What it's like to be a true tailender... by the men who know better than most

This week's edition of The Analyst: Inside Cricket podcast features tales of horror and fear from the No.11 community, as SIMON HUGHES speaks to PHIL TUFNELL, JONATHAN AGNEW and MARK ROBINSON about their experiences...

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Here’s something we’ll all identify with: a hapless No.11 batsman trying to fend off a marauding fast bowler to save his team.

You fear for his health as he ducks and weaves and tries desperately to protect himself and his stumps. It is one of the dark idiosyncracies of cricket – pitting a dunce against a demon: in no other regular sport does this happen. It’s like putting a nine-stone novice in the ring with Wladimir Klitcshko.

With reference to Jack Leach’s triumphant 1 not out to help Ben Stokes win the Headingley Test last year, this week’s The Analyst: Inside Cricket podcast is a celebration of those noble acts of heroism by celebrated No.11s and the traumas they experienced as they saw – or often didn’t see – their life passing in front of their eyes.

Phil Tufnell admits that when he was facing Pakistan’s rampaging Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis at The Oval there were times when he couldn’t see the bowler, never mind the ball.

"Waqar’s run up started from miles away, and it was almost mesmerising watching him moving fluidly towards you. Then whoosh he’d unleash this missile which started a foot outside off-stump and then reverse-swung viciously and hit me on the foot.

"I used to give myself a little bit of ‘room’ so it was amazing that he managed to make it swing that much and hit me on the toe. It happened three times in a row. I couldn’t walk afterwards. Then at the other end there was Wasim. Well I think it was Wasim. Big old umpire Shep [David Shepherd] said ‘play’ and I said ‘who’s bowling?’ I couldn’t see anyone.

^{Phil Tufnell in action with bat in hand during a charity match}

"Then suddenly Wasim leapt out from behind him and from round the wicket hurled this inswinging, outswinging, nipbacking leg cutter! I think it took all three stumps out. I walked off thinking I didn’t really see who bowled it, never mind being able to play it.”

By his own admission, Jonathan Agnew wasn’t the bravest with the bat, and with good reason.

Early in his career he got one in the mouth from Kevin Curran, Sam, Tom and Ben's dad. He really didn’t fancy facing quick bowling after that, but whenever Peter Willey was captain of Leicestershire he’d make Agnew nightwatchman.

"I used to tease Will and he’d take revenge by making me go in at the end of the day even though I’d bowled a long spell. Of course that happened when we played Hampshire with Malcolm Marshall and with a few minutes left for play Will said ‘get ‘em on Aggers’.

"I took as long as I could to get ready but then a wicket fell and I was in and of course Marshall was bowling. The first ball was a thunderbolt that went past my nose and I thought ‘what the hell am I doing out here?!’ And the I looked up at the balcony and there was Will and he was laughing. So I thought ‘come on be brave’. The next one fizzed past and under my left arm pit and went miles down the legside. Never touched anything.

"But there was a sort of strangled appeal from somewhere – a sort of ‘howzzaat – oh sorry.’ And I thought ‘that’s good enough for me’ and I walked off. And the next man in was Peter Willey whose face was just contorted with rage and of course he took a few blows and I’m ashamed to admit it was just pure cowardice on my part."

Agnew’s apprehension was entirely forgiveable. The protection we all wore in the 1980s was primitive and flimsy and none of us tailenders received any decent batting practice.

Once the batsmen had had their extended net they wandered off leaving the exhausted seamers to lob each other a few spinners. Then a few hours later we’d be facing some of the greatest (and fastest) pace bowlers who ever lived. Not surprisingly some of the lowest first-class batting averages emerged from that era. Andrew Samson has supplied the list of the worst first class batting averages of all time and four of the top six played in the 1980s and 90s. Mark Robinson, fifth on the list, had an excuse.

"My eyes don’t work together but independently, so my depth perception isn’t quite right which makes picking up length very hard. I’ve got no 3D vision. I was aware of my own inadequacies but I’m a stubborn person and I’d stand my ground. I refused to back away.

"The quicks like Marshall and Walsh were quite nice and fair play to them they’d pitch it up for a bit but they’d say ‘we’ll give you an over to get out and then we’ll hit you on the head’ and they did!’ I survived an over of Walsh and then he had me gloved down the legside and I hung around against Marshall and then he got me in the grill!"

Robinson, until recently the England women’s coach, holds the record for the most successive first-class noughts – 12 in a row in 1990.

"It’s slightly unfair really, as I think eight of them were not out and of course if you’re batting with a better player you only get to face a couple of deliveries at the end of an over and you don’t get to run. Look I wasn’t much good but I took my batting seriously and when I got to Sussex they actually helped me and I got some proper practice and I did nightwatchman a few times and I’m proud to say I never got out!"

Tailenders get decent batting practice nowadays which is of course a good thing for their and the team’s wellbeing. Duncan Fletcher started at – realising the value of runs from every member of the team – infact he banned the word ‘tailenders’ and instead used the phrase ‘lower order’ and you won’t find many bowlers of the current generation with single-figure batting averages.

They don’t make No.11s like they used to (in first-class cricket).

Do you have some good stories from club cricket of No.11s scared out of their wits? Send them to us via email - simon.hughes@thecricketer.com, in the comments below or on social media, and we’ll read out the best next week.