Ask the Readers: What's your perfect batting order?
How do you pick your batting order?Do you flout convention? Do you put giving everybody a go above winning the match? Or vice versa?
There are a number of things to consider:
- The ability of the batsman
- The style of the batsman
- The need to give everybody a game
- The desire of players to be in the same place in the order every week
It's certainly true that your best players should be at 3 and 4, as shown here. This is because you can afford to lose one wicket cheaply but the 2nd and 3rd wickets are most important for making a good score. You can find that out from the averages.
I think the main difference with openers and the first couple of drops is attitude. Picking decent batsmen who want to do it is most important because it's a specialist position. For me, the ideal would be a left-right hand partnership with one player more attacking, the other trying to build an innings.
Average is less important for an opener as it's more of an attitude thing.
My ideal middle order players will be able to score quickly be that from working it around, hitting out, or both.
As I have discussed before, I would have my bowlers at 9-11 but not have a totally bunny as last man in.
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Hi
I am a bowler (also batsman but not of quality), always wants batting but every Captain except some send me in position of 9-11, I think I can bat better and I did in some pressure situations and played 40s innings in Twenty-20 matches.
You have discussed very fine order but what is the good place for All-rounders?
It's tough for the captain with bowlers who can bat a bit. Perhaps you do deserve to go up the order, but someone has to bat in those slots and the obvious choice is the bowler who will have his game when the side is fielding. If you puts you in the top 6 then a batsman has to drop down to 7 or 8 and might not get a go.
Thanks
It is cleared. I understood the problem of Captain, Thank You, you are very sincere and true Cricket lover.
Our team is well balanced and has a righty lefty opening pair and a righty lefty number 3 and 4. I bat at 3 (right-handed), we had some problems with the right handed opener and i was asked last game to shift to opener, which I did and scored 64. My captain promoted me because of my attitude which he said was U can open and stick it out. I appreciate the advice in the article will pass it on to the captain.
cn anyone pls tell me which teqnique is more 'safer' d the trigger technique or the forward press?thnx
hey. i open the bowling and bat number 3. we have 4 batsman including myself and recently,at the top of the order we are all doing the job. the skipper is now considering mixing it up and letting the sloggers open up. surely if we are winning games, nothing changes right?
That kind of depends. If mixing it up makes the team stronger then why not?
For the most part, I favor opening with a lower-order slogger with a licence to hit, and another sheet-anchor who is nevertheless adept at rotating the strike quickly. If they are right/left handed, so much the better.
As an opening bowler with a very unusual Chanderpaul-like stance, I used to open the batting as well, intending to blitz the opposition bowlers before they could settle. As my entire team was right-handed, I couldn't have the right-left hand combination that would have been ideal, but my partner's scoring areas (straight, in the V and covers) were very different to mine (mid-wicket, square both sides, and scoops and flicks to fine leg). Good balls to him were thus poor balls to me and vice versa
Typically his brief was to give me as much strike as possible in the first few overs while I just went hell for leather and tried to put the bowlers off - I could bat freely as my primary role was a bowler. Of course, he often received poor balls if the bowlers had taken a pasting and often kept the score going by himself.
We had some spectacular starts - against the strongest team in the league we once plundered 37 off the first two overs, taking both opening bowlers out of the attack - and we shared several 50 stands within the first four or five overs. The batsman coming in after the first wicket then had plenty of time to play himself in or keep the momentum going against the demoralized bowlers. Afterwards we used a more conventional batting line-up, with our best at number 3 and the batsmen getting progressively worse after that.
You first need to consider what the opposition attack is likely to be. Most of the time you will face two accurate seamers first up, then a combination of spinners, medium pacers and inaccurate quicks, followed by the opening bowlers returning at the end. So your top 3 need to be good players of pace, and one of the openers needs to be able to score at a reasonable rate. The other two should be prepared to play a long innings. Their main job should be to see off the opening bowlers for the loss of only 1 or 2 wickets, and preferably having still scored at 3 or 4 an over. Your 4, 5 and 6 should be your best players of spin and medium pace, and should be the most explosive batsmen, capable of punishing wayward bowling and pushing the score along. 7, 8 and 9 will probably be the all rounders, keeper, and an up and coming batsman. I think its important to spread your "leaders" out through the lineup, so that there is always a player either in or ready to go in who is able to keep his head and guide the side home. Having a lower middle order composed entirely of nervous nudgers or inexperienced youngsters is a recipe for disaster in close games. What you don't want is to load up the top of your order with your best attacking batsman and find that having reached 90-4 after 20 overs, you have no-one left to take advantage of the weak change bowlers, and end up crawling to 140-7 off 40 overs. Much better to be 70-4 off 20 overs but with your best attacking batsman having only just gone in and then flying to 180-7 off 40.
Batsmen should be judged on their batting merit and the fact that they bowl or keep is irrelevant to where they should bat. For example, our 5 main bowlers typically bat at 1, 4, 5, 9 and 11, ahead of guys who are only in the team as batsmen at 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 (the youngster). At lower levels it is not uncommon for your best batsmen also to be your best bowlers.
I think if you are a pure hitting[Strike rate of 140+]all-rounder then your position should be to open or to be at no6-8.But if you are a moderate[Strike below 115]batsman then you should be no.4 or 5.As I am a moderate batsman and like batting at no.4 in limited overs and be at no 5 in unlimited overs.But at time I come to open and just blast with some hitting inning one of them was a 102* in a 8 over side game.
I would like to tell about progress in my cricket career.I was a fast bowler before an year,who bowled 120+[at an age of 11]and I used to be at no 11 regularly to bat,with an avarage of 7-8.Today I am a batsman who avarages 86.22 after playing 37 innings in 19 matches with a high score of 252 and 250.Can you just belive that every team is just behind me to be selecting me in their team.
I'm a keeper batsman in yr 10 and I am very aggressive prefers to bat 6-7 and slog the hell out of the ball.My coach wants me to bat opening or 2nd drop but I'm a keeper also and I'd much rather go 6-7 play the spinner and medium pacer because my specialty is a very high striker rate,boundaries love to hit over cover as a lefty or down the ground. What should I do? And how should I tell my coach because I think that my potential is being wasted and we play 40 over games