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

[Aislabie]

Devon Smith

A bold call to pick someone with a Test hundred and an average well over 20, but his 38 caps buy you about three dreadful one-cap wonders

 

[Bevab]

Mohammad Sami

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• Sami emerged at just the right time for Pakistan as legends like Waqar and Wasim were about to wind down their careers. The young and rapid pacer did everything possible to keep the hype levels off the chart, with a five wicket haul in his debut test and a deserved man of the match award with figures of 8/106.
• So why is he in here, especially as a round two pick? That excellent bowling figures he picked up in his debut? They still remain his best match bowling performance till date.
• His top five performances in terms of wickets were all before 2005, with only one of those in 2004. His star had already begun to wane clearly.
• Sure, Sami has a hat-trick in both tests and ODIs. He also has the inglorious distinction of bowling the most number of deliveries in a single over in international cricket. A man who could win you a game when he wakes up on the right side of his bed, but also one who is bound to disappoint you on potential 9.5/10 occasions.
• Sami was ironically a very fit and quick bowler. This means that he will bowl long spells of fiery deliveries (he had an in-swinger, out-swinger, reverse-swinger and a toe-crusher) with every erroneous line possible. All you need to do is get bat on ball and Sami's pace will ensure that you get plenty of boundaries before losing your wicket. Surely that isn't impossible for even players with an average of less than 20?
• To make things even better, Sami was a decent option in ODIs and has been one of the standout performers in the Pakistani T20 circuit for years. Who better than someone who has shown loads of talent and potential elsewhere but pissed it away in the longest form of the game back when tests mattered a lot more?
• You would have believed that Sami was ruined by bowling on Asian pitches which offer barely any assistance for pacers and you would be forgiven for it. Yet, Sami has good numbers only in Zimbabwe (no doubt helped by Zimbabwe being pretty bad at the game of cricket) and is terrible everywhere else with the exception of New Zealand where he is just below average (but is an average of 35 in such bowler friendly conditions something to boast about?). In England where he would be most optimal on paper, he has an incredible average of 58 and his economy rate is 4.26 there which is the highest among all the countries he has bowled in. Yikes.
• One good quality in Sami was that no matter how many disappointments he had to deal with due to constant recalls and surprise selections without any result, he has never openly criticised the PCB. This shows his inner mental fortitude, which will surely aid him as he serves up disappointing spell after spell for my team without losing hope.

Current XI:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. J. Ikin (position yet to be decided)
7.
8.
9. M. Sami
10.
11.

@Willoughby63 to pick next.

 

[Willoughby63]

Denesh Ramdin averaged 25 in test cricket, while playing an extraordinary 74 matches. He captained the Windies for 1 year in 2014. His role in my team will be as a no. 6 and a Wicket Keeper, but will also play the just as important role of giving me 9 one or two cap wonders.
@Willoughby63’s 11:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Denesh Ramdin
7.
8. Chris Harris
9.
10.
11.

Caps:97/100

@blockerdave to pick

 

[blockerdave]

LOUIS STRICKER
A part time keeper, part time bowler, and full time failed batsman, Louis Stricker (FC average 22.9) Played 13 tests for South Africa as a specialist batsman between 1910 and 1912, scoring a mere 344 runs in 24 inns at an average of 14.33 and high score of 48.

He also took one wicket, giving him a test average of 105.

He'll probably slot in at 6, not yet decided if he'll keep wicket.

@Aislabie

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #16: Floyd Reifer

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Profile
At the Antigua Recreation Ground in 1997, a dashing 24-year-old comes out to bat at number three on his Test debut for the home side. After Sherwin Williams had tried to go too hard at the bowling, the young Reifer restrains himself, resisting for an hour before he nicks behind and is out for a promising but ultimately insubstantial 29.

Twelve years later, the same batsman saunters out at number five in Grenada, for what will prove to be the last time in Test cricket. He is a captain now and his team could be in trouble; their lead 101 with only seven wickets left, and the wicket still not misbehaving. A captain's innings is required, but ultimately Reifer cannot provide it - he is instead trapped LBW by Mahmudullah Riyad's bit-part off-spin for only three, and his West Indies collapse to what will be their first ever Test series defeat at the hands of Bangladesh.

But the twelve years in between could have been home to a storied career, but they weren't. That 29 on debut was a score that he would never surpass in Test cricket. He absolutely did not meet the standards required. All of his Test innings, from debut to final departure, read 29, 1, 0, 18, 0, 9, 0, 6, 25, 19, 1, 3. That's all she wrote. So how did he become the captain of the West Indies, a role previously held by the likes of Worrell, Sobers, Lloyd, Richards and Lara? Simply by being the only slightly senior player in the whole of the West Indies who hadn't gone on strike with the rest of the regular Test squad, and by virtue of some competent but unremarkable performances for Barbados.

Statistics
TESTS - 111 runs @ 9.25 (best 29) 6 matches
FIRST CLASS - 7,641 runs @ 30.68 (13 centuries, best 200) in 154 matches

Role in the Team
Traditional cricketing wisdom suggests your best batsman is probably at number four, and will be the team's captain. Floyd Reifer is my team's number four and captain. Who knows what that's going to say for the rest of them.

Aislabie's XI so far:
1.
2.
3. Matt Poore (Pick #1, 14 caps)
4. Floyd Reifer (Pick #16, 6 caps)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

(20/100 caps so far)

Next pick:
@Willoughby63

 

[Willoughby63]

John Warr played two test matches for England, taking 1 wicket at 281 and averaging 1 with the bat.

Willoughby63’s XI

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Denesh Ramdin
7.
8. Chris Harris
9.
10.
11. John Warr

@Bevab

 

[Aislabie]

8. Chris Martin

You mean Harris

 

[Willoughby63]

You mean Harris

Changed

 

[Bigby Wolf]

Abdur Razzak

Abdur Razzak was renowned for his Limited overs performances for Bangladesh in the 2000s and the early 2010s. Played a key role in some of Bangladesh’s famous wins in their cricketing history bowling some tight spell with his slow left arm.Despite being highly successful in the first class level for Khulna becoming the only Bangladeshi player to 500 wickets his international performances were quite mediocre to say the least.In his 13 test match career he only managed to pick 28 test wickets at an average of 59.74.His performances for Khulna late in his career earned him a place back in the Bangladeshi side in the series where he managed to bag his best test figures picking up 4/63 but perhaps that was too little too late considering the emergence of young spinners like Mehdi Hasan etc.
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FC Stats : M-128 W-581 Avg-28.95 5WI/10WI-39/10

Tests : M-12 W-28 Avg-59.74 5WI/10WI- 0/0

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Bigby's XI :

1. Neil Fairbrother
2.
3.
4. Lawrence Miller
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.Abdur Razzak
11.

Test Caps - 35/100.

​

With @Bevab being not able to post his pick after more than 24 hrs I decided to carry on the process of draft and posted my pick.

@blockerdave is up next.

​

 

[Bevab]

Wonder how I missed out on this.

Jehan Mubarak
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• Mubarak played for Sri Lanka in both the 2000s and 2010s and was equally ineffective in both periods.
• Mubarak's first taste of test cricket came versus Bangladesh. An extremely weak side that would have been the ideal side against whom you could pile on the runs, Mubarak scored just a grand total of 55 runs across both the innings. For comparison, Vandort who was playing his second test in the same game scored 201 runs. Not the most auspicious of starts indeed.
• Mubarak was arguably not the worst batsman in his next game versus South Africa. However, Jayasuriya was clearly the first choice opener and this meant that Mubarak had to wait until 2004 for his next game.
• Mubarak then played for Sri Lanka down at 6 versus Pakistan, which marked the beginning of him being shuffled across the batting order as the Lankans tried to find a position where he could have been most effective.
• Further games versus India and England followed as Mubarak was mostly restricted to the role of an ineffective backup who was too good for domestic cricket but terrible on the international stage.
• It appeared as if his international career was over following a home series versus England where he didn't make a double digit score once. However, following two consecutive seasons of more than a thousand first-class runs in 2013 and 2014, Mubarak earned a recall to a Sri Lankan side in transition.
• He was even praised by Rhodes for his fielding skills. Sufficient to say, there was genuine hope that the 35 year old Mubarak had finally enough ability and maturity to be the Lankan version of Adam Voges. However, he flattered to deceive yet again with his highest score of 49 in three tests coming in that Galle test where Chandimal led Sri Lanka to a famous victory with one of the greatest batting performances in Asia.
• Sri Lanka had no use for a 35 year old batsman who lacked international experience and batted down at 7, even if there were calls for him to be the potential Sangakkara replacement back in 2014.
• Ability wise, Mubarak had a very good cover drive and was a fantastic fielder. He was also a part-time spinner but didn't pick a single wicket for Sri Lanka.
• Mubarak's test career featured zero fifties, five ducks in thirteen tests, a batting average of 17.50, strike rate of 43.50 and genuinely awful performances playing for arguably the most balanced Asian side in those times. Mubarak also did not play versus the strongest side of those times to further worsen his record either.

 

[Aislabie]

Abdur Razzak
​

You've jumped the gun there.

Now that @Bevab has made his pick, it is actually @VC the slogger who is up next.

If he chooses to pick Abdur Razzak himself, then your pick will become invalid and you will have to make a change. If he doesn't, we continue to @blockerdave after that.

Also, the index is updated. I still find it amazing that someone has gone for Chris Harris and Denesh Ramdin as their first two picks, but who knows if it's a strategy that will work.

 

[Willoughby63]

Also, the index is updated. I still find it amazing that someone has gone for Chris Harris and Denesh Ramdin as their first two picks, but who knows if it's a strategy that will work.

I’m all for experimenting!

 

[Aislabie]

I’m all for experimenting!

It could work really well though. I have an idea for what you could do with a team like that to make it almost unbeatably beatable, but I don't want to over-share it in case you'd not already thought of it.

I'll try to remember to post at the end if it's not the decision you make!

 

[blockerdave]

You've jumped the gun there.

Now that @Bevab has made his pick, it is actually @VC the slogger who is up next.

If he chooses to pick Abdur Razzak himself, then your pick will become invalid and you will have to make a change. If he doesn't, we continue to @blockerdave after that.

Also, the index is updated. I still find it amazing that someone has gone for Chris Harris and Denesh Ramdin as their first two picks, but who knows if it's a strategy that will work.

I think one cap wonders objectively aren’t as bad as players who’s sustained being terrible over several matches.

That’s not to say I would pick Harris or Ramdin, but the idea of picking a few “better shit” players in order to free up space for a one cap wonder or several is odd to me.

with a few exceptions, I think a player being selected only once says more about the selector than the player

 

[Bigby Wolf]

You've jumped the gun there.

Now that @Bevab has made his pick, it is actually @VC the slogger who is up next.

If he chooses to pick Abdur Razzak himself, then your pick will become invalid and you will have to make a change. If he doesn't, we continue to @blockerdave after that.

Also, the index is updated. I still find it amazing that someone has gone for Chris Harris and Denesh Ramdin as their first two picks, but who knows if it's a strategy that will work.

What on earth? Feck How did I miss that.

Apologies everyone.