Cricket: 'Wisden' ranks Hussain squad as all-time worst

By RICHARD BOOCK in Christchurch

From the files of the truly blasphemous: cricket's bible has suggested this season's tourists are the worst England side to visit New Zealand.

The internet site of the world's most famous cricket periodical, Wisden.com, has weighed the strengths of the previous 15 England test squads to tour New Zealand and has chosen the present mob as the weakest.

Wisden.com's assistant editor Lawrence Booth wrote that it was hard to escape that conclusion when the relative merits of the different teams were compared to those of Nasser Hussain's squad.

"The fact is that this England side contains no players of genuine world class.

"Darren Gough (gone home after the ODI series) was close, but every taxi driver and his log knows what's happened to him.

"Graham Thorpe is very good and Andy Caddick can be, but he's still a long way behind (Australian fast bowler) Glenn McGrath.

"Most of the others are talented but they're either unproven (Hoggard, Flintoff), still on the way up (Trescothick, Vaughan), unfulfilled (Butcher, Ramprakash), or simply solid (Hussain, Giles).

"In 30 years' time you probably won't find Chris Cairns recalling them with the hushed reverence that the 1954-55 New Zealanders used the other night on local TV when they remembered being bowled out for 26 by Statham, Tyson, Bailey, Wardle and Appleyard.

"Which just makes you wonder. Could this really be the worst side to visit these shores?"

Apart from the first test tour in 1929-30, when England sent out a second XI (and still won 1-0, at the same time as the first XI were drawing 1-1 in the West Indies), England have usually been bristling with players of top billing, as suggested by their record of 15 wins and two defeats in 38 tests in New Zealand.

Jardine's 1932-33 Bodyliners preceded a string of star-studded squads which included Hammond, Compton, Edrich and Bedser in 1946-47; Hutton, Washbrook and Evans in 1950-51; Tyson, May and Statham in 1954-55; Dexter, Cowdrey and Lock in 1958-59; Barrington, Trueman and Graveney in 1962-63.

It was not until 1965-66, when Geoff Boycott and John Edrich were nippers and only Cowdrey could really be called world-class, that standards slipped and England failed to win in New Zealand for the first time in 19 years.

Then again, they didn't lose either.

In 1970-71 there was Cowdrey, Knott and Underwood. In 1974-75, Amiss, Greig and Underwood again. It was only in 1977-78, 48 years after they first met, that New Zealand won a test, against an England side who could still boast Boycott, Botham, Edmonds and Willis.

"The fact is that England have never been humiliated over the course of a whole series in New Zealand as they have in most other countries ," wrote Booth.

"Granted, there was a game at Christchurch in 1983-84 when England were skittled for 82 and 93, and there was that time in 1977-78 when they were Hadleed for 64 at Wellington.

"New Zealand won a series in 1983-84, but it was hard not to respect a batting line-up that included Gower, Gatting, Lamb and Botham. Even the less-than-star-studded 1987-88 tourists had Broad, Robinson, Gatting, Dilley and Emburey.

"In the 1990s it was business as usual, as England twice won 2-0 - in 1991-92 with the help of Gooch, Lamb, Smith and Tufnell at his peak; and in 1996-97 with Atherton, Stewart, Gough and Caddick (before the Kiwi crowd started to sledge him about his ancestry and his ears)."