Dreadful series/matches by good/great players

[Bijed]

With the discussion going on about Joe Root's recent uninspiring T20 series, why not have a look for various dire series, with bat and/or ball, by players who would have been considered any where from pretty good to amongst the best going around at that point? Not to be mean to them, but who doesn't find an anomalous performance interesting?

 

[ImpatientLime]

murali everytime he rocked up in australia? got treated like the 'hemel hempstead school' second xi slow bowler.

 

[Burgey]

Obvious one is Ponting in India 2001.

 

[Immenso]

Gooch v Alderman 1989

 

[quincywagstaff]

Glenn Mcgrath averaging 65 per wicket versus NZ in 2001, yet he still took 68 wickets at 21 for that calendar year!

 

[quincywagstaff]

Oz paceman Graham McKenzie (career record 246 wickets @ 29.78) taking 1 wicket at an average of 333 in the 1969/70 tour of South Africa. And this was just after having a great tour of India.

 

[morgieb]

Glenn Mcgrath averaging 65 per wicket versus NZ in 2001/02; only on two other occasions did he average over 30 in a series where he played at least three Tests.

Warne averaged around 70 in that series too.

 

[AndrewB]

Mohinder Amarnath is hardly an ATG, but he'd averaged about 70 in India's tours of Pakistan and West Indies in early 1983; then against the same opponents at home in late 1983, he scored 12 runs in 8 innings, including 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0 against West Indies.

Similarly (but less drastically) Allan Lamb always did well against WI until the 1991 series when he averaged 12. (It was a bit overshadowed at the time by Hick and Atherton doing even worse, but they hadn't played against WI before).

 

[straw man]

Mahela Jayawardene had a couple of shocking runs of bad form, including scores of 1, 5, 9, 1, 0, 0, 5 in the 2003 World Cup.

Later in 2008 he had a string of 15, 4, 0, 0, 0, 28, 0 against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

 

[Zinzan]

Glenn Mcgrath averaging 65 per wicket versus NZ in 2001, yet he still took 68 wickets at 21 for that calendar year!

Warne averaged around 70 in that series too.

That was weird that a merely good-ish NZ side was able to combat McGrath and Warne around their best period in that series in Australia in 2001.

 

[social]

Doug Walters in England

 

[quincywagstaff]

Warne averaged around 70 in that series too.

True but Warne was a bit more patchy in this era (ordinary series in Windies 1999, at home v India 99/00, away v India 2001) so it wasn’t that unusual.

In contrast McGrath was an absolute colossus in the 1999-2002 period who was outstanding versus all opponents in all conditions… except this series.

 

[social]

To be fair to McGrath, the Kiwis decided that the best way to minimize his threat was by simply not playing any shots against him

As such, it wasnt as if he averaged 65 and was belted everywhere in the process

 

[AndrewB]

For a single innings: Bob Willis had figures of 14-1-99-1 in the 3rd Test against the West Indies in 1980. Which might not seem too bad against Greenidge, Richards, Lloyd etc, but England's other bowlers (Dilley, Botham, Emburey) had combined figures of 58.3-14-131-9. Wisden called it a "remarkable, vendetta-like attack" by Richards against Willis.

A similar one I mentioned in another thread: Allan Donald's figures of 12-1-96-1 in the innings after Devon Malcolm took 9-57.

 

[quincywagstaff]

To be fair to McGrath, the Kiwis decided that the best way to minimize his threat was by simply not playing any shots against him

As such, it wasnt as if he averaged 65 and was belted everywhere in the process

I do remember NZ saying that was their plan but McGrath’s economy rate that series was the highest of any Test series he bowled in from 2000 to 2004 so they weren’t just blocking him all day.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Who was Greg Chappell playing when he got all those ducks in a row? Were they within the one series?

Mark Waugh had a shocker in his first series away to Sri Lanka.

EDIT: four ducks in six innings, with a 56 and a 5 in the other innings.

 

[Jono]

Dravid in Australia 2011/12?

 

[vic_orthdox]

Yeah, coming off such a good series in England six months earlier too.

 

[GirtBySea]

That was weird that a merely good-ish NZ side was able to combat McGrath and Warne around their best period in that series in Australia in 2001.

New Zealand managed to hold Australia to a 0-0 result across those 3 Test matches.
Shane Bond debuted in that series, and Brett Lee took his wicket when he was batting and got told so many times where the pavilion was in that last match in Perth that he wouldn't have missed where it was; oh man did he and the NZ team also have a better than satisfactory one-day series too that summer!

 

[vic_orthdox]

New Zealand managed to hold Australia to a 0-0 result across those 3 Test matches.
Shane Bond debuted in that series, and Brett Lee took his wicket when he was batting and got told so many times where the pavilion was in that last match in Perth that he wouldn't have missed where it was; oh man did he and the NZ team also have a better than satisfactory one-day series too that summer!

Oh he taught Bond a lesson at 9/534...

3rd Test: Australia v New Zealand at Perth, Nov 30-Dec 4, 2001 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo