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

[Aislabie]

@Willoughby63 - Has the next pick

@Bevab @VC the slogger - Both have late picks.

 

[Bigby Wolf]

@Willoughby63 - Has the next pick

Thanks man was trying real hard to figure out who was next.

 

[Willoughby63]

Albert Rose-Innes was an South African batting all-rounder, who averaged 3.50 with the bat and took 5 wickets, all in one innings on a horrific batting pitch, in 2 tests.

1. Albert Rose-Innes
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Denesh Ramdin
7. Chris Harris
8. Emile McMaster
9.
10.
11. John Warr [DOUBLEPOST=1569159725][/DOUBLEPOST]@Sinister One

 

[Master Bates]

Trevor Chappell

@Bevab

 

[Bevab]

Apologies for the delay. Been really busy with life over the last week.

Will make my pick in a couple of hours.

 

[Bevab]

Got three write-ups pending which I will hopefully finish in the next couple of days.

For now, my picks are Peter McAlister (more known for his off-field punches than on-field abilities) and Jock Edwards (as the wicket-keeper). Both of them played 8 tests too many in my opinion.

Peter McAlister​

• In a side filled with batting talents like Hill, Trumper, Bardsley, Macartney, McAlister stood out as the ugly duckling as even the all-rounders in Noble and Armstrong were better batsmen than him. Want a further point to illustrate how bad he was? In an era where keepers were selected purely on their merit of keeping without any consideration for their batting skill, Australia's keeper had a much healthier batting average than McAlister.
• McAlister's cricket career started when he was 29. He was a fine batsman in grade cricket, but average for Victoria and truly atrocious for Australia.
  
• McAlister was the weapon utilised by the 'Board of Control' to wrestle control, fame and money from the players to the 'faceless' men of cricket. Overlooked for the 1905 tour of England and further enraged by Laver's book detailing the tour, McAlister became the board's spy, treasurer and controversial vice-captain on the 1909 tour of England. He failed as a player on the field with a high score of 22 and the treasurer off the field as the players kept their profits completely.
  
• It was in 1912 when as the chairman of selectors he had his most controversial moment in the 20 minute brawl with Clem Hill, who nearly threw him out of the window. McAlister 'escaped' with just a cut nose, a bruise under the left eye and numerous scratches disfiguring his face. In the aftermath, the Big Six were dropped, Australia's tour in 1912 was a complete disaster with poor performances and ill discipline, a national cricket board was born that till date controls Australian cricket and players no longer owned the means of production.
  
• As a player, McAlister averaged 16 with a high score of 41 and seldom bowled. He will be the closest we have to a Vizzy, a player with too much power and the influence to negatively impact the side for personal gain.

1.
2.
3.
4. P. McAlister (potential captain choice)
5. J. Ikin
6. J. Mubarak (potential opener)
7. J. Edwards (might bat at 8 too depending on how the draft progresses)
8.
9. M. Sami
10.
11.

EDIT - forgot to tag @blockerdave for the next pick.

 

[VC the slogger]

I will go with Brian Chari as my second opener. Arguably one of the worst openers to get selected in international cricket, and IIRC had a FC average of below 20 when he was first selected for the Test team! Although that has gone up a bit in recent times, 254 runs at 18.14 from 7 Tests and 150 runs at 13.63 from 11 ODIs don't provide a very good reading.

Peter McAlister (more known for his off-field punches than on-field abilities)

The scumbag who prematurely ended the careers of Clem Hill and Victor Trumper. Damn, I really wanted to pick him..


@blockerdave

 

[Bevab]

The scumbag who prematurely ended the careers of Clem Hill and Victor Trumper. Damn, I really wanted to pick him..


@blockerdave

Vizzy and McAlister in the same team? That would have been very, very entertaining.

 

[blockerdave]

Alok Kapali, a middle-order leg-spinning all rounder who played 17 tests for Bangladesh, scoring just 584 runs at 17.69 (bizarrely he got 2 50s including an 85, so imagine how bad he was in all the other innings!) and took a mere 6 wickets in over 183 overs of bowling (1,103 balls), at an average of 118.16. (Again, his best inns figures was 3/3, so imagine how bad he was the rest of the time!)

Will slot in at number 6, and "bolster" my spin attack, backing up fellow leggie Salisbury. Keep your one-cap wonders, I want sustained incompetence, and I think Kapali is in a "class" of his own - an all rounder with a bowling average more than 100 runs higher than his batting average, the worst of test cricket indeed.

1. -
2. -
3. -
4. -
5. -
6. Alok Kapali (Ban) 17 Caps
7. Louis Stricker (SA) 12 Caps
8. Ian Salisbury (Eng) 15 Caps
9. -
10. Manjurul Islan (Ban) 17 Caps
11. Everton Matambanadzo (Zim) 3 Caps

64 Caps used.

@Aislabie has a double pick

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #40: Monkey Hornby

Profile
What's worse than an opening batsman who never made a Test fifty? Well, how about one who never made double figures. While it is true that the cricket career of Albert Neilson Hornby belonged to a very different time - one when pitches were uncovered, and being considered both an amateur and a "good chap" were attributes enough to make one captain of one's county for a staggering 20 years, those attributes did not necessarily make one a better-than-ordinary cricketer.

Early in his career, Hornby's fidgety and energetic presence earned him the nickname "Monkey", which would eventually become so ubiquitous that he required a nickname for his nickname: he became simply "The Boss". At the batting crease though, he resembled the former far more than the latter: in the first-class game, he scored a century only once every 27 matches, but in Test cricket his best contribution stood at a thoroughly mediocre nine.

He was described as having "great difficulty against Spofforth" - no shame in that, most batsmen did - but he also struggled on the occasion that there was no Spofforth to face, managing scores of four and nothing. He did serve as England captain, most notably on the losing side in the Test that birthed the legend of the Ashes, however his universal respect and good standing amongst his Nottinghamshire team suggests that he had actual leadership qualities: this is why he will not be captain, and we will be sticking with Reifer.

Statistics
TESTS - 21 runs @ 3.50 (best 9) in 3 matches
FIRST CLASS - 16,109 runs @ 24.07 (16 centuries, best 188) in 437 matches

Role in the Team
What could be better in a draft such as this than a non-batting opening batsman? There is still a chance that he may end up opening with Giffen, if my other opening candidates get picked before I can get to them.

Overall Pick #41: Andy Whittall

Profile
I desperately wanted to select my second opening batsman here, but I couldn't look past the necessity of selecting my front-line spinner when there remained only one option who was sufficiently lacking in quality: Zimbabwe's Andy Whittall.

Our hero accumulated ten Test caps, but could not match the accomplishments of either of his near-namesakes in that classic Zimbabwe team: both Guy Whittall (his cousin) and Andy Waller (not a relation) thoroughly outperformed him, which was particularly impressive given that the latter could manage only two Test caps due to the demands of owning and operating a large tobacco farm. Whittall had no such hindrance, save for being a spinner who didn't spin the ball, or do anything else with it in particular.

With a skill-set like that, it's hardly a shocker that he was seen as mostly a limited-overs specialist, but Zimbabwe's tiny player pool did also ensure that for about three years, he was picked whenever the Test team needed a second spinner. They needn't have bothered: they would have been better off extending the career of a then 52-year-old John Traicos than throwing the ball to Whittall, who would finish his career as the worst bowler ever to play ten Tests. The real question is why he was picked in the first place - he had never played first-class cricket in Zimbabwe when they first called him up, with all his experience at that level having come playing for Cambridge University. Maybe they backed him to be clever enough to work out Test cricket on the job - or maybe it was just those beguiling blue eyes.

Statistics
TESTS - 114 runs @ 7.60 (best 17) and 7 wickets @ 105.14 (best 3/73) in 10 matches
FIRST CLASS - 985 runs @ 14.27 (best 91*) and 134 wickets @ 49.35 (5 5WI, best 6/46) in 62 matches

Role in the Team
Andy Whittall didn't score many Test runs, but his ability to block pretty well - coupled with a first-class best of 91 - allow him to slot in at number eight, although this may be subject to change depending on who fills the rest of my bowling "attack". His main role in our team is as the main spinner though - a role he is perfectly unqualified for.

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.
6.
7. Khaled Mashud (Pick #25, 44 caps)
8. Andy Whittall (Pick #41, 10 caps)
9. Walter Giffen (Pick #24, 3 caps)
10.
11.

(80/100 caps so far)

Next pick:
@blockerdave

 

[Aislabie]

Keep your one-cap wonders, I want sustained incompetence, and I think Kapali is in a "class" of his own - an all rounder with a bowling average more than 100 runs higher than his batting average, the worst of test cricket indeed.

There's definitely a strong case for him as one of the very worst all-rounders in Test history. Half of his Test wickets came in three balls (yep, Test hat-trick) with the other three spread over 1,100 balls. That's impressively toothless, and his batting was also pretty ungood.

 

[blockerdave]

Another poor all rounder, Pakistani Maqsood Ahmed. "Stalwart" of the first Pakistani Test sides, he has the distinction of having a highest score of 99, one of just 2 50s in 27 inns, as he made 507 runs at 19.5, while also his medium pace trundlers picked up 3 wickets at 63.66 with a strike rate of 154.

Probably didn't bowl enough to justify being first change, so though I was tempted to play him at 6 and slot the others down 1, he'll be my stroke maker at 5.

1. -
2. -
3. -
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. -
10. Manjurul Islan (Ban) 17 Caps
11. Everton Matambanadzo (Zim) 3 Caps

80 Caps used.

 

[Aislabie]

@Bevab - it's that time again

 

[Bevab]

Jacobus Duminy, who played a grand total of three test matches with a highest score of 12 and showing total incompetence. @Aislabie has done enough justice to Jacobius Duminy in his post below, to which I should add that Duminy was an academic first and a very crucial figure off the field in addition to his sudden recall to the national team due to him being on holiday in Switzerland at that time.

@Sinister One is up next.

 

[Aislabie]

Jacobus Duminy, who played a grand total of three test matches with a highest score of 12 and showing total incompetence.

There are a few people who are eligible for this draft who are truly remarkable in non-cricketing ways, and Jacobus Duminy is one of them. He was way outside the curve in that he was a white South African who stood up to Apartheid on the basis of right and wrong, regardless of his own interests. He also gave back a lot to the game, and was the original Luke Pomersbach (got picked for a Test match despite being left out of the squad because he just happened to be on holiday nearby at the time). I'm glad he got picked.