Found this
After Bob Willis claimed that Paul Harris was the worst bowler ever to play a test, it got me thinking about who is the worst Test XI that England have had in the last 30 years or so? Also open it up to other Test nations.
For England and just off the top of my head I would go with,
1 - Bill Athey (23 tests - 991 runs at 22.97)
2 - Geoff Cook (7 tests - 203 runs at 15.61)
3 - Rob Bailey (4 tests - 119 runs at 14.87)
4 - Chris Adams (5 tests - 104 runs at 13.00)
5 - Matthew Maynard (4 tests - 87 runs at 10.87)
6 - Chris Cowdrey (6 tests - 101 runs at 14.42 / 4 wickets at 77.25)
7 - Robert Blakey (2 tests - 7 runs at 1.75 / 2 ct)
8 - Gareth Batty (7 tests - 11 wickets at 66.63)
9 - Saj Mahmood (8 tests - 20 wickets at 38.10)
10 - Martin McCague (3 tests - 6 wickets at 65.00)
11 - Alan Igglesdon (3 tests - 6 wickets at 54.83)
Edit : Cowdrey as captain, Blakey as wicket keeper, McCague and Mahmood opening the bowling and Cowdrey offering the 5th bowling option.
Also considered were
Slack (3 tests - 81 runs at 13.50)
Gallian (3 tests - 74 runs at 12.33)
Afzaal (3 tests - 83 runs at 16.60)
Fairbrother (10 tests - 219 runs at 15.64)
Ramprakash (52 tests - 2350 at 27.32) - Mainly because he had the talent to average 45 plus at test level
Aftab Habib (2 tests - 27 runs at 8.66)
Hick (65 tests - 3383 at 31.32) - Again, like Ramps he under acheived
Jones (34 tests - 1172 runs at 23.91 / 128 ct 5 st)
Hamilton (1 test - 0 runs / 0 wickets)
Lewis (32 tests - 1105 runs at 23.02 / 93 wickets at 37.52) - Should have been a world class all-rounder.
A Hollioake (4 tests - 65 runs at 10.83 / 2 wickets at 33.50)
B Hollioake (2 tests - 44 runs at 11.00 / 4 wickets at 49.75)
Croft (21 tests - 49 wickets at 37.24)
Illingworth (9 tests - 19 wickets at 32.36)
Salisbury (15 tests - 20 wickets at 76.95)
Giles (54 tests - 143 wickets at 40.60) - Never looked like taking wickets, even when he was taking wickets.
Greg Thomas (5 tests - 10 wickets at 50.39)
Jarvis (9 tests - 21 wickets at 45.95)
Ormond (2 tests - 2 wickets at 92.50)
Patel (2 tests - 1 wicket at 180.00)
Radford (3 tests - 4 wickets at 87.75)
I challenge anyone, English or not to find a team that wouldn't comfortably beat my worst XI.
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Topic: Worst international 11 (Read 7885 times)