Venkatash Prasad! My fav. bunny

Its a little unfair that you have already added Amit Mishra to the list. He deserves at least 5-10 tests before he can bee added to such a famous list! After all he played only 3 tests!

Amit Mishra, I believe, has been a decent batsman at the domestic level with 9 50's, a HS of 84 and an average of almost 20 (all figures courtesy of cricinfo). So perhaps, given enough chances, he would come good at the international stage too. And who can forget THAT partnership of Courtney Walsh & Brian Lara against the Aussies in early 1999!

You have missed a couple of Indian Greats.

1) Munaf Patel Watching his effort with the bat in the recent one day series against england was too comical. Give him more matches he will match Martin.

2) Venky Prasad : I remember him hitting one six though of the last ball of an innings. Other than I think he has laid down a strong case to be added to this illustrious list.

Perosnally, i don't think Amit Mishra is useless with the bat. he has an FC average of almost 20, 9 50's to his name, and a top score of 84... which is quite similar to harbajan actually...

Dilhara Fernando , Ashish Nehra , Charl Langeveldt

My benchmark for worst batsman is more wickets than runs - BS Chandrasekhar is my ultimate choice.

You are spot on about this one. Just thinking about those famous lines from sidhu....a row of bicycles, loose pants etc. Having said that its also nice to note how some of these players have improved immensely over the years. The likes of chaminda vaas and anil kumble come to mind. The main issue i think is that there are some external entities responsible for some of the woeful batting. Chris Martin comes into the spotlight with every zero. its almost cheered worldwide. Murali is greeted in the same fashion as an opening batsman when he walks in to bat. would these subconsciously be factors as to why they keep doing it? The same could be said about afridi. his fans expect a six off almost every ball that he faces and he tries to deliver. Hence him being one of the biggest wasted talents in world cricket. i think its another case of pointing one finger at these people and pointing 3 at ourselves.

How about Cameron Cuffy? He is the star student of The Courtney Walsh School of Batting circa 1995!
There are many others - Dilip Doshi, Phil Tufnell, Maninder Singh. A special case to be considered would be Ajit Agarkar against any Australian side led by Steve Waugh!

One name you might have forgotten is Phil Tufnell.
A very popular player to Australians and the English alike. A rare bird.

I agree that I'm being too harsh on Amit Mishra. Too early to pass judgement on him. I've only seen him bat once or twice and it just "looked" awful, esp when he was bowled first ball by Krejza. But I concede that I'm being too hasty in putting him in this category. I love the reference to Ajit Agarkar because he was pathetic against Australia but has a Test century at Lords to his name. What a contrast.
Asela, you may have hit on a very valid point. Murali almost just lives up to his own billing now, backing away, swing wildly and grinning nervously. I can only think of one time when he played a matchwinning knock in that famous (controversial) ODI in Adelaide against England when he squirted one past point to win the game. Mahela scored a beautiful century that day and Alex Stewart was seriously annoyed with Ranatunga. Apart from that, I can't recall a Murali effort to win a match. Perhaps he never needed to - Sri Lanka either won comfortably or lost by a big margin.

Take Taylor off the list, and put Gillespie on.

Harsh on Shane Bond being amongst the worst batsmen in recent memory he does have a first class hundred and a couple of fifties and a realitively respectible test average of 12 for a number 10/11

Shane Bond??? Not good enough to be in that list in my opinion, he once hit a few sixes of Ganguly.

Let's not forget the greatest of them all, Merv Hughes who once achieved the unique feat of facing the final over in a ODI and playing out a maiden, swinging wildly at every ball and finishing 0 not out,although his batting did improve dramatically later in his career. Bruce Reid achieved a similar feat, requiring 2 runs to win or 1 to tie from the final over, bat met ball only off the final delivery which he edged to the wicketkeeper.

Shahid afridi tops the list of players in trowing there wicket away, don't know why he fells that he can hit every ball out of park.

You assume that Chris Martin and Iain O'Brien don't already spend a couple of hours a week practicing their batting. Chris Martin has a personal batting coach - Martin Crowe. (fat lot of use he's been)

Odd that you say Vettori should stop scoring runs and take wickets when he has taken over 50 wickets this year at 25. The runs are a bonus that has made him rated 2nd best alrounder in the world in the ICC rankings.

Vettori has taken over 270 test wickets and scored 3000 test runs A little harsh to say he should stop scoring runs when by the time his career is over he will be among the top all rounders ever (he is only 29)
Shane bonds placing was also a little harsh averaging around 12 Why not replace Bond with the greatest of them all (aside from Chris Martin) Danny Morrison