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

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #54: Mushfiqur Rahman
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Profile
If you google "Mushfiqur Rahman", you get a bunch of results about Mushfiqur Rahim instead. Once you sift through them, you'll find enough information to deduce that Rahman was Rajshahi's second-ever Test cricketer, and that he was a personal favourite of Dav Whatmore's.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to back up his coach's faith with any significant on-field results. Although he made his Test debut batting at number eight and bowling second-change, he was swiftly promoted into the top six of the batting order, and sometimes even entrusted with the new ball. This is more a reflection of the lack of value ascribed to seam bowling by Bangladeshi selectors as anything else, because although Cricinfo charitably describes him as "fast-medium" (less of the fast, more of the medium), his profile more accurately describes him as "guileless but accurate".

His batting never really offered anything at the highest level: at his best, he eked out a couple of painful 30+ scores against England at less than two an over from the top six; at his worst, he managed successive scores of 0, 0, 1, 0, 22 and 0. Ultimately though, he simply wasn't an international class player.

Statistics
TESTS - 232 runs @ 13.64 (best 46*) and 13 wickets @ 63.30 (best 4/65) in 10 matches
FIRST CLASS - 2,448 runs @ 25.50 (1 century, best 115) and 133 wickets @ 28.20 (3 5WI, best 5/40) in 66 matches

Role in the Team
In his least-worst ever Test match, Mushfiqur Rahman batted at six and opened the bowling. It seems only fair that this is his role in my team.

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. 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.
11.

(90/100 caps so far)

Next pick:
@blockerdave

 

[Bevab]

Updated two of my posts with short write-ups about Mubarak and McAlister. @Aislabie has done enough justice to Jacobius Duminy, who I should add 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.

Jock Edwards deserves a separate post of his own, which I shall provide soon.

 

[Aislabie]

Excellent effort, much appreciated

 

[blockerdave]

I choose Trevor Gripper, of Zmibabwe. Has a 'Test' Hundred ( 112 scored in 2001 vs Bangladesh, so it hardly counts) as well as a further 5 50's including a 60 on debut against Australia (WTF!?). And yet overall in 38 inns he scored just 809 runs at an average of 21.86

His very part time offspin got him 6 wickets at 84.83, but he was the bowler who dismissed Matthew Hayden for a then world-record 380.

As in real life he'll open the batting for my team, and when our toothless attack are getting nowhere, he'll turn his arm over too.

1. Trevor Gripper (Zim) 20 Caps
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

100 Caps used.

Over to you @Bevab for a double pick.

 

[Aislabie]

Howard Francis was an opening batsman who averaged 9.75 in 2 tests.

Outstanding pick. He's the godawful opener I wish I'd remembered to pick

 

[Aislabie]

@Bevab has two late picks
@VC the slogger has one late pick

And @blockerdave can make his next pick now as well

 

[Bevab]

Roger Wijesuriya with a humongous bowling strike rate of 586 across 4 matches. For years, Wijesuriya's awful bowling average stood the test of time as the worst in test history and was a landmark that many one cap wonders and incompetent players tried to better. As his Cricinfo profile describes "....on average it took Wijesuriya 97 overs to take a wicket. In other words, if he bowled at both ends throughout a five-day Test, the opposition would be only four down at the end of the match ... and they would have scored 1355 runs".

Wijesuriya lacked the prodigious turn that was the hallmark of many Lankan spinners and instead had to rely on trying to bowl continuously with just effort and heart to try and outwit the batsmen in a game of concentration. However, he lacked the pinpoint accuracy that such bowlers possessed and so would easily deliver the bad balls that gave batsmen the release shots to relieve the pressure he had barely built.

 

[Aislabie]

Roger Wijesuriya with a humongous bowling strike rate of 586 across 4 matches.

Excellent selection. You still have one more

 

[VC the slogger]

Will make my pick later today. Have been incredibly busy these past few days, thereby getting very little time to research awful players.

 

[Aislabie]

Overall Pick #59: Jack Edwards
​

Profile
Okay, so imagine you used to play first-class cricket for Victoria. You were generally regarded as an excellent fielder, but you could barely ever make any runs. You'd block a lot and do your best to hold an end up, but it just didn't work out. You also didn't really bowl; you were a competent leg-spinner, but not really good enough to get a bowl at Shield level. Your career, it's fair to say, is going nowhere fast.

So the bank that you work for (remember, there's no money in cricket in those days) offers you a more senior position. The only catch is that it's in Bendigo; a long way away from the Victoria set-up; it basically spells the end of your cricket career. You think to yourself, what cricket career? At Shield level you're a non-batting batsman. So you take the job, and in Bendigo (a small-ish town of around 10,000 hardy Victorian-era Victorians) you find yourself a club to play for. Free of the pressure, you rack up a load of runs.

Does anything about that story make you feel like you deserve a Test call-up? Because that's how John Dunlop Edwards found his way into the Australian Test team for the 1888 Ashes tour in England, a tour on which he played 34 of his 51 first-class matches. Of those, he played three Tests, and in all honesty an average of nearly ten was probably better than could have been expected because he had never been a first-class quality batsman, even though he was selected for some unknown reason to bat in the middle order for Australia. It was a different time. Maybe he had grainy sepia nudes of Percy McDonnell?

Statistics
TESTS - 48 runs @ 9.60 (best 26) in 3 matches
FIRST CLASS - 961 runs @ 13.72 (best 65) and 7 wickets @ 27.71 (best 2/6) in 51 matches

Role in the Team
The mighty Edwards slots in at number five in this team; I'm not sure how this will work out for another batsman who I've had my eye on for some time, but hopefully VC will pick him up and I won't have to worry about 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.
11.

(93/100 caps so far)

Late picks:
@VC the slogger @Bevab @blockerdave (1 each)

Next pick:
@VC the slogger

 

[blockerdave]

Matthew Maynard. 4 matches, 0 50's. Average of 10.87.

Shocking player.

1. Trevor Gripper (Zim) 20 Caps
2. -
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. -
10. Manjurul Islan (Ban) 17 Caps
11. Everton Matambanadzo (Zim) 3 Caps

104 Caps used.

 

[Bevab]

For my first fairly controversial pick (after all, what good is a draft where you select the worst players without a selection controversy), I shall opt for Gogumal Kishenchand.

• Kishenchand played five tests, four of which came in India’s first tour of Australia where he struggled mightily in the tests against a fairly powerful bowling attack. The last game was versus Pakistan at home in Lucknow, a game famous for Pakistan’s historic maiden win.
• Kishenchand was a short batsman who was well known for his ability to play on the back foot and excellent footwork that allowed him to negate any weaknesses due to his build and provided him with the option of powerful drives. The diminutive-right hander also possessed a solid defence.
• In Ranji Trophy, Kishenchand was a beast who scored more than 7000 runs at an average of nearly 48. He was also a teenage wonder who was earmarked to be one of the future greats.
• So, why would I want to pick such a player? Because Kishenchand has an incredible record of having scored a duck in every test match that he has played. No other test player ever in history as played as many games scoring a duck in each game. This contributes to his scarcely believable batting average of 8.90. Kishenchand scored half of his test career runs in just one innings. This is not a statistical fluke, it is clearly a sign of someone who failed to handle the step-up to a higher level of cricket which is further evidenced by his last test coming at the age of 27, even if his most prolific Ranji seasons for Baroda were yet to come.
• Kishenchand was also the bowler against whom Bradman scored his 100th first-class century. Amarnath turned to him to for the first time on the tour to try and unsettle the Don but he was clearly too good for such simple mind games and Kishenchand was no good with the ball either.
• While he has a respectable bowling average of 31 and a five wicket haul in fC cricket, Kishenchand did not bowl a single ball in any of his five tests and only bowled on average two and a half overs per first-class match. He was a very occasional wrist spinner whose deliveries were innocuous most of the times and got to bowl only on the most spin friendly pitches.

Kishenchand shall bat at eight in my lineup, where he has four innings to his name. This weakens my bowling significantly while not adding anything with the bat to my lineup.

 

[Dutch]

Excellent thread this; entertaining and informative!

 

[Aislabie]

Excellent thread this; entertaining and informative!

Glad you're enjoying it! Credit should go to all of the participants who have for the most part done an excellent job at picking the very best/worst players available

 

[blockerdave]

For my first fairly controversial pick (after all, what good is a draft where you select the worst players without a selection controversy), I shall opt for Gogumal Kishenchand.

• Kishenchand played five tests, four of which came in India’s first tour of Australia where he struggled mightily in the tests against a fairly powerful bowling attack. The last game was versus Pakistan at home in Lucknow, a game famous for Pakistan’s historic maiden win.
• Kishenchand was a short batsman who was well known for his ability to play on the back foot and excellent footwork that allowed him to negate any weaknesses due to his build and provided him with the option of powerful drives. The diminutive-right hander also possessed a solid defence.
• In Ranji Trophy, Kishenchand was a beast who scored more than 7000 runs at an average of nearly 48. He was also a teenage wonder who was earmarked to be one of the future greats.
• So, why would I want to pick such a player? Because Kishenchand has an incredible record of having scored a duck in every test match that he has played. No other test player ever in history as played as many games scoring a duck in each game. This contributes to his scarcely believable batting average of 8.90. Kishenchand scored half of his test career runs in just one innings. This is not a statistical fluke, it is clearly a sign of someone who failed to handle the step-up to a higher level of cricket which is further evidenced by his last test coming at the age of 27, even if his most prolific Ranji seasons for Baroda were yet to come.
• Kishenchand was also the bowler against whom Bradman scored his 100th first-class century. Amarnath turned to him to for the first time on the tour to try and unsettle the Don but he was clearly too good for such simple mind games and Kishenchand was no good with the ball either.
• While he has a respectable bowling average of 31 and a five wicket haul in fC cricket, Kishenchand did not bowl a single ball in any of his five tests and only bowled on average two and a half overs per first-class match. He was a very occasional wrist spinner whose deliveries were innocuous most of the times and got to bowl only on the most spin friendly pitches.

Kishenchand shall bat at eight in my lineup, where he has four innings to his name. This weakens my bowling significantly while not adding anything with the bat to my lineup.

Really interesting post about a player I’d never heard of before.