When the tail wagged against India

Indian bowlers have often been frustrated by lower-order batsmen. This happened in the first Test of this series as well as the first innings of the second Test.

Here we list all scores in Tests of 70 and above from No 8-11 (sorry, 12) against India:

This includes several debut scores (including 137* by Neesham, 105 by BR Taylor, 103* by Samaraweera to begin with) as well as career-best scores of 173 by IDS Smith, 137* by Neesham, 107 by Christiani and numerous others such as MA Starc, MD Marshall, TT Bresnan and even Anderson and Muralitharan. The most recent entry is KA Maharaj with 72.

We also look at the averages (with a minimum of 10 innings) for those who batted at 8-12 against India:

Vettori, Broad and Starc have scored the most runs here. Starc, JO Holder and Broad have done well in recent years.

Finally, partnerships of 90+ from the 8th wicket onward against India:

Ironically the highest such partnership is for the last wicket, when Anderson scored his only Test fifty. From the current series we have Maharaj and Philander with 109 for the 9th, and Muthusamy and Piedt with 91 for the 8th.

 

 

More tailend heroics-1

The best scores while batting at numbers 9, 10 and 11:

At No 9: (75 and above):

At No 10 (60 and above):

At No 11 (50 and above):

More than 25 in each innings at No 11:

This table is for those with 2 innings and over 50 runs. It can be seen that only TJ Murtagh has scored 25+ in each innings.

Finally, those who have scored a fifty in each innings at 9 to 11:

It can be verified that both of them scored 50+ in both innings at No 9.