Tufnell was occasionally inspired with the ball, taking 11–93 against Australia at the Oval in 1997 (for which he won the Man of the Match award after England won by 19 runs) and seven wickets in the match (6-25 in the first innings) against the West Indies at the Oval in 1991, but he took his 121 Test wickets with a bowling average of 37.68 across his whole Test career. Mark Waugh theorised that "if you attack him, he can go on the defensive, and it puts him off his game", although Waugh was Tufnell's most frequent test victim, being dismissed a total of seven times by him, three of them bowled.