ever, have so much scorn, indignation and fury been heaped on the selection of a touring team before it even boarded the plane, let alone played a match, as happened when it was announced that David Gower, Jack Russell and Ian Salisbury had been left out". Salisbury eventually joined the party a net bowler, but for the first Test at Kolkata, in spin-friendly conditions, Salisbury was picked as the only specialist spin bowler, elevated ahead of Phil Tufnell and John Emburey, even though he had not been included in the original tour party. England lost the match and the series heavily, none of the specialist spinners having a good tour. The following winter he took his best Test bowling figures, 4-163, although these were still expensive wickets and Salisbury again finished on the losing side. He did get to appear on the winning side in his fourth and last one-day international on this tour, also taking his best one-day international figures, 3-41. In 1998 he was in the side as England won two Test matches at Trent Bridge and Headingley, and thereby the Test series, against South Africa. He did not take a wicket in either match, although he made 23 as a nightwatchman at Trent Bridge. In truth Salisbury was not good enough to prosper at the highest level as a specialist bowler, with a career Test bowling average of 76.95, and he has been rated as the worst specialist bowler in Test cricket. He played his last Test in a series in Pakistan in 2000/01 in Karachi, returning a series aggregate of 1–193. When he finally picked up his solitary wicket of the series, a Daily Telegraph correspondent cruelly wrote: "It was as if a backward child had suddenly learned how to spell his name and deserved a treat." Nonetheless, again he finished on the winning side in the series, and contributed some runs as a lower-order batsman and a nightwatchman. Surrey In county cricket, however, Salisbury was a different man. He passed 50 wickets most seasons, and when he left Sussex for Surrey in 1997 he revelled in wickets that suited his bowling style. In successive seasons his bowling average improved: 31.20, 22.89, 22.19, and in 2000 he took 52 wickets at just 18.92, including a career-best 8–60 (and 11–101 in the match) at The Oval against Somerset. 1999 saw the first of Salisbury's three first-class hundreds,