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why most openers are left handed

SaeedAnwar

U19 Debutant
If you look at most teams they open with left handed batsmen or atleast the first batsmen is always a lefthanded, why is that? does it make a difference?
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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Inclined to believe it's coincidental, because some of the greatest opening batsmen were right-handed. That said, I have a fever and may therefore be missing something.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Having a left/right handed opening pair can help disrupt the opening bowlers so that they can't quickly settle on a line and length. Thererfore "ideal" balanced XI will have a left/right hand opening partnership (having said which, partnerships like Hobbs / Sutcliffe and Hayden / Langer didn't conform to that ideal). Perhaps for this reason left-handers tend to get picked to play as openers a little more often than random chance would otherwise suggest.

It's also important to recognise that very many right-handers bat "left-handed". And so there is a much much higher proportion of "left-handed" batsmen playing cricket than there are true left-handers in the population.
 
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mohammad16

U19 Captain
Left handers look more stylish and hence tend to appeal to coaches as elegant good sound relaxed technical players, thats why they prefer them at the opening slot.
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Graeme Fowler was a stylish opener, there are other appropriate adjectives but I'll stick to stylish and the sobering thought that it is now a quarter of a century since he last played for England
 

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I suppose he was very fortunate to have a Test career at all - has Goochie's South African error of judgment to thank for it - I always liked him though and he did very well for a bloke who always looked like he was going to get out next ball
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Left handers look more stylish and hence tend to appeal to coaches as elegant good sound relaxed technical players, thats why they prefer them at the opening slot.
No they don't.

There's a mythical status sorrounding lefties in sport - the same thing happens in football.

You get elegant left handers in cricket - in football you get players with a "cultured left foot" or a "wand of a left foot." There's no equivelant description afforded to right handers.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
I suppose he (Fowler) was very fortunate to have a Test career at all - has Goochie's South African error of judgment to thank for it - I always liked him though and he did very well for a bloke who always looked like he was going to get out next ball
Yeah, you couldn't help but like him really. Looked out of his depth most of the time, but was good enough to come through the blackwash series intact. Given that his penultimate test saw him pass 200, I did occasionally wonder why he never got another go circa 1986-1988, when he seemed to have been overtaken by Slack, Benson, Moxon, Curtis and pretty much any other opener that you care to mention.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Having a left/right handed opening pair can help disrupt the opening bowlers so that they can't quickly settle on a line and length.
Based on personal experience, I've never believed this. I know that I aim each delivery itself, I don't rely on muscle memory or pre-programmed ideas of where to bowl. I have plenty of problems bowling too many deliveries down the leg-side to RHBs when it doesn't swing, and LHBs when it does - regardless of whether there are two RHBs or (though this is rare at my level) two LHBs. The only type of bowlers who might tend to struggle are the real "metronome" types like Curtley Ambrose and Angus Fraser, and even them I don't remember having many real problems TBH.

It should be noted that the trend of LHBs being highly prominent among openers is only a very recent thing. Look back even just 20 years or so and you'll see they were still fairly uncommon.

I'm fairly sure there are far more LHBs around presently than there ever used to be, opening and in the middle-order, so that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. In 2000, West Indies picked a team composed of LHBs two-ten:
Campbell (RHB)
Griffith
Hinds
Lara
Chanderpaul
Adams
Jacobs
Nagamootoo
McLean
Ambrose
Walsh (RHB - though he could've batted LHB and it'd not have made any difference)
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
No they don't.

There's a mythical status sorrounding lefties in sport - the same thing happens in football.

You get elegant left handers in cricket - in football you get players with a "cultured left foot" or a "wand of a left foot." There's no equivelant description afforded to right handers.
Either that or they're 'nuggety' batsmen - another descripion that never gets applied to RHers.
 

NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
This can usually be traced back to the fact most players are right handed, so bowlers generally get used to bowling to right handers and therefore lefties can have an advantage against someone who hasn't had much experience in bowling the correct line for them. It can take time to adjust in a game as well, which is potentially precious time that a batsman has to get himself 'in', so by the time the bowler has adjusted, the left hander might be set, making him harder to get out.

I mean, there will be teams around the world from grade to international that have quite a few left handed batsmen (and/or bowlers) in the side, but most you will find are dominated by right handed batsmen.

[/CaptainObvious]
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Based on personal experience, I've never believed this. I know that I aim each delivery itself, I don't rely on muscle memory or pre-programmed ideas of where to bowl. I have plenty of problems bowling too many deliveries down the leg-side to RHBs when it doesn't swing, and LHBs when it does - regardless of whether there are two RHBs or (though this is rare at my level) two LHBs. The only type of bowlers who might tend to struggle are the real "metronome" types like Curtley Ambrose and Angus Fraser, and even them I don't remember having many real problems TBH.
It doesn't really matter whether the theory is right or wrong. The point is, it's a widely-held theory and that means that selectors use it, and so it will (I think) go some way to boosting the number of LH openers that we see.

As for whether it is in fact right or wrong, I think I disagree with you. Having a LH/RH opening partnership can, I think, upset a bowler's line (it certainly does / did for me). That said, when I'm watching the pros and they fire it down the leg side, I instinctively tend to rely on it as evidence to support and reinforce my theory rather than accepting that they might just be bowling crap, and would have been just as inaccurate bowling at a pair of right-handers. (There's a name for this kind of reinforcing-your-favoured-theory bias, but I can't remember what it's called. Edit: wikipedia tells me it's called confirmation bias).
 
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zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
(There's a name for this kind of reinforcing-your-favoured-theory bias, but I can't remember what it's called. Edit: wikipedia tells me it's called confirmation bias).
Actually (and sorry for quoting my own post) that piece on confirmation bias should be required reading for just about all CW posters. It gives a horribly accurate insight into so much of what we do when we (a) watch cricket and (b) get into arguments with each other. Well, that's true in my case anyway.
 

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
No they don't.

There's a mythical status sorrounding lefties in sport - the same thing happens in football.

You get elegant left handers in cricket - in football you get players with a "cultured left foot" or a "wand of a left foot." There's no equivelant description afforded to right handers.
Nah, left footed players in football don't have feet, they have pegs.
 

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Just a thought, there are more right armed pace bowlers than left armed. With the new ball the majority of opening bowlers swing the ball away from the right hander (into the left hander), it is said that the ball coming into you is easier to play than the ball moving away. So left-handed opening batsmen are at an advantage when facing the new ball?

Just a theory, feel free to tear it apart :p
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
It doesn't really matter whether the theory is right or wrong. The point is, it's a widely-held theory and that means that selectors use it, and so it will (I think) go some way to boosting the number of LH openers that we see.
I do hope not. If you consider a LHB over a RHB (or vice-versa) purely because of which hand he bats with, rather than considering how good his technique, hand-eye coodination, shot-selection etc. are (ie, all the things that make it likely his run-scoring prowess is going to be higher - so thus how high his batting average is), I'd say you're playing a dangerous game.

Only once all the above are essentially roughly equal should you consider which way around someone holds the bat IMO.
As for whether it is in fact right or wrong, I think I disagree with you. Having a LH/RH opening partnership can, I think, upset a bowler's line (it certainly does / did for me). That said, when I'm watching the pros and they fire it down the leg side, I instinctively tend to rely on it as evidence to support and reinforce my theory rather than accepting that they might just be bowling crap, and would have been just as inaccurate bowling at a pair of right-handers. (There's a name for this kind of reinforcing-your-favoured-theory bias, but I can't remember what it's called. Edit: wikipedia tells me it's called confirmation bias).
It's, essentially, something that's never possible to prove conclusively, and to disprove it conclusively would be damn hard as well. No-one can possibly give the definite reason why a bowler is\isn't struggling to hold the right line - even the bowler himself can merely be fairly sure.
 

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