Pakistan's Openers

[aks]

Hi. This is my first post in this forum (after coming across it yesterday). I wanted to discuss a topic which has really frustrated me over the recent years, and that is, the opening batsmen for Pakistan. Forgive me if I am repeating another thread but I did do a quick search and found topics on individual players but none that discussed the issue as a whole.

Why do Pakistan not have any good consistent openers? Over the recent years I belive the following have all opened for Pakistan (have I missed anyone out?):

Y Hameed
M Hafeez
I Nazir
T Umar
I Farhat
S Butt
S Afridi
K Akmal
S Malik

All of them have shown some quality/promise but never really built upon that to cement their place in the team. It seems like we go around in circles trying a player/partnership until they start to falter and then we on to the next person/pair.

Ignoring the 'hitters' who are pushed up the order to score quick runs (such as Akmal & Afridi) why do the opening players not improve? Players such as Farhat and Butt always seem to get out playing silly/loose shots, it's as if they never learn. This is especially the case for Tests, for me it seems none of the openers have the right mentality.

The only one who I thought looked great for Tests was Umar cos he seemed to be good at leaving balls and played a slow/steady game. But I am not sure what's happened to him. I know he got injured, but I wonder how much trying him out in ODIs messed up his game because he had to adapt, but for me he was never going to be a success in ODI cricket.

I live in the UK so don't have much of a chance to follow domestic cricket in Pakistan. Is there no one else coming through the ranks? It's just so frustrating to see our openers getting out early on or as soon as they make 20/30 runs. And this exposes our middle order too early, which at the moment hasn't been too bad cos Yousuf is in terrific form, but he (or Inzy) can't bail us out every time (I'm also concerned about the potential replacements for Yousuf & Inzy, but that's for another thread...)!

[Gunner786]

welcome to pakpassion mate

[entralinks]

Awww, I don't know I always get tears in my eyes when I see a newcomer make a thread.

Hi there, little one, have you been a good boy, little tiny buddy, little soosny poo, hein?

Now lets see how you arranged the letter blocks up there.

Hmm wow, you seem to have done well newtoncomer.

I'm not very excited about discussing cricket stuff normally but lets try to make a discussion out of it in the classic PP style...

I agree with you.

[The Godfather]

Hafeez and hameed should open the inings in tests and in one dayers it should be hafeez and akmal

[ammarz]

the reason for not producing good openers is that we play on crap pitches in pakistan. The domestic structure is not at par with others like Australia or England. The ball comes to bat easily, not much deviation or movement off the pitch and they develop bad habbits or playing across the line. They have been ingrained with bad habbits before they come to the international scene. So it takes a really talented individual to change his way.
Just one of the reasons...

[ravianz]

Originally Posted by Haroon Yasin Hafeez and hameed should open the inings in tests and in one dayers it should be hafeez and akmal

i think we should groom atleast one of our left handed batsman at opening position as left-right combination can put the oposition in trouble and unfortunately we are not having a set left handed batsman in the whole batting lineup.

About Akmal i would say that he is a good batsman and has guts to open the innings but he should be given cofidence that he is going to open.

[faisalm]

The pitches in Pakistan are to batsman friendly for Pakistani openers to develop as they won't be able to handle seaming pitches as they wouldn't be used to it unless they played abit abroad. Maybe playing at young age club cricket in SA like an exchange promising Pakistani youngsters in SA and vice versa, would that work?

[Monsee]

I think we need to change their name to 'Closers' instead of Openers...we might have better luck with them after that

[Nauman]

Originally Posted by faisalm The pitches in Pakistan are to batsman friendly for Pakistani openers to develop as they won't be able to handle seaming pitches as they wouldn't be used to it unless they played abit abroad. Maybe playing at young age club cricket in SA like an exchange promising Pakistani youngsters in SA and vice versa, would that work?

Didnt Saeed Anwar and Aamir sohail come into the team after playing on similar pitches in domestic cricket?

[Luton Bad Boy]

Welcome to PakPassion mate, well done with that topic, personally the best openers I would have in test would be Butt and Hafeez or even Hameed, we have not persisted with these guys so how do you expect them to cement their place in the team.

In ODIs it would have to be Butt and Hafeez again, at least they have had experience on bouncy pitches e.g Salman in Aus and Hafeez in Top-End Series so are aware and know how to handle those conditions.

Afridi is pure hit and miss in ODI as an opener, more often than not missing. He is best suited probably down number 6/7 with Malik and Razzaq, but, that leaves us with a either a big innings or small total whether or not they fire or not.

[aks]

Interesting about the pitches, I can see how that would effect the (lack of) development for the batsmen. Have there been any progress in sorting this issue out by the cricket board/people who run the domestic game? Surely one would think they would want to change things to produce better batsmen.

Just out of curiosity, for any stats fans out there, can someone do a comparison of the Test nations in the last, say, 20 innings - or 2 years, what the average opening partnership score has been? And how many times has it been over 50 and 100, would just like to see how Pakistan compare to others.

[Uzzy]

Welcome to PP, just avoid Entra and all will be well

[aks]

Thanks all for the welcome

I started work on some stats. I just did last 15 matches for Australia and Pakistan and the opening partnerships averages are (from what I can remember!) about 85 and 77 respectively. That's not as much difference as I thought it would be.

Tomorrow, I will do matches for more teams and then upload the spreadsheet for all to see.

[abcofcric]

i have a question for Mods .... Lets say if I get banned from this forum, after couple of days i come to this forum with different username ... would u be able to find out if i am the same person or not? ... cough cough hint cough cough...

[iZeeshan]

Yes, they know your IP.

And you are a very stupid man for asking that because they probably will ban you right now.

[abcofcric]

with all due respect pakola, i asked this question cuz yesterday Maheshganeson and Dhoni ka phanka or whatever their name was got banned from this forum... BTW why would they ban me?

[entralinks]

Guys please refrain from calling anyone stupid and no one will get banned just like that.

abcofcric yes we certainly know if a new member is actually an old one with a different username. We activate all new accounts manually and also Mercenary's legendary spidey senses make it impossible for anyone to pass through or continue posting for long before being spotted.

Hope I have answered your query, please continue posting, as long as you adhere to PakPassion rules, no one can ban you and going by your record, it seems unlikely to happen any sooner.

[abcofcric]

thanks for the cool response entralinks.... i appreciate it

[Ilyas]

This is really good: Now Pakistan does not have to worry even if they loose two or three early wickets...Remember how Lankans won against India in Semi Final of World Cup 1996...

[aks]

Originally Posted by aks Thanks all for the welcome ...the opening partnerships averages are (from what I can remember!) about 85 and 77 respectively...

I don't have a very good memory! I checked my spreadsheet this morning and the 85/77 was a different figure. Anyways, I've added some more teams to the spreadsheet and here's how the stats look thus far:

http://i11.tinypic.com/2ntybs4.jpg

Our average opening partnership is 37 whereas Aus are 45 and India at 48. Surprisingly though, on average, we lose our first wicket roughly the same time as the other teams (SL are way down at 10 overs!). The last columns show how many runs the openers get in the match, and, surprisingly, we're not that bad in comparison (although Aus are way in front).

I'll add on SA next and then do the ODIs, should be interesting.

[aks]

I've finally completed the stats spreadsheet I was doing and thought I'd post the results. The stats are for opening partnerships / batsmen scores based on the last 3 cricket seasons (05/06 & 06 & 06-07) for the main eight nations.

Before I started I felt Pakistan wouldn't be near the top, and the Test stats confirmed this. Pakistan are languishing in the middle with an opening partnership average of 36. Interestingly though, they last, on average, 71 balls which isn't too bad compared to the rest.

Test stats - http://i16.tinypic.com/40prh2u.jpg

However, in the ODI, I was shocked! Pakistan are right at the bottom! The average is 29, every other nation is above 30. And the total scores for both opening batsmen is averaged to 49 whereas everyone else is 60 or above.

ODI stats - http://i11.tinypic.com/35ml47p.jpg

[infamous9383]

I can't complain too much about the openers becaue all the partnerships espicallys in tests seem to be struggling.