One Test Blunders

[Fuller Pilch]

Fred (father of Maurice) Tate

 

[h_hurricane]

Ajay Sharma.

An ATG FC career and then a nothing international career. Debuted in the Hirwani test match and nothing after that.

 

[grecian]

You can lose the "allegedly" there (and the "England").

Bit harsh to dismiss his prospects at the time so quickly - he was England's leading scorer in the ODI series that summer (OK, 101 runs in 3 matches isn't a huge amount, but this was a debutant playing against an attack including Marshall, Garner and Holding - it's also more than Greenidge, Haynes or Lloyd scored in the same series).

I seem to remember, people thought he may have been mentally damaged by that ball, and his eyesight wasn't the same. Paul Terry never played again after being injured in that series, did play two matches though, brutal times.

Kerrigan a disaster of course too.

 

[ankitj]

Ajay Sharma.

An ATG FC career and then a nothing international career. Debuted in the Hirwani test match and nothing after that.

Why didn't he get more chances. Seems unfair to him.

 

[Daemon]

Callum Ferguson
Karn Sharma

 

[TheJediBrah]

iirc darren pattinson bowled reasonably well in his one appearance. i can't remember if he was injury cover or what but england got a job out of him.

He was comfortably the best of the English bowlers that game. Not that that's saying much, they were taken to the cleaners.

The outcry after that selection was hilarious though. He was never going to get another game

 

[Smudge]

I feel a bit bad because I'm friendly with him, but David Sewell returned figures of none for 81 & none for 9 in his sole test v Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in 1997.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Has Mike Smith been mentioned yet? Played one Test for England in 1997. A decent swing bowler at County level but the most innocuous bowler imaginable at Test level. He was unlucky to be denied a wicket when Thorpe dropped a chance at slip but was way of his depth.

 

[Moss]

While he was a two-test wonder and hence doesn't really qualify, picking Rob Nicol to open for NZ against Steyn and Philander in 2012 was a head-scratchingly bad decision even considering the times were hard.

Vinay Kumar vs Australia at Perth 2012 - while I do believe he was better than his display in that game, bringing him in for that test was taking a lamb to slaughter, on a tour that was already going south for India.

 

[Moss]

Can any Lankan fans give us the lowdown on Dinuk Hettiarachchi, selected for the decider against Nasser Hussain and team in 2001 which England won. Never picked again, but seems to have built up a very impressive first-class record.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/49128.html

 

[BoyBrumby]

Has Mike Smith been mentioned yet? Played one Test for England in 1997. A decent swing bowler at County level but the most innocuous bowler imaginable at Test level. He was unlucky to be denied a wicket when Thorpe dropped a chance at slip but was way of his depth.

Wasn't Gus Fraser left out for him?

All part of the psychological warfare Raymond Illingworth seemed to be waging against the big fella for most of the nineties.

 

[AndrewB]

It was Caddick who was left out; Fraser didn’t play in that series.

 

[Starfighter]

Joe Mennie wasn't much to write home about.

John Watkins would be another name going further back, bowled six poor overs against Pakistan in the last test in 72/73 and later in a tour match in WI he couldn't even land the ball on the pitch. We actually had two other leg spinners in Jenner and O'Keeffe (although O'Keeffe barely counts, never seen him turn one) but they wanted three spinners on tour and Mallett wasn't available.

 

[Spikey]

John Hastings was a very odd one, in that it came at the expense of Hazlewood's debut. This was a time when Hazlewood hadn't yet taken a FC five wicket haul, but Lyon, Cummins & Pattinson had made their test debuts without a five wicket haul to their names and everyone knew Hazlewood was gonna make his debut sooner or later, so it was very at odds with recent selection. And then Hastings took the new ball, which he didn't do for Victoria iirc. plus the whole attack was different to the last game. it was very odd

but it almost worked. he got the New Real AB out. SA were 6/75 a bit after lunch on day 1. then FDP and the tail got SA to 220 odd, Philander and Steyn destroyed the top order and Wade/Hastings only got Australia up to 160 odd. and then amla/smith came out and just ****ing smoked them and AB made the most inevitable hundred ever and Australia lost by about 300 runs

hazlewood made his debut two years later and got a fiver

 

[Spikey]

James Faulkner's debut was so ****ing stupid I'm not gonna write about it until I'm pressed to

 

[flibbertyjibber]

John Stephenson and Alan Wells. Both were way out of their depth and in Wells case if he was going to get picked he should have been about 5 years before.

 

[grecian]

Has Mike Smith been mentioned yet? Played one Test for England in 1997. A decent swing bowler at County level but the most innocuous bowler imaginable at Test level. He was unlucky to be denied a wicket when Thorpe dropped a chance at slip but was way of his depth.

Always think of him as in the same boat as Simon Brown, Paul Taylor, dull names, dull cricketers, picked because they played at Bowlers paradises and we were desperate for a left-handed bowler for some reason, think it's safe to say none were Wasim Akram. We stole Mullaly from Oz luckily and he was okay, bless his alt-right cotton socks.

 

[_Ed_]

bless his alt-right cotton socks.

Well, that's disappointing.

 

[Kirkut]

There's got to be a lot of disastrous one Test experiments from India in the '90s, especially if they were thrown to the wolves overseas. Can't think of any right now though.

Vinay Kumar at Perth. He's actually a pretty decent swing bowler but against Warner under hot sun and kookaburra ball, it was terror.

 

[Gnske]

James Faulkner's debut was so ****ing stupid I'm not gonna write about it until I'm pressed to

He should have played earlier, evidenced by his haul of wickets and smart bowling in English conditions. I agree.