By lower order, I believe it's from No. 7 to 11. Different era, therefore direct statistical comparison isn't fair, but indeed it's one of the better one. One significant difference from olden days is that, now days we pick WK for batting first, but some of the best ever WKs had batted at 10 or even 11, which made the tail longer.
But, overall, I do believe there were few better bottom halves in history. Here are some -
I think, this one is definitely the best ever - AUS of mid 1950s. Sometimes between 1954 to 1958, AUS had a bottom 5 from RK Miller, AK Davidson, Richie Benaud, Ron Archer, IW Johnson, RR Lindwall and WK Grout or Langley. IICRC, RR Lindwall has 2 Test 100s from No. 10 and Langley batted at 11 some times!!!
After that, not in particular order,
One of the most under rated teams of cricket history is the SAF side in late 60s, just before the ban. They were the true modern team with proper bowling all-rounders. That time, their bottom 5 were often between Dennis Lindsay, PJ Procter, Tiger Lance, Peter Pollock & Trimborn
Then the unfortunate incident took place & SAF went to cricket exile for 20 years, which resulted some of their best players leaving for ENG/AUS; otherwise sometimes in mid 1970s, SAF could have a bottom 6 of Dennis Lindsey, AW (Tony) Greig, Clive Rice, MJ Procter, Garth Le Roux & Vincent Van Der Bijl - those no. 10 & 11 guys were good enough to bat at 7 & 8 in a highly competitive County games with 4 foreign imports allowed in every team.
PAK of 1970s - at some point, it had Mushtaq, Wasim Raja, Imran, Intekhab, Sarfraz, Wasim Bari in lat 5. Bari actually had a famous partnership with Raja for 10th wicket in WIN (100+)
AUS of Ponting era - Gilchrist at 7, Lee, Warne, Gillespee & Mac was definitely better bottom 5 than current ENG - Gilly alone should cover the equation.
Sometimes in 1980s, IND had a bottom 5 of Shastri/Azad, Kirmani, Kapil, Binney, Madan, Shivarama/Yadav - I personally rate that bottom 5 much higher than this ENG team, but they played in different era, in different tempo, therefore comparison in unfair.
Imran's PAK at one point had Himself at 7, Yousuf, Wasim, Qadir & Qasim/Tauseef/Waquar - and that's quite handy lower half.
SAF team of late 1990s had Boucher, Pollock, Lance Kluesner, Symcox/Boje/Crooks and B Mac (before Lance), Fannie De Villers in their bottom half - and I'll take that tail ahead of this ENG line-up any given day.
In olden days, often WK used to bat at 10-11, hence some of the best pre WW2 teams can't compared here, but the Ashes of 1902 had two of the best bottom halves in cricket - AUS had Warwick Armstrong, Monty Noble, Trumble & Hopkins in last 5, while ENG had Brund, Rhodes, Gilbert Jessop, Hirst & Lockwood in bottom 5. I am sure, Armstrong's 1921 Ashes team was great as well with Armstrong, Jack Gregory & Ted Mcdonald batting in last 5.
NZ has produced some of the best Bowling all-rounders in the game and one of their strength had always been batting contribution from bowlers. Sometimes in 1990s, their bottom 5 had Cairns, Smith, Dan Vet & Dion Nash - that can't be worse than current Pom bottom half - no way.
I am missing few more teams definitely, probably SAF of 1930s or 1910s, but those days Test cricket was played so little that by volume, finding any significant trend is almost impossible.
No credit taken away, but I feel ENG is enjoying the millennial fever - everything is instant these days, and people get excited at first cracker. Their bottom half contains a debutante in this Series and another one in last series .... and another guy playing 7th Test at a trot after retiring from FC!!!! May be, we should wait a little more to credit someone best of what is now a history of almost 150 years.
