Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
It is, but I honestly don't think it really matters all that much. So many of those innings fail to fit the generalisation of fourth-innings = always the toughest time to bat and the most important time to make runs.
In any case, one can play a good fourth-innings innings even if they score only 15; if they last 100 deliveries and help save a game that would otherwise have been lost it's a tremendous effort. An example would be Darren Gough (all right, he's not a front-line batsman, but an innings is an innings) here, or, more famously, Paul Collingwood here (that was only 51 balls, so not quite so impressive as the Gough effort, but with even more at stake).
Now I don't actually know that there are any instances of such in the Stephen Waugh case, there may well not be, but this is more about the stereotype than the case-scenario.
In any case, one can play a good fourth-innings innings even if they score only 15; if they last 100 deliveries and help save a game that would otherwise have been lost it's a tremendous effort. An example would be Darren Gough (all right, he's not a front-line batsman, but an innings is an innings) here, or, more famously, Paul Collingwood here (that was only 51 balls, so not quite so impressive as the Gough effort, but with even more at stake).
Now I don't actually know that there are any instances of such in the Stephen Waugh case, there may well not be, but this is more about the stereotype than the case-scenario.