batsmen just used to pretend to play a shot, and were never near the ball, took LBW and bt/pad out of the question. Thankfully we're seeing umpires giving them a chance nowadays. Tuffers, Hemmings, Embers and Edmonds weren't world beaters, but there figures make them look a lot worse ten they are, reckon they'd all be around the thirties in average nowadays.

Emburey, Edmonds and Giles were decent with the bat too.

Rutherford also played a number of key innings for the Kiwis, didn't he?

I'm all for Pringle and Brearley though, oh and you can't put Willey in, poor bloke only seemed to get a game against the Windies.

 

[salman85]

Yeah I thought that was pretty odd too, the guy averages 50+ and was rated so highly at one point of time..

Kambli had the talent to be the best batsman in the world,and easily one of India's greatest ever.Pretty sad how things turned out.

Has to rank amongst the biggest waste of talent in the last 20 years along with Amir.

 

[Langeveldt]

Daren Ganga must be worth a shout. 48 tests as a specialst batsman for an average a smidge below 26.

Truly weird his record is as rank as it it tho, because he was very easy on the eye.

one of my favourite batsmen to watch, shows that technique at the end of the day counts for not nearly everything.. I am amazed that Sami played all those tests with an average over 50, that is incredible..

 

[Days of Grace]

Rutherford also played a number of key innings for the Kiwis, didn't he?
.

Rutherford's final average was distorted greatly by his horrible debut tour of the West Indies in 1984/1985, where he made 12 runs in 5 innings opening the batting.

After 13 tests, his aveage was only 11.20. Somehow, the selectors stuck with the young player.

If we only took the years 1990-1995, he played 40 tests at an average of 31.29. Still not earth-shattering by any means, but remember he played in some of the worst-performing New Zealand sides since the 1950s.

 

[Flem274*]

Can think of many better NZ candidates than Ken Rutherford for this side.

Most of them are openers.

 

[weldone]

Kambli had the talent to be the best batsman in the world.

No. He was immensely talented to play in the subcontinental conditions. But he didn't have the right technique for bouncy pitches.

Of course, he was very talented overall, has had good overall record, and shouldn't be in discussion in this thread. But he definitely never had the talent to be the best batsman in the world for the aforementioned reason.

 

[vcs]

No. He was immensely talented to play in the subcontinental conditions. But he didn't have the right technique for bouncy pitches.

Of course, he was very talented overall, has had good overall record, and shouldn't be in discussion in this thread. But he definitely never had the talent to be the best batsman in the world for the aforementioned reason.

Yeah. West Indies made him look very ordinary when they toured in '94 (without Ambrose). Also I remember him looking clueless against Australia's opening bowlers in the WC '96 match.

 

[weldone]

Yeah. West Indies made him look very ordinary when they toured in '94 (without Ambrose). Also I remember him looking clueless against Australia's opening bowlers in the WC '96 match.

He was pathetic in '92 World Cup in Australia and NZ as well. He never handled pace bowlers (of any quality) well on bouncy pitches (both in tests and ODIs). He was as clueless as Suresh Raina in those conditions.

Of course, he was a demon on home soil if the opposition didn't have any world class pace bowler. Bowl him military medium or average-quality spin on subcontinental turfs, and he'll play about a million overs without getting out once.

Overall, Raina=Kambli, in terms of talent.

 

[Himannv]

I think there are plenty of worse players than Arjuna even considering that fielding is the requirement here. He doesn't run about much but I haven't seen him drop too many and he's been pretty reasonable at cover. Particularly decent off his own bowling IMO. Can think of plenty of Sri Lankans even who were worse fielders. Zoysa perhaps?

 

[shivfan]

It's a coincidence he was skipper during WSC. That lifts his winning percentage by miles. The stats aren't cruel to him, they are overly kind, when it comes to his captaincy record. The Australian team he skipered against during WSC was barely of first class standard.

A good skipper, but an affront to batsmanship at Test level surely, and worthy of inclusion here?

Yeah, I always felt that Brearley's captaincy was over-rated....

Isn't it interesting how he avoided playing as captain in a Test against the Windies? When he did play against them, in the World Cup final, he was found wanting.

 

[wpdavid]

Yeah, I always felt that Brearley's captaincy was over-rated....

Isn't it interesting how he avoided playing as captain in a Test against the Windies? When he did play against them, in the World Cup final, he was found wanting.

tbf he retired in 1980 because he was getting too old for the job and his side had just been whitewashed in Australia. His recall halfway through the 1981 ashes was a last throw of the dice by the selectors rather than anything else, and he stood down at the end of that series too.

I think his test captaincy was over-rated as well, but it's unfair to say he avoided playing them as a captain: it's just how the fixtures panned out. As for the 1979 WC final, pretty much everyone got stuffed by WI in those days. I know his slow partnership with Boycott didn't help, but it wasn't his fault that Collis King played the innings of his life and Richards did what he was always capable of.

 

[Bun]

Kambli had the talent to be the best batsman in the world,and easily one of India's greatest ever.Pretty sad how things turned out.

Has to rank amongst the biggest waste of talent in the last 20 years along with Amir.

Exactly... he has done nothing to deserve a worst XI rating...

 

[zaremba]

David Smith
Bill Athey
Alan Wells
Paul Parker
Little Timmy Ambrose (w)
Fred Tate (c)
Ian Salisbury
Paul Jarvis
James Kirtley
Tony Pigott
Mohammad Sami

 

[Debris]

Thought Graeme Hick was worth a mention, just because of the disappointment factor. His average of 31 in 65 tests might be a little too high, though.