Openers’ day out

2 May 2008

Forget Shane Warne's stinging attack on his Kolkata counterpart Sourav Ganguly for a moment. Cricket, the gentleman's game, has always been known the world over to be a sport with a lot of history and tradition to it.

Certain phenomena just can't be done away with, whichever the format of the game - Test matches, ODIs or now Twenty20 cricket. Spinners have always been asked to flight the ball to purchase wickets, batsmen have always been told to play with a straight bat, and teams have always been told the importance of building partnerships.

One such convention is the need for teams to have good opening batsmen. Opening batsmen have had huge bearings on the successes or failures of teams; West Indies, in their era of dominance had Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, and more recently the Australians had a settled opening pair in Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer in Test cricket, and Adam Gilchrist and Hayden in the shorter version - so, having a good opening batsman, even if not a pair, is a must for any cricket team.

Shane Warne sprung a surprise when he drafted in little known Swapnil Asnodkar into his playing XI for the tie against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Short in stature, Swapnil had had a highest score of 37 before this tie, and given the Royals' openers had done a fair job in previous matches, his inclusion came as a surprise. But past performances were soon put to the back burner with some attacking stroke play. Anything short outside off was easily dispatched to the point boundary, while anything short on the middle or leg stump, and Asnodkar would quickly get into position and pull it to the leg-side. Although short in stature, measuring only about five and a half feet, Asnodkar was not afraid to pull the bouncers dished out by the Knight Riders' medium pacers as well. When he was dismissed for a well-crafted 60 in the 12th over, with the Royals' placed at 106 for 3, the stage was set for the big hitters to take control of the proceedings.

Later in the day, VVS Laxman, opening the innings for the Deccan Chargers, took early charge - his 34-ball 48 meant the scoreboard kept moving even though wickets fell at the other end. It was his innings, ably supported by Rohit Sharma's clean hitting towards the fag end that propelled the Deccan Chargers to a healthy 164/8 at the end of their 20 overs.

Like Asnodkar and Laxman for their teams, the Kings XI Punjab team too had a hero in opener Shaun Marsh. On his IPL debut, Marsh played some exquisite shots - mostly off the backfoot, and looked a natural onside player - a trait very uncommon to left handers. He seemed in absolute control of his innings - nothing seemed to trouble him on the flat batting surface he encountered in the Rajiv Gandhi Intenational Stadium at Hyderabad. He hit a total of eleven boundaries, seven of which came on the on-side - if the bowlers over-compensated and landed anything in his striking area on the offside, he would ease it past cover or point.

Marsh's no-nonsense innings of 84* was the pillar on which the Kings XI Punjab's victory was built. With Marsh playing the way he was, all that was required was for the rest of the top order to play their natural game. Yuvraj Singh (14 runs) and Mahela Jayawardene (45*) did just that, and the visitors would ease through to a comfortable 7-wicket win.

Just to re-emphasise the importance of openers, here's a look at what the openers have done in the last few games of the DLF Indian Premier League:

Match #	Winning Team	Winning Team Openers	Losing Team	Losing Team Openers
Match 17	Delhi Daredevils	Gambhir 86 & Sehwag 24	Royal Challengers Bangalore	Praveen Kumar 6 & Wasim Jaffer 10
Match 16	Mumbai Indians	Rahane 4 & Jayasuriya 18	Kolkata Knight Riders	McCullum 1 & Ganguly 4
Match 15	Chennai Super Kings	Parthiv Patel 21 & Matthew Hayden 13	Royal Challengers Bangalore	Bharat Chipli 8 & Wasim Jaffer 50
Match 14	Deccan Chargers	Adam Gilchrist 109* & VVS Laxman 37*	Mumbai Indians	Luke Ronchi 13 & Sanath Jayasuriya 18
Match 13	Kings XI Punjab	Karan Goel 1 & Simon Katich 75	Delhi Daredevils	Gautam Gambhir 18 & Virender Sehwag 6

One look at the table above, and it becomes evident that successful teams have generally had at least one of its openers making a significant contribution to the team score.