How hard is opening the batting?

[Neil Pickup]

marto batted 4 and liked to open in limited overs games, therefore i like to bat 4, and open in l/o. concindentally i promise...!!


edit - and i don't get this.

Junior Senior - Move Your Feet (Official music video, HD) - YouTube

 

[Dan]

Last season I tended to open in the mornings, then bat 4 in my second game in the afternoon. Didn't find there to be much of a difference, although the ball does move a bit more. Best thing about opening is that you get time - you can see off good bowlers and know you still have the overs to make a good score.

In juniors, I'd see through the first 30-odd overs pretty easily against the lower teams, although I did tend to give a few chances against the better sides (or the quality of opposition coach's umpiring...).

Batting 4, there's a greater pressure to start scoring runs straight away IMO, especially if the top 3 have laid a decent foundation. You have to be able to perform two distinct jobs - 2/10 and you have to bat like an opener and stick there, or at 2/200 you have to go after it and make runs from ball one - and everything in between.

Since I've become our side's permanent keeper though I'm hovering between 4 and 7. Much prefer opening though, TBH.

 

[Shri]

Batting at 4 is awesome. All you need to do really when you start your innings is get off the strike with singles and let the set batsman play a lot. Once you get warmed up running ones and twos, everything becomes so easy.

 

[Furball]

Batting at 4 is awesome. All you need to do really when you start your innings is get off the strike with singles and let the set batsman play a lot. Once you get warmed up running ones and twos, everything becomes so easy.

Sachin Tendulkar multi.

 

[Hit Wicket]

Opening has become a lot easier since 1978 i.e after the introduction of protective helmets.Up to the early seventies pitches were left to the mercy of weather,without covering and the nature of it changed overnight..Opening batting without helmets under those conditions was difficult indeed.Now there is not much difference as the performance of Sewag and Jayasurya testifies(both of them are middle order batmen really).

Do you know anything about the history of covered pitches before making such blanket statements?

 

[Hit Wicket]

Then over the last 10-15 years we saw a sea-change, thanks partly to the limited overs game and also in part to flatter decks and a dearth of first rank seamers. We've seen the opener as front-foot bully muscling the ball down the ground (e.g. Hayden and Smith, both of whom one's always suspected might have issues with the swinging ball early doors because of their preferred MO) & the opener as unashamed stroke player (e.g. Sehwag, Gayle, Trescothick and Tamim, whose shared lack of footwork would probably have the aforementioned Mr Boycott spinning in his grave were he actually dead).

Mentioning Sehwag in the same breath as Gayle, Trescothick, and Tamim? You sure you are not drunk?