Openers in Twenty20 cricket
We’ve written before about how important wicketkeepers are in Twenty20, but arguably the most important positions are your opening batsmen.
A single batsman can win you a game of Twenty20. A single bowler probably can as well – just about – but they only do their thing for four of the 20 overs. An opening batsman can be there throughout. They have a bigger role to play.
In Twenty20, why wait? Someone’s got to attack and it might as well be your openers – both of them. If they get in and last a while, you’re in a good position to build on that. If you postpone the slog, you’re just wasting overs. There’s a small element of ‘what is a good score?’ when building a total. But mostly you’re not going to be aiming for 160 or 170, you’re going to be aiming for ‘more’ or ‘as much as we can get’.
Luke Wright didn’t actually get going until halfway through England’s innings in the warm-up match against West Indies, but then he showed why he’s worth a risk at the top of the order by hitting three successive sixes. If he gets out, so what? It’s only Luke Wright. Apologies to Luke Wright for that, but you get what we mean.
This is massively bad news for Rob Key’s chances of playing on Friday. But sod it, he’s in the tournament – that’ll have to do. We’re publishing The Post.
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We just finished reading Lights Out in Wonderland
At first I was worried that you had finally posted something sensible about cricket and then I realised that this was a post about T20.
I would be happier to see his gloriousness block the ball for twenty overs than watch a two bit slogger from Sussex thrash about like a gog in the deep end.
I’m confused. You don’t need an opener for 20/20 – it has a screw top.
http://www.bumwine.com/md2020.html
gog
http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/P/peep_show/images/episode_guides/series_2/s2_episode2_gog_200×150.jpg