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tailenders
The joy of tail-end muppetry
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of December, 7 Comments »
How I miss tailenders. It’s fast becoming a modern-day form of grief for me, mourning their inability to sight the ball, lack of proper defence, paucity of strokeplay and general hopelessness. Them, frankly, were the days. The days of Peter Such running to square leg to play a bouncer; Courtney Walsh’s stupendous inability to block out the straight one; Allan Mullally’s carefree carelessness. It was the best tonic an English supporter needed in the dark pit of the 1990s. “Yes, son. We might be 80 for 6, but we have a tail consisting of Such, Tufnell and Fraser. You’re in for a real treat my boy, a real treat.” And, to paraphrase Mark Nicholas, boy we were.
I’ve loved tailenders more than marmite for most of my life, so it was with no hesitation that we decided to a Cricinfo XI on the worst of the worst, inspired by Iain O’Brien’s wonderful wagging today (54 minutes. No runs. Not a sausage – not even half a run). We’ve come up with some absolute beauties, none more hopelessly awful than Mark Robinson. In 229 matches he took584 wickets. But he only managed to scrape, chisel and poke 590 runs. Five hundred and ninety runs in 15 years of professional cricket. He really is a king among peasants: lord of the rabbit warren, we salute you.
We have XI other hapless winners to write about, but who were your favourites? I have a soft spot for Tufnell, partly because he was clearly pissed senseless when I saw him at Uxbridge in about 1994, but Walsh is a close second.
7 Comments »Mullally, the Jack of all rabbits
By Will 3 years ago, at the end of July, No Comments; be the first!
Simon Lister wrote a thumpingly enjoyable piece on tailenders in the current (August 2007) issue of The Wisden Cricketer. Tail-end charlies are a particular fascination of mine, due in part to their absence nowadays but more poignantly because England produced them like battery-farmed chickens in the 1990s. Or rather, rabbits. Peter Such, Devon Malcolm, Ed Giddins, Phil Tufnell – and the champion of all; the Jack of all rabbits, Alan Mullally.
Cracking piece. Give it a read.
That was about as bad as it got, because when Duncan Fletcher arrived, the No. 11 became less of an object of derision. They learned the forward press and knew it had nothing to do with ironing their whites. The diehard No. 11 died out elsewhere too. The once hopeless Australian tailender Jason Gillespie did something that Mike Atherton never did; he scored a Test double-hundred.
Yet when Monty Panesar was first picked for the tour of India in 2005-06 it seemed a fine English tradition had been revived. He was, said one cricket reporter, “a tail-end rabbit in the Watership Down class”. Fletcher admitted: “I have slight reservations about his batting.” But that has changed. Panesar is a shoo-in for England, even for the one-day side. Rumours of his uselessness with the bat were exaggerated. So, if he still nearly failed to make the side because of his batting, what chance a Phil Tufnell playing for England today?
The era of the really awful No. 11 seems over and TWC decided it was a good time to look back at the 1980s and ’90s – a golden age of English tail-end incompetence. Among those who could boast that the size of their boots was twice their batting average, who was worst of all?
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Complacent England?
By Will 4 years ago, at the start of June, 1 Comment »
Interesting day’s play today. Before tea, it looked like Sri Lanka were going to be bundled out for a paltry total before their best batsmen this series, Chaminda Vaas, dug them out of another sizeable whole. It’s a shame this is the last Test of the series, as there’s an interesting trend developing.
England look so utterly dominant in the field at times that you wonder how Sri Lanka will ever scratch out an innings. Yet with the (now dreaded) mention of the tail, England’s polished bowling and control seem to vanish out of the window. Sri Lanka will be chuffed to bits in reaching 231 (off the top of my head), and Vaas was again instrumental in getting them that far – so much so that I wrote some things about him.
It demonstrates Sri Lanka’s resiliance, certainly. But more importantly it exposes a curious problem with England’s bowlers (or attitude?) who, this series, have been caught short. I did say in my piece at Cricinfo that it “smacked of complacency” which, on reflection, is a little tough on them. But nevertheless, I think bowling attacks around the world have yet to react to the new wave of tailend batsmen; they’re a different beast these days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be afforded any more respect than they ever were.
Ian Botham is of the opinion that tailenders should be bounced out – chin music and all that – and intimidated which, on the basis of the dross England bowled at Nos. 9, 10 and jack, is a fair idea. Yes tailenders have added defence to their armoury, but let’s not forget their position in the batting order.
1 Comment »Gimme a tailender
By Will 4 years ago, at the end of January, 31 Comments »
It’s perhaps a bit disconcerting that I should admit this, but what the heck. I find the current India / Pakistan series completely dull and utterly arduous. I’m not actually watching it – more’s the pity – but, by all accounts, it sounds like a dreadfully painful match. I want Ashes cricket and I want it now. I want Steve Waugh to be grinding a hundred; Mike Atherton to scratch out one of his even uglier innings; I want Merv Hughes to spit at Peter Such, and laugh at his pathetic attempts to get bat on ball; in fact, I want a return to genuine tailend batsmen.
The loss of tailenders has been a disaster to cricket. They are now a rare beast, lurking among the local leagues around the world. For the lower-order batsman playing for their countries, they can now either hold up and end or score relatively freely. WHAT? I didn’t sign up to that, thanks very much. What about our tailend heroes? Tufnell, Such, Fraser; Hughes, May, McGrath; Walsh, Ambrose, Benjamin. And, of course, Danny Morrison, although his record-efforts of saving a Test (correct me if I’m wrong, which I usually am about anything historical) do edge him out of the class of a genuine muppet.
I want these back. I don’t want super-slick, multi-dimensional, do-it-all (and B&Q) players. I want batsmen that can bat brilliantly. When the batsmen roll their arms over, I want them to do a Bob Willis impression (his bowling action, not his suicidally-dull voice) and make a fool of themselves. Nevermind if they concede 12 or 30 from the over – give us some chuffing entertainment and stop taking it all so seriously. And I want brilliant bowlers; bowlers who couldn’t bat even if they had weekly training sessions with Boycott and Bradman. I want them to fall over, ideally on their stumps, or on their arse, with predictable regularity. Make them look foolish, and give the fans what they want!
Not a clue what I’m on about, but perhaps it explains my dislike of cricket’s new found “slick” and shiny and business-oriented nature. Graham Gooch, when he did his Bob Willis impression, had me in fits. It wasn’t that funny, in actual fact – it just demonstrated cricket’s ability to be bigger than just a game; for there to be interesting and funny parts to the days play. Tailenders were apart of that (“Way hay, it’s Such and Tufnell! Here. We. Go!”). Nowadays, the emphasis is on etching out as many runs as possible, an admirable statement of intent – and one I admire especially when England play – but let’s not forget cricket is a game, and everyone involved should treat it as such.
31 Comments »