Once. Younis Khan and Andrew Strauss.I wonder how many times both number three batsmen have made first-ballers in an ODI before?
Guess what? Interesting timing from @zaltzcricket:Once. Younis Khan and Andrew Strauss.
4th ODI: Pakistan v England at Rawalpindi, Dec 19, 2005 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
TEN Sports and Cricinfo, just credit me for the research when you use this stat...
Fair shout, might be worth getting him to play in that slot a few times for Notts, failing that we draft Hales in and give him a few games and see how it goes.England should try opening the batting with Broad (alongside Cook) in ODIs. He has a pretty solid defensive technique against the swinging and seaming ball and hits cleanly and well in his preferred scoring areas when the field is up. I could see the team regularly getting good starts with him scoring rapid forties consistently and sometimes going on.
He's not really suited for the hectic bish bosh of the closing overs - Swann is much better at that. If it were to work out it could make England much more potent in this format as it would help to improve the side's balance by helping to team to maintain a decent scoring tempo in the set up stages of the innings.
Cook played a top knock today and he has massively improved in this form of the game but when he and Trott bat together they sometimes eat up too many balls at the top of the order for the team to post a competitive total.
Because the bowling was really problem.Great bowling. Maybe Finn should have played in the tests.