Draft: One-Test Wonders

[Aislabie]

Jim Parks

Test stats: 29 runs @ 14.50 (best 22) and 3 wickets @ 12.00 (best 2/26) in 1 match
First-class stats: 21,369 runs @ 30.74 (41 centuries, best 197) and 852 wickets @ 26.74 (24 5WI, best 7/17) in 468 matches

I was reminded about Jim Parks when he was picked in the Panesar Draft, and he instantly became my next target in this draft. An adept opening batsman and medium-pace swing bowler, he is pretty much two cricketers for the price of one. He was also a one-club man, spending his entire career with Sussex. My apologies to @Na Maloom Afraad as I've 100% just poached his pick.

1.
2. Jim Parks
3. Ed Joyce
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. Andre Adams
9.
10.
11.

@ahmedleo414

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

I've 100% just poached his pick.

I consider that a compliment.

 

[ahmedleo414]

My pick goes to Zulqarnain Haider.

His stats:

Test:
Match: 1
Runs: 88
HS: 88
Ave: 44
100s: 0
50: 1
Catches: 2
Stumpings: 0

First Class:
Match: 102
Runs: 3965
HS: 161
Ave: 28.52
100s: 3
50: 21
Catches: 330
Stumpings: 11

A little bio from wiki

"Having played for Pakistan Under-19s, Haider was called up to the senior national side in 2010 as cover for wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal during their tour of England. Haider made his Test debut during the tour, but a broken finger limited him to one match."

My Team so far:

1. Rodney Redmond
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Zulqarnain Haider
8. Charles Aubrey Smith
9.
10.
11.

@El Loco you have the next pick

 

[El Loco]

My next pick is Douglas Carr, one of the early implementers of the legbreak googly who's career was stagnated by the First World War.

@CerealKiller

 

[CerealKiller]

Naman Ojha will keep wicket. He only debuted after MS Dhoni's retirement and Wriddhiman Saha being out with an injury, but he had an excellent domestic record, averaging 41 in 146 matches.

CerealKiller's XI
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Stuart Law
6. Naman Ojha
7.
8.
9
10.
11. Gobo Ashley

@Yash.

 

[Yash.]

My next player would be Vijay Yadav

Vijay Yadav was an aggressive batsman, and a good keeper who affected 2 stumpings in his only test. In first class cricket, he made 3988 @ 36.85 and was a really good keeper taking 237 catches and affecting 43 stumpings in his career

Yadav played a notable part in Haryana's Ranji Trophy triumph in 1990-91, getting runs handsomely and taking 24 catches and six stumpings. He did even better with the bat the next season, as well as snaring another 25 victims.

My team as of now...

1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. ?
6. Vijay Yadav
   
7. ?
8. Charlie Parker
   
9. R. Vinay Kumar
   
10. ?
11. ?

@Na Maloom Afraad

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

NMA's ONE-TEST WONDERS XI

Wally Hardinge
Ajay Sharma
Hardus Viljoen

Wally Hardinge will be my first opener.

"Wally Hardinge was a stylish opening batsman, a capable slow left-arm bowler and an athletic fielder. He made his debut for Kent at the age of 16, and played for them for the next 31 seasons, the only interruption being the Great War."

"An integral member of Kent's first four Championships (he passed 1,000 runs in a season on 18 occasions) in any other era Hardinge would have made far more than one Test appearance. But such were the numbers of talented openers - Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe to name two - his chances were almost non existent."

"His one Test was at Leeds against the all-conquering Australians of 1921 when he made 25 and 5."

"On retiring he briefly coached Leicestershire. Hardinge was a double international, capped at centre-forward for England against Scotland in 1910 (coincidently his match for England at cricket was also the only appearance for another double international, Andy Ducat). He also played for Newcastle United, Sheffield United and Arsenal."

Wisden Cricketer of The Year: 1915

You're up @VC the slogger

 

[VC the slogger]

My next pick shall be none other than Colin Munro, the explosive left-handed batting all-rounder who played a solitary Test for New Zealand versus South Africa in 2013, recording a golden duck in his first innings and scoring a meagre 15 in his second against a bowling attack spearheaded by the fiery duo of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel at their devastating best. He fared more respectably with the ball, claiming 2 for 40 off his 18 overs picking the wickets of Faf du Plessis and Robin Peterson. South Africa won by a huge innings and 193-run margin and blanked New Zealand 2-0 in a very one-sided Test series that had earlier seen them bowled out for a woeful 45 in the 1st Test at Cape Town, incidentally Brendon McCullum’s first as Test captain following a controversial takeover from Ross Taylor that had prompted Martin Crowe of all people to burn his old New Zealand Test captain’s blazer.

What’s that you say? Another goddamn T20 specialist/mercenary in my XI after Dre Russ? You must think I’ve completely lost my marbles. But just so it happens, I haven’t and my reason behind picking Munro is an extremely valid one - there has never, in all of creation been a batsman like him at first-class level, ever. In 48 first-class matches, he scored 3611 runs at a very impressive average of 51.58 with 13 centuries and 15 fifties, scoring his runs at an (wait for it..) un-freaking-believable strike rate of 98.79 runs per 100 balls. And his isn’t a batting average inflated by a large number of not outs like so many other batsmen with 50-plus averages; he had only 4 of those over the course of a 11-year first-class career stretching from 2006/07 to 2017/18. He also had an extremely good fifties to hundreds conversion rate of 46.4 i.e almost half his fifty plus scores would be converted into centuries, and really big ones too.

Two of his very best included a swashbuckling 269* off just 252 balls with 27 fours and 14 sixes in a drawn match against Wellington in November 2012, who had in their ranks England international Chris Woakes, the Kiwi Test-capped duo of Mark Gillespie and Grant Elliott, along with a future international in Scott Kuggeleijn. Three years later, he vented out his frustration of missing out on New Zealand’s historic 2015 World Cup campaign in the most brutal manner possible, by bludgeoning 281 off a mere 167 balls with a first-class record 23 sixes in an innings, a staggering 7 clear of the previous best of 16 achieved by his fellow countryman Jesse Ryder, Andrew Symonds, Graham Napier and Muktar Ali. This against fairly decent Central Districts bowling that included one-time Test regular Doug Bracewell, a man who once famously bowled New Zealand to a rare Test victory over Australia in their own backyard in 2011. His penchant for hitting sixes saw him strike a total of 137 sixes from just 74 innings during his red-ball career. Not bad for someone who debuted way back in 2006/07 as a No 11.

If all that isn’t enough, Munro was also a more than decent medium-fast bowler at first-class level, having originally started his career as a bowler who could bat a bit. As his career progressed, he was often used as a partnership breaker with a great deal of success. He claimed 58 wickets at a surprisingly good average of 27.51, an excellent figure for a part-time bowler in the 2000s and 2010s, claiming a best of 4 for 36 with the ball. Despite such figures with both bat and ball, he was consigned to the list of One-Test Wonders for his country as a result of a chastening debut and New Zealand subsequently settling on a middle-order of Taylor, McCullum, Nicholls/Anderson and Watling that would make them a force to reckon with in Test cricket after years of mediocrity. With little chance of breaking into the Test team, he hung up his boots in red ball cricket in early 2018 to focus on his white ball career.


VC’s XI

1)
2) Leslie Wight
3)
4) Colin Munro
5)
6)
7) Andre Russell
8)
9)
10)
11)

Munro can bat at No 4 in my XI, the position from where he scored his first-class best 281.

@Na Maloom Afraad

 

[Yash.]

Damn! Should’ve checked his stats, before just striking him off thinking him as a T20 star.

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

NMA's ONE-TEST WONDERS XI

Wally Hardinge
Ajay Sharma
John Stephenson
Hardus Viljoen

I'm choosing John Stephenson as my fourth pick, a player with 29,548 first-class runs and 798 first-class wickets. A useful hand. Despite that, he could only appear in one Test for England.

"John Stephenson was one of England's many one-cap wonders of the 1980s, brought in as an opening batsman against the all-conquering Australians at The Oval in 1989. He made 25 and 11, but it was not enough to win him a place on that winter's tour of West Indies. He subsequently did well enough to be chosen to play for England A, but never again came close to a Test recall."

"An upright batsman, and, at county level, a useful medium-pace bowler, he was also a good fielder. In 1994 he left Essex after being passed-over as captain of Essex after Graham Gooch stood down, moving to Hampshire."

"He returned to Chelmsford in 2002 to lead Essex's second XI, but did so well that he was recalled to the first team where he continued to turn in useful performances as a bowler - he ended 2002 as their leading wicket-taker with 48 wickets and also chipped in with 562 runs at 35."

You're next, @Yash.

 

[Master Bates]

My next pick shall be none other than Colin Munro, the explosive left-handed batting all-rounder who played a solitary Test for New Zealand versus South Africa in 2013, recording a golden duck in his first innings and scoring a meagre 15 in his second against a bowling attack spearheaded by the fiery duo of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel at their devastating best. He fared more respectably with the ball, claiming 2 for 40 off his 18 overs picking the wickets of Faf du Plessis and Robin Peterson. South Africa won by a huge innings and 193-run margin and blanked New Zealand 2-0 in a very one-sided Test series that had earlier seen them bowled out for a woeful 45 in the 1st Test at Cape Town, incidentally Brendon McCullum’s first as Test captain following a controversial takeover from Ross Taylor that had prompted Martin Crowe of all people to burn his old New Zealand Test captain’s blazer.

What’s that you say? Another goddamn T20 specialist/mercenary in my XI after Dre Russ? You must think I’ve completely lost my marbles. But just so it happens, I haven’t and my reason behind picking Munro is an extremely valid one - there has never, in all of creation been a batsman like him at first-class level, ever. In 48 first-class matches, he scored 3611 runs at a very impressive average of 51.58 with 13 centuries and 15 fifties, scoring his runs at an (wait for it..) un-freaking-believable strike rate of 98.79 runs per 100 balls. And his isn’t a batting average inflated by a large number of not outs like so many other batsmen with 50-plus averages; he had only 4 of those over the course of a 11-year first-class career stretching from 2006/07 to 2017/18. He also had an extremely good fifties to hundreds conversion rate of 46.4 i.e almost half his fifty plus scores would be converted into centuries, and really big ones too.

Two of his very best included a swashbuckling 269* off just 252 balls with 27 fours and 14 sixes in a drawn match against Wellington in November 2012, who had in their ranks England international Chris Woakes, the Kiwi Test-capped duo of Mark Gillespie and Grant Elliott, along with a future international in Scott Kuggeleijn. Three years later, he vented out his frustration of missing out on New Zealand’s historic 2015 World Cup campaign in the most brutal manner possible, by bludgeoning 281 off a mere 167 balls with a first-class record 23 sixes in an innings, a staggering 7 clear of the previous best of 16 achieved by his fellow countryman Jesse Ryder, Andrew Symonds, Graham Napier and Muktar Ali. This against fairly decent Central Districts bowling that included one-time Test regular Doug Bracewell, a man who once famously bowled New Zealand to a rare Test victory over Australia in their own backyard in 2011. His penchant for hitting sixes saw him strike a total of 137 sixes from just 74 innings during his red-ball career. Not bad for someone who debuted way back in 2006/07 as a No 11.

If all that isn’t enough, Munro was also a more than decent medium-fast bowler at first-class level, having originally started his career as a bowler who could bat a bit. As his career progressed, he was often used as a partnership breaker with a great deal of success. He claimed 58 wickets at a surprisingly good average of 27.51, an excellent figure for a part-time bowler in the 2000s and 2010s, claiming a best of 4 for 36 with the ball. Despite such figures with both bat and ball, he was consigned to the list of One-Test Wonders for his country as a result of a chastening debut and New Zealand subsequently settling on a middle-order of Taylor, McCullum, Nicholls/Anderson and Watling that would make them a force to reckon with in Test cricket after years of mediocrity. With little chance of breaking into the Test team, he hung up his boots in red ball cricket in early 2018 to focus on his white ball career.


VC’s XI

1)
2) Leslie Wight
3)
4) Colin Munro
5)
6)
7) Andre Russell
8)
9)
10)
11)

Munro can bat at No 4 in my XI, the position from where he scored his first-class best 281.

@Na Maloom Afraad

I know it is silly and people would not have considered but the way you represented him feels like a big loss for everyone

 

[Yash.]

I’ll go for Robin Singh.



Although he did play only 1 test, he was a true good all rounder in the Ranji trophy. With 6997 runs in First Class cricket, at an average of 46.03 with 22 centuries, he was an instrumental part of Tamil Nadu batting lineup. Also, with the ball, his Right Arm Medium were kind of useful to give the rest to some strike bowlers, and sometime break some partnerships. He took 172 wickets in First Class cricket at an average of 35.
And his fielding was just top class. Really top class. The cover point was his fixed position where he would stop hundreds of runs and take spectacular catches.

@CerealKiller

 

[VC the slogger]

I know it is silly and people would not have considered but the way you represented him feels like a big loss for everyone

He is in my opinion. You’d be hard pressed to find a batsman at FC level who could average 50+ and strike at almost 100. Heck, even Gilly and Sehwag only struck it at around 80-85. I really believe NZ should have persisted with him in the middle-order.

 

[CerealKiller]

I'll follow VC's lead here, and pick a LOs specialist, who just got one chance in Tests, perhaps unfairly, James Faulkner. He played a solitary Test in a dead rubber against England in 2013, taking 6/98 in the match, but he couldn’t find a place in the team after that (strange, considering how crap Mitchell Marsh was for a while). Faulkner wasn’t picked without reason, as he was Tasmania's best player for the preceding three seasons, helping them reach three finals of the Sheffield Shield, and win two, being Man of the Match in the '12/13 final. Overall, he has 2566 runs at an average of 30, along with 192 wickets at an average of 24, in 63 FC matches.


CerealKiller's XI
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Stuart Law
6. Naman Ojha
7. James Faulkner
8.
9
10.
11. Gobo Ashley

@VC the slogger

 

[VC the slogger]

I'll follow VC's lead here, and pick a LOs specialist, who just got one chance in Tests, perhaps unfairly, James Faulkner.

Good stats are good stats at the end of the day, whether they belong to LO or FC specialists. At least that’s how I see it, and wish real life selectors also did the same..

Faulkner’s a pretty good pick. Would have gone for him if I didn’t have Dre Russ in my XI already.