Some might consider it a batting skill in its own right, with Collingwood batting above Bell in the current Bangladesh Test the question occurs to me who would you pick in your country's Test XI, or someone else's, to bat with the tail?
And if you like extend that to past batsmen, who do you think is/was good at batting with the tail and who do you think should be or should have been promoted higher up the order so they didn't end up batting with the tail? For instance I'd have left Graeme Hick to his own devices and batted him higher than six every time, let him focus on his game and of course he had big score potential. On the flip side I always felt players like Gus Logie and Shivnarine Chanderpaul seemed good batting lower down for the West Indies.
Logie averaged just 33.17 batting at six for West Indies, yet he batted there 52 times out of 78 (2/3) I remember his annoying presence against England in 1988, made only two fifties in the series but his 364 series runs were perhaps as decisive as Dujon's 305 (two highest runscorers for West Indies) and Marshall's 35 wickets. He wasn't quite so influential in the 89/90 series, but his 98 in the 3rd Test was nearly half West Indies 1st innings runs and that drawn Test left England 1-0 up instead of 2-0 up and West Indies wrapped up a 2-1 series win from there
And if you like extend that to past batsmen, who do you think is/was good at batting with the tail and who do you think should be or should have been promoted higher up the order so they didn't end up batting with the tail? For instance I'd have left Graeme Hick to his own devices and batted him higher than six every time, let him focus on his game and of course he had big score potential. On the flip side I always felt players like Gus Logie and Shivnarine Chanderpaul seemed good batting lower down for the West Indies.
Logie averaged just 33.17 batting at six for West Indies, yet he batted there 52 times out of 78 (2/3) I remember his annoying presence against England in 1988, made only two fifties in the series but his 364 series runs were perhaps as decisive as Dujon's 305 (two highest runscorers for West Indies) and Marshall's 35 wickets. He wasn't quite so influential in the 89/90 series, but his 98 in the 3rd Test was nearly half West Indies 1st innings runs and that drawn Test left England 1-0 up instead of 2-0 up and West Indies wrapped up a 2-1 series win from there
