Draft: The Worst of Test Cricket / Poll Up / Tournament Done

[blockerdave]

Invalid pick as I had already picked him very early in the draft. No. 26

OK, sorry.

In which case I'll take Henry Cave of New Zealand.

 

[Willoughby63]

@VC the slogger 24h since last pick

 

[Bevab]

Lonwabo Tsotsobe. (5 caps)

Picking him mainly because it was an absolute surprise that a bowler with fitness and stamina issues like him was picked to play test matches. He shall nicely complement Sami who could bowl longer spells while Tsotsobe tries his best to do an imitation of Mitch Johnson with his short, 3 over spells of generous medium pace that is never threatening. Like Mubarak, he was part of arguably the strongest test side in his country’s history which makes his selection in their respective squads even more baffling. A bowling average just shy of 50 indicates his inability and the fact that his best performance came on a green Durban pitch where Laxman was the only batsman to even cross 50 shows how much that average has been helped by a friendly home series on helpful pitches.

And to top it all, Tsotsobe was convicted of match fixing in 2017 and is currently serving an eight year ban. Incompetence on the field and controversies off the field, what more could you ask for?

 

[Master Bates]

@Willoughby63 @VC the slogger

 

[Willoughby63]

Rawl Lewis is a West Indian bowling (leg-spin) all-rounder, who played 5 test matches. With the ball, he struggled phenomenally, taking just 4 wickets at 114. With the bat, he fared only slightly better, averaging just over 8, including a high score of 40. Amazingly his 5 tests spanned over 11 years, his debut in 1997 and his final test in 2008. His final two tests in 2008 rescued his stats slightly, as after 98’ his average with the ball was 344. He is now interim operations manager of the Windies.
My team:

1. Albert Rose-Innes
2. Howard Francis
3. Rob Quiney
4.
5.
6. Denesh Ramdin
7. Chris Harris
8. Emile McMaster
9. Rawl Lewis
10. Nilesh Kulkarni
11. John Warr [DOUBLEPOST=1570346987][/DOUBLEPOST]@Bigby Wolf

 

[Bigby Wolf]

Sanath Kaluperuma

Sri Lanka had their glory days and were force to reckon with back in the late 90s till the mid of the current decade but beyond and after Sri Lankan team have their struggles. Kaluperuma played in the era of 80s was a top order played and a part time off spinner played 4 Tests for Lanka scoring only 88 Runs at an average of just 11 and even struggle to get past 30 in the 8 innings he played with the high score being 23.

Stats : Tests M - 4 I - 8 Runs- 88 Avg - 11 HS - 23
Bowling Stats : M I - 6 W - 2 BBI -2/17 Avg - 62.

Bigby's XI :

1. Lawrence Miller
2.Akash Chopra
3.Sanath Kaluperuma
4.Basit Ali
5.
6 Neil Fairbrother
7. MSK Prasad
8.
9. Tapash Basiya
10.Abdur Razzak
11. Charl Langeveldt

Caps - 101/100

@CerealKiller has two picks now.

 

[CerealKiller]

My first pick is Indian 'keeper Sameer Dighe, who averaged 15 with the bat in 6 Tests in 2001. He was no specialist wicketkeeper, averaging 35 in FC cricket. In addition, he had a rather average showing behind the stumps.
My second pick is New Zealand's Murray Chapple. He averaged 19 in 14 Tests, playing mainly as a specialist batsman. He could also roll his arm over, his left-arm medium pace yielding 1 wicket at an average of 84 and SR of 248.

CerealKiller's XI
1. Devon Smith (38 caps)
2. Rajendra Chandrika (5 caps)
3. Vikram Rathour (6 caps)
4.
5. Ravi Bopara (13 caps)
6. Murray Chapple (14 caps)
7. Sameer Dighe (6 caps)
8. John Hastings (1 cap)
9. Bryce McGain (1 cap)
10. Rubel Hussain (26 caps)
11. Anwar Hossain Monir (3 caps)
(113 caps)
@Bigby Wolf

 

[Bigby Wolf]

Craig Serjeant

Craig Serjeant was a middle order batter for Australia who played in the late 70s. He made his debut for Australia in 1977 Ashes Series and scored 81 on debut batting at no.4 he continued his good form in the matches scoring 159 against Nottinghamshire and 55 against Yorkshire however in the 2nd test was dismissed cheaply for 14 and 8 and was dropped after failing in the next tour games as well for 3rd and 4th Test was picked again in the 5th test but this time as an opener and was dismissed for a Duck.Serjeant was picked for 1977-78 home series against India but scored a pair in the 1st test he played 4 tests in that series with his best innings coming at 1st Innings of the 3rd test where he scored 85.Serjeant was then picked for the West Indies tour where his up down performances continues and his only hundred came in the 3rd test of that tour scoring 124 in the first but a duck in the 2nd innings.Overall he played 12 Tests for Australia and batted mostly at no.4 few times at no.5 and as an opener as well but struggled to put a consistent performance.

Stats : Tests M - 12 I - 23 Runs- 522 Avg - 23.72 HS - 124 50s/100s - 1/2

Bigby's XI :

1. Lawrence Miller
2.Akash Chopra
3.Sanath Kaluperuma
4.Basit Ali
5.Craig Serjeant
6 Neil Fairbrother
7. MSK Prasad
8.
9. Tapash Basiya
10.Abdur Razzak
11. Charl Langeveldt

Caps - 113

@Willoughby63

 

[Willoughby63]

Robbie Kerr was an Australian batsman, who played in 2 tests. Averaging 7.75, with a top score of 17, he was dropped before the blink of an eye. He was, however, a decent player in the Sheffield Shield, averaging just shy of 40
My team

1. Albert Rose-Innes
2. Howard Francis
3. Rob Quiney
4. Robbie Kerr
5.
6. Denesh Ramdin
7. Chris Harris
8. Emile McMaster
9. Rawl Lewis
10. Nilesh Kulkarni
11. John Warr [DOUBLEPOST=1570518155][/DOUBLEPOST]@VC the slogger

 

[Aislabie]

@VC the slogger now has two outstanding picks.

@Bevab - You're up

 

[Willoughby63]

48h since last pick @blockerdave

 

[blockerdave]

I pick Blair Pocock of New Zealand, a terrible opener from the early 90s. 15 matches and 29 inns for 665 runs at 22.93 and a top score of 85.

1. Trevor Gripper (Zim) 20 Caps
2. Blair Pocock (NZ) 15 Caps
3. Matthew Maynard (Eng) 4 Caps
4. -
5. Maqsood Ahmed (Pak) 16 Caps
6. Alok Kapali (Ban) 17 Caps
7. Louis Stricker (SA) 12 Caps
8. Ian Salisbury (Eng) 15 Caps
9. Henry Cave (NZ) 19 Caps
10. Manjurul Islan (Ban) 17 Caps
11. Everton Matambanadzo (Zim) 3 Caps

138 caps used.

@Aislabie

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #79: Brandon Bess

Profile
2010 was a dark time for West Indies cricket. It followed close on the heels of 2009, which was an even darker time for West Indies cricket. The team picked for the third Test against South Africa, a game which the West Indies had to win in order to save the series, included such Test cricketing luminaries as Dale Richards, Narsingh Deonarine (actually his bowling record was pretty good - how did that happen?) and the mighty Nelon Pascal, who I v e r y nearly picked to fill this slot (seriously, somebody should). However, much like the opening bowler's role in my team, Nelon Pascal was unable to take his place in the West Indies side, owing to a pulled muscle in the warm-up mere moments before the toss.

The only possible explanation for what happened next is blind panic: with the non-playing squad members having been dispatched to represent their island sides in the first-class competition, and Barbados having an away game (as one would expect given that their ground was hosting the Test), there was a very limited selection of available talent that could be called upon to fill the void. However, while most of its players were also off representing their island sides, one fast-bowling resident of the Sagicor High Performance Centre in Barbados, Guyana's Brandon Bess, had not been able to make his national first-class side. This meant that he was still in Barbados. And this meant that he was probably the best option available given that the West Indies needed someone to take the new ball in less than an hour's time.

The call went out, and Brandon Bess - not good enough to be picked for Guyana - was to make his Test debut as an opening bowler. And he was bad. Here is a ball-by-ball of his spell with the second new ball: the first line of commentary from Tony Cozier announces an "Opportunity here for Bess to show his worst," a malaise that is entirely backed up by his absolutely chronic bowling figures being displayed on the screen at the time: his first five overs have gone for 36 runs, with only the consolation wicket of nightwatchman Paul Harris. He'd leaked 17% of the innings runs from only 6% of their overs. Cozier's co-commentator then agrees that "it's an interesting decision by Gayle... not to take the new ball, but to throw it to this young man who's in the side only due to - well - lack of players around".

Honestly, there was a little bit of promise here. When all of Bess' whirling limbs went in kind of the same direction, he could send the ball down at about 85 miles per hour. Unfortunately, he was all too often found to be banging the ball well into his own half, almost off the cut strip, and getting pumped for runs even as the umpire called "no-ball" because of course he compounded everything by overstepping. Brandon Bess finished his Test career after one ugly Test match, with the second-worst economy rate of all time (behind only Bryce McGain).

Statistics
TESTS - 11 runs @ 11.00 (best 11*) and 1 wicket @ 92.00 (best 1/65, econ. 7.07) in 1 match
FIRST CLASS - 206 runs @ 7.62 (best 33) and 56 wickets @ 40.33 (1 5WI, best 5/28) in 32 matches

Role in the Team
Bess slots nicely into his real-life role in this team: he's going to open the bowling with me, and he's going to leak runs while he does it.

Aislabie's XI so far:
1. Monkey Hornby (Pick #40, 3 caps)
2.
3. Matt Poore (Pick #1, 14 caps)
4. Floyd Reifer (Pick #16, 6 caps)
5. Jack Edwards (Pick #59, 3 caps)
6. Mushfiqur Rahman (Pick #54, 10 caps)
7. Khaled Mashud (Pick #25, 44 caps)
8. Andy Whittall (Pick #41, 10 caps)
9. Walter Giffen (Pick #24, 3 caps)
10. Lord Hawke (Pick #66, 5 caps)
11. Brandon Bess (Pick #79, 1 cap)

(99/100 caps so far)

Next pick:
@Sinister One

Late picks:
@VC the slogger (two) and @Bevab (one)

 

[Master Bates]

Mehrab Hossain
Ken Meuleman
Asoka De Silva
George Hearne
Trevor Chappell

Richard Blakey
Farveez Maharoof
Darren Powell
David O'Sullivan
Alamgir Kabir

Very unfortunate player to be in this draft. He played only one test match and scored 0 in his one and only innings. That does not mean he was a bad batsmen as he scored 7855 runs in Sheffield Shield at an average of 47.60.
@Bevab

 

[Aislabie]

(May I say that I can't wait to do the "here's who you could have won" bit at the end of the draft? There's a whole lot of pretty good players been picked up, when some real dross haven't been yet)