Cricket Web chooses the worst test pace bowler ever

[TheJediBrah]

108 First-class wickets @ 43

Again, it was county cricket, but still not bad for a part-timer

 

[a massive zebra]

Atherton's bowling was actually relatively decent in his early days. IIRC he got over 50 championship wickets @ 26 in 1990 and topped the Lancashire bowling averages that year. Then he started to get back problems and had to pretty much give up bowling.

 

[Daemon]

fun Rubel stats

Averages 249 against India
Yet to take a wicket against Pakistan after 47 overs
His best figures of 5/166 came against NZ at an economy of nearly 6
If you take out Zimbabwe he has 22 wickets in 26 Tests @ 101
Averages 316 at a strike rate of 498 in drawn matches

 

[Migara]

Debasis Mohanty

Abey Kuruvilla, David Jhonson, Paras Mahambre

 

[Bahseph]

fun Rubel stats

Averages 249 against India
Yet to take a wicket against Pakistan after 47 overs
His best figures of 5/166 came against NZ at an economy of nearly 6
If you take out Zimbabwe he has 22 wickets in 26 Tests @ 101
Averages 316 at a strike rate of 498 in drawn matches

I actually feel sorry for the guy now. Should have just kept him for ODIs where he can be of use. Really does suck for Bangladesh that Mashrafe was always crooked and he had to play instead.

 

[_Ed_]

fun Rubel stats

Averages 249 against India
Yet to take a wicket against Pakistan after 47 overs
His best figures of 5/166 came against NZ at an economy of nearly 6
If you take out Zimbabwe he has 22 wickets in 26 Tests @ 101
Averages 316 at a strike rate of 498 in drawn matches

Bloody hell. We might spend a lot of time talking about Smith, Kohli, Steyn and Rabada, but I reckon this guy's the real once-in-a-lifetime player. I doubt we'll ever see another like him.

 

[morgieb]

Atherton's bowling was actually relatively decent in his early days. IIRC he got over 50 championship wickets @ 26 in 1990 and topped the Lancashire bowling averages that year. Then he started to get back problems and had to pretty much give up bowling.

Impressively the only other bowler to take more than 30 wickets at county level and be English that year with a better average than Atherton's was Angus Fraser (Marshall, Bishop, Ambrose, Mortensen and Waqar all had better averages but obvs weren't English).

 

[Dazinho]

He did once bowl a full spell in one of their one day comps too. Granted it was because someone was injured. He went for 80 and Lancs lost.

Christ I actually remember watching that on television - against Essex in the Natwest wasn't it?

Essex were absolutely dead (8 down and still needing the best part of 100) then Don Topley got them close, clattering Atherton in particular round the park before getting out with them 15 short (Atherton got 2-60 off 9 overs or something like that).

John Childs then came in at #11 and quite improbably got them in the last over. Mad game.

EDIT - he did go for 80, and appeared to have been left to bowl the last over after DeFreitas got injured in his first. Think he had 2-60 with two to go and then got absolutely walloped everywhere. Here's the scorecard.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1992/ENG_LOCAL/NWT/ESSEX_LANCS_NWT_09JUL1992.html

 

[TheJediBrah]

Abey Kuruvilla, David Jhonson, Paras Mahambre

I forgot that there was an Indian bowler named David Johnson

 

[Magrat Garlick]

fun Rubel stats

Averages 249 against India
Yet to take a wicket against Pakistan after 47 overs
His best figures of 5/166 came against NZ at an economy of nearly 6
If you take out Zimbabwe he has 22 wickets in 26 Tests @ 101
Averages 316 at a strike rate of 498 in drawn matches

a hyperinflated average

 

[fredfertang]

Ehteshamuddin helped out Pakistan at Headingley in 1982 in an injury crisis and looked like what at that point he was, a bowler in the Bolton League - opened the attack with Imran and bowled 14 overs before pulling something and not bowling in the second innings - with the bat he came in at 11 and scored 0 and 0*

Which all suggests he was a candidate for this, until you look at his record in a handful of other Tests he had played a couple of years previously in which is record is actually pretty decent, so perhaps he is better described as the most undercooked pace bowler to have played in a Test match

 

[wpdavid]

Ehteshamuddin helped out Pakistan at Headingley in 1982 in an injury crisis and looked like what at that point he was, a bowler in the Bolton League - opened the attack with Imran and bowled 14 overs before pulling something and not bowling in the second innings - with the bat he came in at 11 and scored 0 and 0*

Which all suggests he was a candidate for this, until you look at his record in a handful of other Tests he had played a couple of years previously in which is record is actually pretty decent, so perhaps he is better described as the most undercooked pace bowler to have played in a Test match

Tony Piggott at Christchurch in 1984?
Michael Whitney at Old Trafford in 1981?

 

[Starfighter]

Pigott did do something decent in cricket though...

 

[wpdavid]

Tony Pigott was a decent county bowler, but I was responding to Fred's reference to the most under-cooked bowler to appear in test cricket.
iirc England had an injury crisis in New Zealand and TP was playing over there so got the call up.

Well done digging out that picture btw.

 

[Engle]

Greg Thomas was genuinely fast and arguably the best Welsh bowler for this category with 10 Test wkts at 50+