• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

All-rounders opening the batting

Debris

International 12th Man
Just watching the Australia/Pakistan test and both Australian openers are all-rounders (OK, Katich might be a stretch) and I could not think of any all-rounders who opened the batting long-term. I am probably missing someone obvious but has there been anyone successfully combine the two. Is it possible to do it over a sustained period?
 

Debris

International 12th Man
Eddie Barlow is a good call. One occurred to me as well in Bob Simpson. I guess as long as you are not a front-line bowler it can be done.
 

Himannv

International Coach
There must be a few common names.. Shahid Afridi, Chris Gayle, Sanath Jayasuriya, maybe Thilakaratne Dilshan at the moment.. I think Wilfred Rhodes used to open the batting for a while as well. I'm sure there must be more..
 

Flyonthewall

U19 Captain
Pretty sure that South Africa opened for a time with Eddie Barlow and Trevor Goddard, both of whom were genuine all-rounders, although neither were absolute front-line bowlers (both very good, of course, and actually Goddard had a fine test bowling record and was ridiculously economical). Wilfred Rhodes did indeed open the batting for England immediately pre-war, and shared in a triple-century partnership with Hobbs (?) as an opener as well.
 

jeevan

International 12th Man
Manoj Prabhakar did it for a little while didn't he.
And he replaced Ravi Shastri (another all rounder, certainly) after the latter retired.
Shastri probably did better, but suffered more by comparison to Gavaskar, whose retirement led to the move to open with him.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Mudassar Nazar?

Quite a few part-timers of varying degrees of competence:
Graham Gooch
Mark Butcher
Marcus Trescothick
Michael Vaughan
Aamer Sohail

CB Fry bowled early in his career but was known as a chucker and eventually more or less gave up.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Mudassar Nazar?

Quite a few part-timers of varying degrees of competence:
Graham Gooch
Mark Butcher
Marcus Trescothick
Michael Vaughan
Aamer Sohail

CB Fry bowled early in his career but was known as a chucker and eventually more or less gave up.
Boycott's bowling was considered good enough for a WC final. :dry:

Jayasuria springs to mind.
 

jeevan

International 12th Man
There must be a few common names.. Shahid Afridi, Chris Gayle, Sanath Jayasuriya, maybe Thilakaratne Dilshan at the moment.. I think Wilfred Rhodes used to open the batting for a while as well. I'm sure there must be more..
For a while, as in forming a fairly storied opening pair with Jack Hobbs. If I'm not mistaken they held the record for opening partnership for a long time (350+) till it was broken by another all rounder-batsman opener pair (Mankad-Roy). Both pairs likely to be in the top 3 opening combinations ever for their respective countries - certainly for Mankad-Roy (as the other two are Gavaskar-Chauhan, Sehwag-Gambhir).
 

Himannv

International Coach
For a while, as in forming a fairly storied opening pair with Jack Hobbs. If I'm not mistaken they held the record for opening partnership for a long time (350+) till it was broken by another all rounder-batsman opener pair (Mankad-Roy). Both pairs likely to be in the top 3 opening combinations ever for their respective countries - certainly for Mankad-Roy (as the other two are Gavaskar-Chauhan, Sehwag-Gambhir).
I said "for a while" simply because he wasn't always an opener. He's played 1000+ first class games if I remember the stats right and quite a few of them were spent not opening. The beginning part of his career, he was predominantly a bowler. It took him a few years to start opening regularly I think.
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Jack Hobbs opened the bowling in three Tests - exactly 100 years ago in South Africa - he only took one wicket though
 

Top