HE TAKES GREAT CATCHES . . .
their task with the willow almost as an insult to their major role.
Southee - who made a whirlwind unbeaten 77 on test debut - averages 16.81 while Wagner averages 12.31.
But Boult may likely fancy cementing his place in test history as the King of All Rabbits.
He has played 57 test innings at No 11, totalling 458 runs (with 30 not outs) and has a high score of 52 not out.
So who are his challengers to the crown?
The most obvious one is Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon. The man nicknamed "Garry" averages 15.65 when batting at the bottom, with 313 runs from 45 innings and a highest score of 40 not out.
Others in the past with useful records for a tail-end charlie include the English duo of Brian Statham and Bob Willis, along with South Africa’s Allan Donald.
The most runs from a No 11 in test history is 623 from the game’s greatest wicket-taker, Sri Lankan leggie Muttiah Muralitharan, who averaged a handy 11.32. Ahead of Boult also sit Glenn McGrath (603 runs at 7.63), Courtney Walsh (553 at 7.47) and Jimmy Anderson (472 at 9.44).
A long list of Kiwi test cricketers with a worse batting average than the 28-year-old leftarm quick include Doug Bracewell (13.85), Grant Bradburn (13.12), Neil Broom (10.66), Lance Cairns (16.28), Simon Doull (14.61), Grant Elliott (10.75), Evan Gray (15.50), Robbie Hart (16.25), Phil Horne (10.14), Peter Ingram (15.25), Paul McEwan (16.00), Kyle Mills (11.56), Michael Papps (16.40), Mike Shrimpton (13.95), Daryl Tuffey (16.42) and Paul Wiseman (14.07).
It’s noteworthy that Boult is filling the role of No 11 in such a fashion after the job once, in the not distant past, belonged to Chris Martin.
Third on the list of New Zealand’s top test wicket-takers, Martin looked like a man who’d never handled a bat - which wasn’t far from the truth.
He averaged 2.36 from 104 innings, with a high score of 12 not out and a total of 123 runs. Martin made 36 ducks and seven ’pairs’ - a mark only surpassed by West Indian legend Courtney Walsh, due to Walsh playing a whopping 61 more tests than a player who made Ewen Chatfield look like Martin Crowe.
The Naenae Express was the byword for batting haplessness during his New Zealand test career, but Chatfield did average 8.57 and played his part in a memorable test-winning partnership with Jeremy Coney.
Other contenders for the World’s Worst Test Tail-end Charlies XI besides ’openers’ Martin and Walsh include Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, Phil Tuffnell, Devon Malcolm, Danish Kaneria and Monty Panesar. For the latest from the second test go to stuff.co.nz