A cricket team that takes the field consists of an eleven member side. The players are listed based on the order in which they come out to bat. This is thus called a batting order. A batting order can be segmented as the openers, middle order, all-rounders and tail-enders.
The openers are the first two batters who come out to bat. The next three batters form the middle order. Two all-rounders are placed at the No.6 and No.7 position. Finally, the tail-enders come out to bat. Tail-enders are players whose expertise is bowling. Hence, they are the last ones to come out to bat. Since they come at the end of the batting order, they form the “tail.” When the sixth or seventh wicket falls, the fielding side “exposes the tail.”
Tail-enders are easy to bowl to due to their limited range of batting skills. In modern cricket, to increase the batting depth, many teams ensure that the tail-enders develop batting skills by which they can stay on the crease for a longer time and keep the scoreboard ticking.
Mehidy Hasan and Simi Singh of Bangladesh and Ireland respectively are the only players to record a century in One Day Internationals while batting at the No.8 position. Compared to this, tail-enders in test cricket have held much better records.
Wasim Akram’s score of 257*, Imtiaz Ahmed’s 209 and Jason Holder’s 202 are the top three scores for batters at the No.8 position. A century has been recorded at least thrice in both the No.9 and No.10 positions. The highest score in test cricket for a No.11 batter is 98* which was recorded by Australia’s Ashton Agar.
Belgium’s Saber Zakhil is the only player to hit 100* in T20 internationals. Isuru Adana and Mark Adair are the only two other batters who hit a half century as tail-enders.
