West Indies Tailenders

[rineet]

The batting performance by the west indies tailenders is pathetic. Their tail has not wagged for a long time now.Look at the 3rd test match in Barbados,last 3 wickets fell for just 4 runs. This is really bad. Tailenders are not expected to do much but they cant perform so badly like this!!

[Rob.]

The Windies tail is indeed pathetic, the only time I can remember it wagging the last few years in in the Old Trafford test against England where I seem to remember Corey Collymore hanging around for a bit.

With the current situation West Indies cricket finds itself in I think it is important that the Windies tailenders are encouraged to work much harder on their batting, this is so that if they find themselves in a situation where Windies have not got a lot of runs on the board they can at least stick around and frustrate the opposition and take away some of their momentum. Tailenders hanging around can give their team a big lift.

England and Australia have proven in the last year that stubborn tailenders can be the difference between winning and losing some games.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by The Legendary RB

England and Australia have proven in the last year that stubborn tailenders can be the difference between winning and losing some games.

Hmmm. Do you really think the England or Australian tail would last too long if faced with Ambrose, Marshall and co?

We've yet to see whether the England or Australian tail can contribute anything at the highest level as neither have actually faced that stern an examination.. but if McGrath, Gillespie and Warne are all at their best this summer I'd not expect much resistance from anyone below Giles in the England camp (and perhaps even from Giles).. and one lives in hope that Harmison will sort his act out and ensure that the likes of McGrath and Gillespie don't last too long either.

It's not, to my mind, that the WI tail contributes too little.. it's more that far too many teams are incapable of dealing with tailenders: in South Africa last winter neither England NOR South Africa could actually manage a decent amount of pressure on the second rate batsmen... and other sides have been failing equally abjectly.

If your tailenders are getting you out of jail it's surely because the opposition sucks so much that your top order shouldn't need any help. If your opposition is so hot that your top order needs help then you'd expect the tail end to sink: no sense expecting your nos 9-10-11 to succeed where 4-5-6 fail!

[Andy Mellon]

That's a little over simplistic Rachael. Certainly you don't want to be relying on the tail enders to do the bulk of the run scoring, but if you have tail enders that can stick around and grind out a few runs against decent attacks it can only be a good thing. I'm thinking about someone like Caddick here who on occasions had a bit of stickability. People like Warne, Gillespie and Giles all have a bit more about them then you appear willing to give them credit for. These aren't Tufnells or Malcolms, these are half decent batsmen. There's absolutely nothing to prevent someone like Giles succeeding even if the top 5 or 6 fail.

From what I have seen of the Windies, their bottom 3 are all of 'Malcolm' like ability. Duncan Fletcher has insisted on the England tail enders doing some batting practise that puts even the most abject of them above this level. Whilst I don't expect the tail to get as many runs vs Australia as they did vs South Africa, I do expect them to contribute to some late order runs. The other thing to remember about late order runs is how demoralising they can be to the opposition. I remember at least one of last years tests having a big contribution from Harmison at the end of England's innings that made a big difference.

[Rachael]

I'd be interested to see the scores of players of the ability of Hoggard, Warne and Gillespie against Holding, Marshall, Ambrose, Warne and Muralitharan: I doubt it's even close to their 1st class average!

I'm not averse to the general concern with batting amongst tail enders (though there have surely been fewer more glorious sights in the history of cricket than Walsh trying to emulate IVA)... but in truth it's always struck me that against a really classy attack... you need to be looking at the ability level of Vettori or Boje to enter the realm of the truly significant.

Giles is OK.. and Hoggard's not so bad... and Jones knows one end of a bat from another... but against Marshall and Ambrose I doubt they'd be that much more use to you than that clqassic trio of Mullally, Tuffers and Malcolm.

[Andy Mellon]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Giles is OK.. and Hoggard's not so bad... and Jones knows one end of a bat from another... but against Marshall and Ambrose I doubt they'd be that much more use to you than that clqassic trio of Mullally, Tuffers and Malcolm.

Well, we'll have to disagree on this one. Don't forget that the very tail enders you mention above came up against Pollock and Ntini in South Africa who are world class players. I know Marshall and Ambrose are very different bowlers, but I'd still back Giles to gain some valuable runs against them. Hoggard and Jones I'm not so sure about. Sometimes they'd get some runs, sometimes they wouldn't last five minutes. Certainly they'd perform better than Mullally, Tuffers and Malcolm!!!

[Lemming]

I think the thing tailenders can do is take advantage of bowlers complacancy (is that how you spell it??). Even against the best attacks you see tail's wag a little and smack a few runs, sometimes getting under the skin of top bowlers.

Often even the best bowlers get it wrong against tailenders and start trying to knock their head off or something instead of bowling at the stumps.

Another sort of relevent point is that the sort of balls a bowler may bowl to a top order batsman, i.e. on the spot line and length, outside off-stump may be slightly wasted against a tailender with them playing and missing continuously. Instead a clever bowler would pitch it up more and bowl straight at tailenders, looking for an LBW or bowled, balls which a top-order player would be able to deal with comfortably. Someone like Botham was brilliant at doing this, Flintoff can do this well at the moment.

Bowling line and length is a waiting game with top-order players, people like McGrath and Pollock do this well and get alot of wickets with balls which probably wouldn't hit the stumps, but crucially could be too good for a tailender to get anywhere near it and hence no wicket.

A poorer player such as a tailender can be attacked more with full straight bowling, this is not always an easy thing to do if you usually use bounce or line and length bowling. It is not always true of course, but I would say (in general, sort of), that balls which disappear for four when a top order player is batting, get the wicket of tailenders. On the other hand you are wasting your time trying to find the edge of the tailenders bat.

Knock his middle stump out ! That's what I say!!

[Trescothick]

Englands tail-end has improved an incredible amount! Looking back i used to always see a duck from Caddick and a number of others and it was embarssing. Being an international i would expect them to have picked up a bat and be able to defend or try and at least knock it around.

Our tail end starts with Giles i guess; and he is a brilliant man to have at 8, someone who can knock 20-40 without too much of a problem. Sometimes he'll get out cheaply but we can't blame him otherwise he'd be a known all-rounder.
Hoggard to me isn't very good at all, and him as a 'night watchman' has never impressed me personally. I can't see him ever scoring that far into double figures, although maybe i'm wrong.
S. Jones i am not sure about; I've never seen him to judge him
S. Harmison was embarssing before but he seems to have picked up the talent to knock it around the park a little bit if need be, hes certainly better than our old tail-enders and obviously better than J. Anderson



Getting to the original thread, i seem to remember the last two WI bastmen doing INCREDIBLY well against England in an ODI when we were certain to win they managed a 60+ partnership to do the impossible. So they aren't all that bad.

[Rachael]

I spent a moment or two looking at some past scorecards on crickinfo... and I have to admit that the likes of Caddick (who really COULD bat: he managed an unbeaten 49 against Australia, 48 against South Africa, 45 against New Zealand, and 29 not out against the WI) were good enough to occasionally achieve something even against the likes of Ambrose and Walsh.

That said.. an average of just 7 against the WI compared with an average of more than double that against SA and NZ kinda makes my point: tailender contributions are far more affected by the quality of the opposition than top order contributions!

I dispute the logic of slamming Hoggard's batting though: a tailenders contribution should really be measured in terms of the partnerships they help sustain not the runs they add... and against sides like the WI, NZ and SA (none of whom seem able to knock over tails) a guy like Hoggard can help a top order bat add 40-50-60 runs without getting into double figures himself.

A guy like Simon Jones is far more likely to get into double figures... probably of 6-7 balls.. but the partnership will tend to be negligible as the senior batsman will not get the same level of support.

[Trescothick]

Originally Posted by Rachael

I dispute the logic of slamming Hoggard's batting though: a tailenders contribution should really be measured in terms of the partnerships they help sustain not the runs they add... and against sides like the WI, NZ and SA (none of whom seem able to knock over tails) a guy like Hoggard can help a top order bat add 40-50-60 runs without getting into double figures himself.

True point actually.... I withdraw my insults to Hoggard becauyse although not a brilliant batsmen, your right he can help England by partnering another bat rather than scoring quickly but going cheaply.

Maybe i just watched the wrong matches for Caddick but i remember most innings being a very quick one.