Cricket may well be a batsman's game, but here at Wisden.com we believe that the sterling work of all those No. 11s is rarely given the attention it deserves. With this in mind, we are proud to present Battleof the Bunnies, a year-long search for a team of the greatest rabbits – or worst batsmen, if you really must – currently playing Test cricket. The rules are simple: statistical incompetence alone will decide places in the side, and each month an updated World Bunny XI will be published here. Catherine Hanley has a hotline to the selectors ...

Thursday, August 1, 2002 Muttiah Muralitharan, eh? He might be able to persuade a cricket ball to talk, but when it comes to the cut-throat tactics necessary to cement a place in the World Bunny XI, it's a different story.

The boy Murali, as he would surely be known if only he'd taken up football, started off his month in exemplary rabbit fashion by recording a duck against Bangladesh in the first Test, but he then used his bowling wiles to dismiss Alamgir Kabir and Aminul Islam (twice) for the same score, denying himself the opportunity for a second innings in the process. What on earth was he thinking of?

The net result is that both Aminul and Alamgir leap into the side at Nos. 2 and 3 respectively, although neither can displace Chris Martin at the top. He's still hanging on by the skin of his bunny teeth thanks to that one extra failure to get off the mark. A third Bangladeshi, Manjural Islam, also makes it into the side, hopping in at No 6 after a sustained spell of bunniness in both matches against the Sri Lankans.

The selectors will be watching the progress of the new boys carefully, although they feel that Aminul in particular, as the scorer of a century in his country's inaugural Test, might only be hitting a temporary patch of form and is unlikely to last the pace. Meanwhile the luckless Murali, despite actually lowering his average by half a run, slides all the way down to No. 9, and anyone averaging over 2 can't get in the side at all. The Bangladeshi bunnies have hit town, and the competition just got a whole lot hotter.

Elsewhere both the English and Indian rabbits failed miserably in their quest for world domination. Two of the main culprits were Matthew Hoggard - of whom the selectors had high hopes - who committed the double error of scoring 10 whole runs and failing to get dismissed, and Ashish Nehra, who started the competition brightly but has faded in recent months.

During India's first innings at Lord's he performed his duties as nightwatchbunny admirably, swishing his way to a stylish 0 and being dismissed before the close of play, but he obviously had some sort of brainstorm during his second outing and thrashed a Test-best 19. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

The Bunny XI (as at 1/8/02)

1 Chris Martin (NZ) (capt) 0*, 0, 0 av: 0.00
2 Aminul Islam (Ban) 0, 0 av: 0.00
3 Alamgir Kabir (Ban) 0, 0 av: 0.00
4 Mohammad Sami (Pak) 0*, 0 av: 0.00
5 Junior Murray (WI) 0, 0, 1 av: 0.33
6 Manjural Islam (Ban) 0, 2, 0, 0 av: 0.50
7 Darren Powell (WI) 0, 2 av: 1.00
8 Jason Gillespie (Aus) 0, 1, 3 av: 1.33
9 Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) 0, 0*, 6, 0, 0
av: 1.50
10 Ray Price (Zim) 0, 3 av: 1.50
11 Eric Upashantha (SL) 1, 3 av: 2.00

This month's Guest Twelfth Man is Sourav Ganguly, who is obviously concerned at the lack of Indian players in the XI, and keen to leap into the breach himself. Total runs scored by India against England in the first Test: 618. Total of said runs contributed by Ganguly: 5.

Catherine Hanley is a university lecturer, a keen cricketer and a regular contributor to Wisden.com. She was born in Tasmania and now lives in Sheffield, England.

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