The best minnow basher of this decade

[The Sean]

Including the minnow-bashing- kinda

Excluding the minnow-bashing, his test career is somewhere close to pretty ******* horrible (esp with the ball)

I figured someone might take issue with that, so I was careful to say "distinguished" rather than "outstanding" - I think nearly 300 Test wickets (even if helped substantially by minnows), over 3,000 Test runs, Test captaincy and a number of fine performances against even the stronger sides entitles him to be considered a more-than-decent Test cricketer. Certainly a class above someone like Irfan Pathan, who I was comparing him to in terms of minnow bashing.

 

[SJS]

How do we define a minnow?

We generally agree that Bangladesh are minnows. They were minnows when they joined the Test ranks and have continued to be minnows. They have lost every single series they have played except when they beat a Mugabe-stricken Zimbabwe in early 2005. So we have our first undisputed Minnow.

Then we come to Zimbabwe.

• They joined Test ranks in 1992, drew their first test and the one test series against India.
• Its not often realised that other than Australia who beat England in that very first Test ever in 1877, Zimbabwe is the only country not to lose their first Test match.
• They went on to draw series against Sri Lanka (94-95), New Zealand in New Zealand (95-96), England (96-97), New Zealand (97-98), New Zealand (2000-01) and India (2000-01).
• They were not winning too many Tests against established sides but were far from being white-washed even in the small series they played and kept putting up a good show.
• They beat Bangladesh three times in a row and lost to them only when their own cricket was demolished by politics.
• The most remarkable achievement of theirs was to actually win a couple of Test series from established Test nations. This was in 1998-99 when in successive series they beat India and Pakistan 1-0 each.

Clearly, Zimbabwe were a decent side at least till the end of the season 2001-02. However since their wins came just in that one season lets include them as our second "minnow side" though they do have a case to be out of that criteria for at least a few years.

So our list grows to two.

1. Bangladesh (Beginning till date)
2. Zimbabwe (Beginning till date)

Now once we put them Zimbabwe of the turn of the millennium here, we really need to ask ourselves whether there have been/are other candidates for this even if it is for part of their existence. I removed the series with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh for all the other Test playing countries and looked for periods of as bad performances as the two minnows.

One case that stood out is West Indies from(and including) the tour of England in 2000 till at least their tour of England in 2007. This is how they fared during these eight years.

[B]
	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn[/B]
[B]Series[/B]	73	7	48	18
[B]Tests[/B]	21	2	18	1

The series they won were against India at home in 2001-02 (2-1) and against Sri Lanka, also at home, in 2002-03 (1-0)

This is not a better record than Zimbabwe during their earlier period before politics took over.

Since then they have played five series and drawn two of them (Sri Lanka and New Zealand), lost 2-1 to South Africa and 2-0 to Australia and now have beaten England at home.

I would like to believe that maybe we will see better times ahead. Lets see.
To be continued. . .

 

[zaremba]

Building on SJS's post, there have been times when I'd say England were pushing for Minnow status.

Anyhow the answer to the question is, of course, Matthew "380" Hayden.

Murali also bashed minnows pretty effectively but his record against others is outstanding in a way that Hayden's isn't.

In my all-time World XI versus minnows, Hayden would be the first name on the team sheet.

 

[Slifer]

How do we define a minnow?

We generally agree that Bangladesh are minnows. They were minnows when they joined the Test ranks and have continued to be minnows. They have lost every single series they have played except when they beat a Mugabe-stricken Zimbabwe in early 2005. So we have our first undisputed Minnow.

Then we come to Zimbabwe.

• They joined Test ranks in 1992, drew their first test and the one test series against India.
• Its not often realised that other than Australia who beat England in that very first Test ever in 1877, Zimbabwe is the only country not to lose their first Test match.
• They went on to draw series against Sri Lanka (94-95), New Zealand in New Zealand (95-96), England (96-97), New Zealand (97-98), New Zealand (2000-01) and India (2000-01).
• They were not winning too many Tests against established sides but were far from being white-washed even in the small series they played and kept putting up a good show.
• They beat Bangladesh three times in a row and lost to them only when their own cricket was demolished by politics.
• The most remarkable achievement of theirs was to actually win a couple of Test series from established Test nations. This was in 1998-99 when in successive series they beat India and Pakistan 1-0 each.

Clearly, Zimbabwe were a decent side at least till the end of the season 2001-02. However since their wins came just in that one season lets include them as our second "minnow side" though they do have a case to be out of that criteria for at least a few years.

So our list grows to two.

1. Bangladesh (Beginning till date)
2. Zimbabwe (Beginning till date)

Now once we put them Zimbabwe of the turn of the millennium here, we really need to ask ourselves whether there have been/are other candidates for this even if it is for part of their existence. I removed the series with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh for all the other Test playing countries and looked for periods of as bad performances as the two minnows.

One case that stood out is West Indies from(and including) the tour of England in 2000 till at least their tour of England in 2007. This is how they fared during these eight years.

[B]
	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn[/B]
[B]Series[/B]	73	7	48	18
[B]Tests[/B]	21	2	18	1

The series they won were against India at home in 2001-02 (2-1) and against Sri Lanka, also at home, in 2002-03 (1-0)

This is not a better record than Zimbabwe during their earlier period before politics took over.

Since then they have played five series and drawn two of them (Sri Lanka and New Zealand), lost 2-1 to South Africa and 2-0 to Australia and now have beaten England at home.

I would like to believe that maybe we will see better times ahead. Lets see.
To be continued. . .

No doubt SJS, WI up until maybe last year were a minnow-esque

 

[steve132]

I usually damn players if they bash minnows but tend to go missing agaisnt the better teams (esp the very best) Thats y for example among the great WI bastmen Walcott and Weekes will always be a rung below Lara, Viv and Sobers for me. They did well against the lower teams (India at the time) and performed poorly against the better sides (Aust. and Eng) particularly in away tests. BTW please note that i never called India a minnow.

Weekes maybe, but not Walcott, who scored 8 centuries in a span of 10 Tests against England and Australia in 1954 and 1955.

Strangely enough, most observers (including Australian and English cricketers) considered Weekes to be the greatest of the W's, although his best performances were against the weakest teams of his era - New Zealand and India. I agree with your judgment that Sobers, Viv Richards and Lara were all greater batsmen.

 

[Slifer]

U r right about Walcott to an extent. But he didnt perform too well in Australia nor England for that matter. of course there are very few batsmen who are wholly perfect (except for Bradman) so maybe im being a bit harsh on him.

 

[SJS]

continued. . .

So we now have three sides in our Minnow list, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and West Indies from their summer tours to England between 2000 and 2007 (both inclusive) Lets look at other Test debutants.

Most teams are expectedly weak when they join the Test ranks which means they offer easy pray to the established Test ranks for some time. Of course we would have to exclude the first two Test sides from that 'distinction since we need them as the first 'established Test sides' ! Hence South Africa offer us the first possible case of a test minnow.

The Minnows to Beat All Minnows​

South Africa - pre WW-I​

If there has been any side to match Bangladesh's poor relative strength in Test cricket, South African early teams have to be strong contenders. Despite the fact that often times, teams (particularly England) sent teams consisting almost entirely of players who were no where close to making the side against Australia, the South Africans were pulverized. Some of the greatest bowling figures of all time come from English bowlers making merry against hapless African batsmen. Barnes, great bowler that he undoubtedly was, really terrorized the Africans. Have a look.

1888-89 : England in South Africa - 2 Tests :

The English Team consisted of :-

• 1 regular bowler - Briggs
• 2 regular batsmen - Abel and Read
• 1 regular all rounder - Ulyett
• 8 debutants !!

This is just the twelve they needed to play in the Test matches. Six of those eight debutants never played any Test cricket after this tour and the other two just played a couple of games against South Africa. It seems England had their own list of 'unimportant players' to play in 'unimportant Tests' !

Clearly England felt a couple of bowlers and a couple of batsmen were all they needed to demolish this fledgling side and they weren't wrong.

• Abel scored 189 runs in the 2 Tests at 94.5 !
• Briggs took 21 wickets at 4.8 !
• South Africa had a top score by any batsman of 29 !
• Three of the four South African innings totalledf 84, 47 and 43 !

While Briggs took those wickets at under 5, the rest of his career Test wickets came at 20.6. Not so flattering but then Australia were not South Africa.
Enough said.
​

1891-92 : England in South Africa - 1 Test :

It was a one Test tour. England needed only 11 players, six of them debutants, five of these debutants never played a Test again nor did four of the five others !!

• One regular batsman Wood scored an unbeaten 134 and one regular bowler John Ferris took 13 wickets at 7 runs each and that was enough to beat South Africa by an innings and plenty.
• South Africa now had played six Test innings and got into three figures (as a team) only once !
• No South African batsman had yet reached fifty runs (yes FIFTY) in a Test innings !

1895 -96 South Africa in England - 3 Tests :

Once again England decided to play South on tour since clearly they did not think matches against South Africa were good enough to disrupt their domestic cricket. Playing the first three test series, however, they used 14 players as many as 12 of them were debutants. Of the other two, SMJ Woods was a fast bowling all-rounder who was approaching forty and had last played in a Test in 1888, O'Brien had played one Test each in 1884 and 1888 and had a batting average of 6.00 to show for his six Test innings - he did not bowl !

It was a laughable and yet a telling commentary on what England thought of South African cricket. A 14 member side with a sum total of 5 Tests experience between them. and even that was from 1884 1888 and not much to talk of though Sammy Woods had once been a fine cricketer indeed.!

Yet there was one saving grace. Three of the 12 debutants were to turn out into outstanding Test stars. They were, Fry, Hayward and Lohmann. Another, Arthur Hill was the outstanding batsman on this tour but never played for England again. Between the four of them they were enough for all South Africa had to offer.

The result was mayhem.

• Hill, Hayward and Fry between them scored 562 runs at 51.1 with two centuries.
• The entire South African side scored (in all the six innings of the series) 615 runs at 10.25 each !
• For England Lohmann took 35 wickets in the three Tests at 5.80 each ! This record still stands after 115 years !
• All the South African bowlers put together took 39 wickets in the series at 5 times the cost per wicket !
• Once again no South African batsman managed to score even a fifty in a series and South Africa were in one Test innings bowled out for just 30 runs ! A record which stood for 59 years till the Kiwis "beat" it by four runs.

- England had in three series played 25 debutants, only four of whom ever played against any other country. Of the other 11 players they played, five never played another test match.

- South Africa in 6 test matches over three series and 7 years had yet to record an individual fifty.

- Three England bowlers (Briggs, Ferris and Lohmann) had, in just six Test matches, taken 69 Test wickets at 5.7 each !

This was mockery of Test cricket and does not have any other equal in the entire history of the game.

There was more to come. . .
​

1898-99 - England in South Africa - 2 tests :

For the last series of the century, England wanted to do something special I suppose.

Of the 12 players who represented England on this series, none had played for England against any other country before !
9 were absolute new comers to Test cricket.
Two had played South Africa before on their debut tours (this one being their last) Lord Hawke, the better known of the two used this tour to take his batting career average to a remarkable 7.86. Of course it was below his Lordship to bowl a ball.
The last member of the side had played in Tests before but for the real enemy, Australia.

Albert Trott, the Australian all rounder had played in the Ashes series of 1894-95 and had 9 wickets at the then modest average of 21.33. However with the bat he had shone - averaging 102.5 in the series thanks to an unbeaten 85 not out and a couple of other unbeaten innings including another fifty. Playing for England against South Africa was Trott's opportunity to shore up his bowling averages and he managed that all right.

Trott took 17 wickets in the two Test matches at 11.6 each and then never played again to end his short Test career with a respectable bowling average of 15.0 ! South Africa had added glory to another bowler's figures.

Once again England had a few good debutants. Warner and Tyldesley as batsmen headed the batting averages (69 and 40 respectively) and Haigh as the bowler assited Trott ably with 14 wickets at 15.7 each.

South Africa lost both games but at last they had one player who stoof out, even if it was against an England B side.

• James H Sinclair scored the country's first Test century and played another innings of 86 besides AND took 9 Test wickets at 9.9 each.
• No other South African batsman reached even 40 runs in an innings and South Africa.
• In the two innings that Sinclair failed South Africans were bowled out for 99 and 35 ! That second score was the second lowest score in Test cricket till Kiwis 26 and South Africa's own repeat of another 30 run innings, consigned it to the 4th spot where it remains till date.

At the end of the century, South Africa had, in 12 years of Test cricket, played four series and lost them all, played 12 Tests and lost them all (mostly by massive margins) and all to teams essentially made of debutants and non-regulars. If there ever was a side that wasn;t ready for test cricket, South Africa were that side. Here is what their players did in those 12 years.

• In 160 completed innings they scored just one hundred and one other fifty plus score and had a combined batting average of 9.9.
• Their bowlers took 107 wickets at more than two and a half times that cost. And remember they were playing non-regular sides !

The new century came and South Africa awaited a new visitor to their shores in Australia in 1902-03 hoping for better results.

. . . to be continued

 

[Steulen]

Although excellent as ever, SJS, I'm not sure what the likes of Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock would have to say about you labelling their late 20th-century team as the minnow of all minnows

 

[bagapath]

SJS! I think Steulen is asking you to fix the dates in your earlier post. you've got "19" istead of "18" while discussing the SA teams of the late 19th century.

 

[SJS]

SJS! I think Steulen is asking you to fix the dates in your earlier post. you've got "19" istead of "18" while discussing the SA teams of the late 19th century.

I am positively too old for this

Offending post deleted

 

[SJS]

The first team to tour South Africa in the new century were a new opposition for them The Australians.

1902-03 : Australia in South Africa - 3 Tests

The Australians either took South Africans too seriously or though Test cricket was not to be scoffed at. The fact that inspite of it being their own domestic season as well (unlike England) they took a completely representative side with not a single debutant, shows them in better light (in my humble opinion) than the Englishmen. Australia have almost always taken their international obligations more seriously than have England and it has been true from the very beginning till the present day.

South Africa lost the series 2-0 but they had managed quite a few firsts.

• They drew a test match for the first time
• They had two centuries in a series (both by Sinclair who must became the only batsman to score all of the three first centuries scored by a player from one country).
• Tancred 97 and Llewellyn 90 came close to getting their own hundreds and with Nourse getting a seventy, it was the first time more than one batsman had scored a fifty in a South African series.
• Llewellyn's 25 wickets in the 3 Test series is till today the best by a South African. It remained the third best tally for a three Test series for 82 years till Hadlee got 33 against the Aussies.
• Six South African batsmen besides Sinclair (47.7) averaged in the 20's. Thats one better than all the earlier series put together.
• They actually scored 454 in their first innings of the series and made Australia follow on ! They had previously only once managed to go past 200.

Is that good enough to classify the South Africans as a non-minnow. No not yet. In eleven Tests they had won only ten although 8 of those were against worse than second rate sides.

But clearly they were improving.​

1905-06 England in South Africa - 5 Tests

For some reason England decided that South Africa deserved a full tour. Probably it was the reputation that Sinclair and Llewellyn's exploits had acquired. Whatever be the reason, they refused to compromise with the policy of blooding youngsters on a tour to South Africa although 39 year old Ernest Hayes' was not really short in the tooth when he played his first test on this tour. Again half the debutants never played another test after this series.

Board is not included amongst the debutants only because he played a solitary Test against the "minnows" before and Wynard was making his last tour at the ripe old age of 45 !

England brought not a single top class batsman so that inspite of having 7 so-called, non-debutants, they were the weakest batting side to go to South Africa.

Bluthe was the only good experienced bowler and though he and debutant Lees got 47 wickets between them, the cost at 21.6 was not devastating enough to make up for the poor batting and the less than great 'change' bowling.

The first Test match was a fantastic affair.

South Africa looked like they would go the way of the earlier home sides when they were bundled out for 91 in the first innings and set 287 to win in the first test. At 105 for six they looked set to lose by a huge margin. Then Arthur Nourse (who had been unbeaten with 18 ib the first knock) put on 121 with White. South Africa then lost three wickets in succession to be 239 for 9 and still 48 runs away from a win and in came Percy Sherwell. The only debutant, wicket keeper and captain I know who also batted at number eleven !!

Sherwell's Test aggregate before this was his solitary run in the first innings. With Nourse he actually managed to stay on till the target was reached with Nourse 93 not out and the skipper on 22 !

The series and turned on its head. South Africa went on to win the second test by 9 wickets, the third by 243 runs and the last by an innings and 16. The fact that they lost the fourth did not make any difference to the fact that they had trounced England. They needed to be taken a bit more seriously.

White 54.6, Nourse 47.2 and Vogler 34.3 atopped the batting for South Africa while England's best came way behind - Fane 38.0, Crawford 31.2 and Relf 22.9.
Amongst the bowlers, the combined leader board has five South Africans at the top, then one Englishman and then another 3 Englishmen. Colin Blythe comes in next, so low were his average per wicket cost.

England's bowlers took their wickets at 27.6 while the hosts took theirs at 17.7 !
None of the South African bowlers averaged higher than 22.3 per wicket, England had only one under that and some in the 30's forties and beyond !
England's policy of taking a tour of South Africa so very lightly had got what it deserved, a humiliating defeat.

South Africa seemed to have discovered a host of stars - all rounders as well as leg break googly bowlers who, at least against this English side looked like world beaters. have a look

[B]Player        	Bat avg	Wkts	Bowl avg[/B]
White        	54.6	2	15
Nourse      	48.2	6	12.8
Snooke     	27.1	24	15.4
Vogler       	34.3	9	22.3
Sinclair	20	21	19.9
Schwarz		18	17.2
Faulkner		14	19.4

Thats a lot of good performances for one series but I still consider them minnows. One because England were yet o test them with a full side and two because they had played nowhere except at home on matting stretched across concrete. Completely different in nature to anything they were to encounter anywhere else in the world.

But a tour to England was on its way.​

continued. . .

 

[SJS]

1907 : South Africa in England - 3 Tests

Finally South Africa leave their shores to play cricket on different wickets and in another country. Their defeating Warner's band the previous year may or may not have got them a tour of England but it certainly got them to play the full strength English side. Stung by the defeat England played their best and there was only one debutant amongst the twelve players who played for England in this series. There had been 41 in the previous five series!

South Africa lost the series losing one test by 53 runs and drawing the other two. The This was by far their best performance in Test cricket. The Tests in this series were reduced to three day affairs. That saved South Africa although they were making a fist of it in the third Test.

There batting was not as confident as it had been at home recently. Captain wicket keeper Sherwood was the only centurion (now confident enough to promote himself to opening the innings). There were only two other scores above fifty. The best batting average was Faulkner's at 31 odd. It was the bowling of Vogler and Faulkner that was the better part of the series for South Africa. The two of them took 27 wickets between them for around 19 each. For England Blythe, a terror at home, alone took 26 at 10.4 !

South Africa were not disgraced but they had yet to prove a match.​

1909-10 England in South Africa

England again took six debutants, four of whom never played again after this series, another played only in South Africa. The sixth debutant was Strudwick the great wicket keeper.

The team had two other very promising youngsters who had already debuted in the previous two years - Jack Hobbs and Frank Wolley.

The team again relied on the experienced Blythe to do all the bowling and when he was unable to do so (he was fit enough to play only two of the five Tests) they had only two debutants (Simpson Hayward and Buckenham) and Thompson who had previously bowled just four overs in his solitary Test appearance to rely on. Not surprisingly, England lost every one of the three tests Blythe did not play (and one in which he did).

The three other bowlers named did take 67 wickets between them but the cost (24.7 each) was too high and England lost 4-1. None of these three bowlers ever played a Test match.

England had once again put all their bowling trust in the hands of one man and lost the gamble.

1910-11 South Africa in Australia - 5 Tests

Next season South Africa made their first ever tour to Australiaa. Once again they faced a full Australian side and once again they were trounced - this time 4-1 - losing three games by big margins.

Trumper (94.4), Hill , Bardsley and armstrong averaged above fifty and Kelleway in the 40's. Among the bowlers, fast bowler Whitty took 37 wickets at 17.1, leg spinner Hordern 14 at just over 21 but Cotter (one of the fastest bowlers of all time) and Armstrong got their 33 wickets at 28.8 and 46.1 each. These South Africans could bat.

Faulkner and Zulch got a couple of hundreds each and Snooke got another. Faulkner averaged above 70 and Zulch just a fraction under 40. There were 12 other scores above 50 in the series. The South Africans, though they lost 4-1, were no push overs. South Africa's first tour to the Oz did not show them in poor light and Faulkner and others were widely appreciated​

It is clear that around this time, South African cricket was well developed. They had undertaken full tours of Australia and a three Test tour of England. They had produced all rounders like Sinclair and Nourse, four fine leg spinners/googly bowlers and their current side included, in Faulkner, one of the game's great all rounders and Sherwood was a fine wicket-keeper batsman. One is tempted to grant them a non-minnow status at this stage. Actually if one ignores the fact that the English teams that toured South Africa were not full strength, the Proteas had performed very creditably in their last four test series.

[B]Series                                	Matches	 Result[/B]
1905-1906 South Africa v. England	5	South Africa 4-1
1907 England v. South Africa      	3	England 1-0
1909-1910 South Africa v. England	5	South Africa 3-2
1910-1911 Australia v. South Africa	5	Australia 4-1

There is a strong case to call them minnows before their series win in 1905-06. If we do not do that, and there is some justification in that since they were not playing fully representative sides, one may have to look askance at some of the earlier tours to other countries, including to the sub-continent. And mind you in the sub-continent, we may not have got a team full of debutants, we also never beat those 'B' teams with such an emphatic margin.

So before we proceed further we need to ask ourselves whether South Africa had done enough by beating England in two successive series (at home) to be included as a Test regular side ?

 

[Uppercut]

Building on SJS's post, there have been times when I'd say England were pushing for Minnow status.

Anyhow the answer to the question is, of course, Matthew "380" Hayden.

Murali also bashed minnows pretty effectively but his record against others is outstanding in a way that Hayden's isn't.

In my all-time World XI versus minnows, Hayden would be the first name on the team sheet.

Hayden's record against Bangladesh is pretty poor. You're giving his bashing abilities too much credit- although i sense that's not what you're trying to do. Hayden's record is, incidentally, pretty damn good against a lot of other sides too. Take the minnows out and you'll still have trouble finding too many openers with a better one.

 

[SJS]

Hayden's record against Bangladesh is pretty poor. You're giving his bashing abilities too much credit- although i sense that's not what you're trying to do. Hayden's record is, incidentally, pretty damn good against a lot of other sides too. Take the minnows out and you'll still have trouble finding too many openers with a better one.

I tend to agree. I mean if a world class batsman is faced with a club class bowling side, what is he expected to do except bat them out of the match. Most top batsmen would do that. Bradman would have scored multiple quadruple hundreds against Bangladesh. That shouldn't reduce his status. All you can do is keep the record against minnows aside and look at the figures and see if it still is a good record.

Hammond thrashed New Zealand attack to a triple century in very short time and hit ten sixes besides 36 boundaries - but thats because he was the greatest batsman in the world bar one for decades. What else could he do ?

I do not think Hayden is an all time great but he was one of the world's best opening batsmen of his time.

Between the tour to India in 2000-01 and the tour to India in 2007-08, he scored over 7700 runs in just 81 Test matches at over 58 per innings. You will be very hard pressed to find many openers (if any) with such a sustained record of excellence over such a long time.

Take away Bangladesh and Zimbabwe from that period and you still have a very impressive record

• Tests : 75
• Runs : 7037
• 100's : 23
• 50's : 27
• Highest : 203
• Avg : 56.3

Well we took away his world record score of 380 and his series average of 250 plus and these are still figures to require some matching.

Give it a try. It should be fun

He was good. He had a very bad start to his career averaging under 25 in his first 13 Tests, otherwise his figures, already very impressive, would have been a statisticians delight.

 

[SJS]

It is very interesting to see the improvement in the South African batting skills. Here is a graph showing the bowling averages of their entire opposition attack in each of their series discussed so far. Since we agree that some of those attacks, at least the five that are of England on tour to South Africa, do not represent a great bowling attack on the whole and depended heavily on one world class bowler, I have also given the average of th top wicket taker of each series.

Even here the progress of South African batting skills are apparent, They were now able to handle with some degree of competence, the best bowlers in the world and this was showing in their results.

PS : That big dip in 1907 is due to the first time they played away from home.​

But lightening was to strike them soon, in the form of the greatest bowler of all time - Syd Barnes.

 

[Jono]

Hayden got out to the USA in a ODI.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Building on SJS's post, there have been times when I'd say England were pushing for Minnow status.

Anyhow the answer to the question is, of course, Matthew "380" Hayden.

Murali also bashed minnows pretty effectively but his record against others is outstanding in a way that Hayden's isn't.

In my all-time World XI versus minnows, Hayden would be the first name on the team sheet.

Hayden played 2 good innings out of about 10 against minnows, you muppet.

Also, it's a bit rich to call Sachin Tendulkar a minnow-basher because he made all of his runs when Zimbabwe were a half-decent side.

 

[Uppercut]

Hayden played 2 good innings out of about 10 against minnows, you muppet.

Haha, i can't believe someone is saying this as an argument in favour of Hayden. Not scoring runs against Bangladesh is a bad thing!

Also, it's a bit rich to call Sachin Tendulkar a minnow-basher because he made all of his runs when Zimbabwe were a half-decent side.

Depends when exactly you place Zimbabwe's decline. Tendulkar by and large failed against Zimbabwe (in not many tests, mind) when they played before the turn of the century and cashed in against them for a few years from 2000-2003.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Haha, i can't believe someone is saying this as an argument in favour of Hayden. Not scoring runs against Bangladesh is a bad thing!

Not scoring runs against Bangladesh is irrelevant. Unlike Zimbabwe, they've never produced a world-class cricketer and Hayden's 380 came against a bowler who finished his career with over 200 Test wickets at an average of under 30.

 

[Redbacks]

It's futile, there is an abstract stat in direct proportion to any claims Hayden could hold a bat and great lengths will be taken to find it.