Tailender Stickiness

[harsh.ag]

Why can they be so hard to get rid of during moments when the game hangs by a thread?

 

[Starfighter]

Cause you notice them more in such situations than otherwise.

 

[trundler]

https://youtu.be/6FXwWD5ZWiA

 

[fredfertang]

Monty and Jimmy Cardiff '09 - relatively unheralded perhaps, but one of the great Ashes memories

**** knows how they managed it - indulged by Punter iirc

 

[Engle]

Why can they be so hard to get rid of during moments when the game hangs by a thread?

The bowler needs to adjust to the tailender type and the match situation.
Hadlee bowling to Whitney like he's an opener and knowing full well that he's going to defend isn't going to work.

Send him some lollipops that will require him to hit the ball into the air or at least have him in a confused state of mind. Try something different ffs

Like the great Syd said ' They're not batting well enough for me to get them out '

 

[Pratters]

Hussain mentioned that bowlers need to bowl in the right channels in the previous game. Usually what happens is that the bowlers get frustrated and start bowling trying to take wickets instead of on the right spots which proves counter intuitive.

Also, today, tailenders can actually bat better than before, so them sticking on isn't as surprising as it might seem.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

After years of Chris Martin, anything from the likes of Sodhi, Wagner and Boult is a bonus

 

[TheJediBrah]

Another theory, maybe their stickiness is often what makes it a tight game. They could get rolled and make 5 runs between them and you'd be like "that was an easy win in the end", but if they stick around and do well you're like "damn why do tail-enders always stick around when the game is in the balance?!"

 

[R!TTER]

Hussain mentioned that bowlers need to bowl in the right channels in the previous game. Usually what happens is that the bowlers get frustrated and start bowling trying to take wickets instead of on the right spots which proves counter intuitive.

Also, today, tailenders can actually bat better than before, so them sticking on isn't as surprising as it might seem.

What is the right areas for tailenders though? It was shown that Curran likes the outside off stump line, he doens't like the balls on his body or stumps. Someone like Starc is similar except he slogs way too much into the leg side, Cummins is the best of the lot IMO with good defense. To most tailenders a good yorker first up is enough, unfortunately many test pacers simply don't bowl that length or enough balls at the stumps right at the start.

 

[Pratters]

This is a good point.. if you don't do research on the opposing tail enders, it can come back to bite you. I doubt India did much research on which areas Curran likes the ball in and what are his weaknesses as a batsman. Except in the case of bunnies, you have to earn your wicket even against tail enders today.

 

[Bijed]

Probably also a factor is that tailenders generally aren't as useless as we often imagine - even a pretty bad batsmen is quite likely to hang around for 15-20 or so deliveries (for reference, a Chris Martin got out, on average, once every six balls and he's on his own level of awful batting), which, if they're sharing the strike maybe 50/50 with a better batsmen, means it is actually going to take a reasonable amount of time before you can start saying "yeah, they really ought to be out by now".

 

[Flem274*]

this is a 12th post and no one has yet openly smirked at the thread title.

you disgust me CW.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Stickied a few tail-ends in your day?

 

[Starfighter]

Hussain mentioned that bowlers need to bowl in the right channels in the previous game. Usually what happens is that the bowlers get frustrated and start bowling trying to take wickets instead of on the right spots which proves counter intuitive.

Also, today, tailenders can actually bat better than before, so them sticking on isn't as surprising as it might seem.

Speaking of counter-intuitive, it turns out that tail enders are contributing little, if anything more in comparison to their teammates than they were 80 years ago, something which I was surprised to hear so I had to go and make this chart:




Makes one wonder if the apparent greater scoring ease of modern tail-enders is simply a reflection on batting becoming easier in general.

 

[Flem274*]

Stickied a few tail-ends in your day?

why take on the best when you can swoop in and feast on the rest?

 

[a massive zebra]

Speaking of counter-intuitive, it turns out that tail enders are contributing little, if anything more in comparison to their teammates than they were 80 years ago, something which I was surprised to hear so I had to go and make this chart:

View attachment 24179


Makes one wonder if the apparent greater scoring ease of modern tail-enders is simply a reflection on batting becoming easier in general.

Why is it counter intuitive to see tail-enders contributing the same number and proportion of runs compared with their counterparts 80 years ago? Most tail-enders have always been selected for their bowling ability, so I see no reason why current bowlers would be more talented than those of yesteryear at a secondary skill set on which their selection is not based.

I guess these days batsmen who can keep are preferred over pure wicket keepers, which would reduce the length of the tail and push the pure bowlers slightly further down the order than if someone like Strudwick or Duckworth were keeping. But most modern keepers would bat above 8 in the order and this selection policy would have no impact on the bowlers selected, so the impact on runs scored at positions 8-11 would be minimal. You're possibly just replacing an old keeper with a modern bowler, neither of which were selected for their batting.

One could also argue bowlers these days may in general spend more time working in the nets on improving their batting than those of yesteryear. But if you don't have ability to start with, the potential upside of hard work and training is minimal when faced with Test standard bowlers who one can barely see or against whom one doesn't have time to react to. Jimmy Anderson is a case in point. He is known to have worked very hard on his batting over the years, but his output has improved very little because against Test bowlers he simply doesn't have it in him.

If batting has become easier in general wouldn't you expect the average of tail-enders to increase and their proportion of runs to remain constant? Only the latter is true. Perhaps tail-enders appear to have greater ease in scoring because the introduction of T20s has inspired them to adopt a more attacking approach to batting. But a more attacking approach merely increases the speed of scoring, not necessarily their total runs scored. If the batsmen are taking more risks and getting out more quickly, the number of runs they score, which is what you have measured here, may remain relatively constant.

I know your expectations are consistent with the views of contemporary cricket commentators and journalists. But if you listen extensively to old commentary or read old articles from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, they said the exact same thing then. It wasn't true then and and it isn't true now. A great cricketing myth.

 

[Starfighter]

If batting has become easier in general wouldn't you expect the average of tail-enders to increase and their proportion of runs to remain constant? Only the latter is true.

I don't know, I'm not an expert. The proportion does remain constant from the fifties onwards. Could be that the introduction of new, appalling teams like Bang has offset increases in scoring elsewhere. But it does show that it's not some new phenomenon that tail-enders are scoring runs.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I don't know, I'm not an expert. The proportion does remain constant from the fifties onwards. Could be that the introduction of new, appalling teams like Bang has offset increases in scoring elsewhere. But it does show that it's not some new phenomenon that tail-enders are scoring runs.

made me lol for some reason