Openers Tax

[honestbharani]

While this has always been a fascinating topic for me ever since I joined CW some 21 years ago, a couple of recent events have made me jump to one side of the fence after sitting on it for so so long.

1. Steve Smith decides he can be an opener, struggles and goes back to his #4 slot and finds some success again.
2. Shubman Gill struggles and looks like a tailender in most SENA tests, drops himself to #4 and suddenly finds amazing success.

I think it just proves that openers' tax is real and most openers, especially the strokemaking ones, would have done far better batting in the middle order. Of course, there will always be exceptions but in my mind, I am just going to do a +10 to most openers who have played reasonable amount of test cricket. It really is such a thankless tough job and those who do it well deserve to be deified.

 

[mackembhoy]

Aye Sehwag for example surely would have been a ridiculous number 5. Imagine his struggles in England wouldn't have been as bad.

 

[Coronis]

While this has always been a fascinating topic for me ever since I joined CW some 21 years ago, a couple of recent events have made me jump to one side of the fence after sitting on it for so so long.

1. Steve Smith decides he can be an opener, struggles and goes back to his #4 slot and finds some success again.
2. Shubman Gill struggles and looks like a tailender in most SENA tests, drops himself to #4 and suddenly finds amazing success.

I think it just proves that openers' tax is real and most openers, especially the strokemaking ones, would have done far better batting in the middle order. Of course, there will always be exceptions but in my mind, I am just going to do a +10 to most openers who have played reasonable amount of test cricket. It really is such a thankless tough job and those who do it well deserve to be deified.

Thojghts on Khawaja?

 

[Johan]

It also really depends on the pitch, for example sometimes in Asia the thread is the old ball IE reverse swing and the spinners, a batsman is at the most vulnerable at the start of his innings so when a middle order batsman comes to bat at number 4 or 5, it's very likely the ball is old and perhaps reverse is going to come into play, but more importantly the spinners have already found their line and length, and therefore the MO batsman have a very big challenge. Comparatively, the opener had to face early swing but it's minimal generally, of course there are exceptions such as Eden Gardens and Kandy but generally the opener gets to get his eye in and read the pitch, understand the bounce and so forth. I think playing middle order in Asia should get more credit than it deserves, so guys like Younis Khan and VVS Laxman should get more credit, the pitches being more worn out and having to face the spinners from ball one, reverse too but not always.

in SENA, that dynamic reverses, as we saw here, even in 2025 on a flat road of a wicket, with extremely short boundaries, with the current batch of Duke balls, we see how a competent seamer like Akash Deep basically ripped England apart with the new ball but the old ball did literally nothing. It's pretty much the same with South Africa and New Zealand as well, even if the pitch is a road the new ball is an absolute weapon, due to more conventional swing movement and seam friendly wickets. So generally, I think the same way Asian middle order bats deserve a lot more credit for countering spin from ball one, people like Boycott or Lawry or maybe even Cook deserve a lot more credit because even on the flattest pitch, they had some work to do and obviously older dukes were much more durable than the modern bazball ones, opening on a green wicket with a duke or reinforced kookabura out against competent seamers might be the single hardest job in Cricket. +10 sounds a little absurd but countries that have consistently bowler friendly wickets I think you can give +4/5?

 

[shortpitched713]

The weird thing is, that on face value the tax is growing larger, not smaller. The percentage of the average of bats 1 and 2 compared to 3-5 is getting smaller over time (i.e. it's less now than it was in the 70s or 80s). And teams aren't really going for the strategy of sacrificing a good defensive technique all-rounder or wicket-keeper at opener. It's almost entirely still specialists who are "failing" at the top. It's a hard ****ing job.

 

[Thala_0710]

It really also depends on the type of opener. A lot of great middle order batsmen over the years have had the ability to cash in big when they get set, or even in general, much more so than the openers, which is in part why the reason they bat in the middle order. I don't think the Dean Elgars of this world really would cash in even if they played in the middle order. However they definitely have a tougher task as openers, especially in SENAW, and hence a value addition is justified. +10 is definitely too much though.

 

[govinda indian fan]

Sehwag would have been gun in middle order but it was already stacked and we would have missed his exploits

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Nice try, but Crawley still isn't that good.

 

[LangleyburyCCPlayer]

Aye Sehwag for example surely would have been a ridiculous number 5. Imagine his struggles in England wouldn't have been as bad.

Slightly different in Asia where you’d expect to get more turn as the ball gets older, but in England, 5 is probably the easiest position in the team, barring a disaster at the top of the order the ball will be soft (3s always have to be prepared to be a de facto opener, 4s to a lesser extent) and the chances are you aren’t being charged with bowling or keeping (Pant aside)

 

[honestbharani]

Thojghts on Khawaja?

To be honest, I do think #3 is a top order batter than a middle order batter. And FWIW, he may have still made more runs at 3 than he has at 1 and 2 in spicy conditions.

Also, I said this.

I think it just proves that openers' tax is real and most openers, especially the strokemaking ones, would have done far better batting in the middle order.

 

[Qlder]

Anyone remember the late 1980's when Australia was so bad they adopted a 3 opener strategy as only way to survive the new ball

 

[Chin Music]

Anyone remember the late 1980's when Australia was so bad they adopted a 3 opener strategy as only way to survive the new ball

It has often been an England strategy, especially as we have tended not to produce too many natural 3s.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Yeah, KC Carty is basically our opener too

 

[TheJediBrah]

Opening the batting is definitely harder. I try to emphasise this as much as I can (as an opener) for purely selfish reasons.

However opening the batting does suit a lot of people, for some psychological and physical reasons. I'm one of them. Terrible at waiting and I get sleepy watching. Also the hard ball on a lot of flatter wickets is a big help to an aggressive batsman, even in red ball. It's a fallacy to assume that every opener would have done better batting down the order, though a lot almost certainly would have. As such you can't just apply an adjustment across the board for every player (not that anyone is claiming that, just for the sake of discussion)

I would also speculate that it's a reasonably safe assumption that most very successful openers were probably suited to opening and likely wouldn't do better in the middle order. I doubt Hayden would average 55 to 60 batting at 5. If anything he would probably average less IMO

 

[Chin Music]

Opening the batting is definitely harder. I try to emphasise this as much as I can (as an opener) for purely selfish reasons.

However opening the batting does suit a lot of people, for some psychological and physical reasons. I'm one of them. Terrible at waiting and I get sleepy watching. Also the hard ball on a lot of flatter wickets is a big help to an aggressive batsman, even in red ball. It's a fallacy to assume that every opener would have done better batting down the order, though a lot almost certainly would have. As such you can't just apply an adjustment across the board for every player (not that anyone is claiming that, just for the sake of discussion)

I would also speculate that it's a reasonably safe assumption that most very successful openers were probably suited to opening and likely wouldn't do better in the middle order. I doubt Hayden would average 55 to 60 batting at 5. If anything he would probably average less IMO

I would definitely think that this is the case. I always reckoned it was probably more advantageous to be an opener, certainly 10-15 years ago in South Asia and West Indies than it might be a middle order player coming in against spin.

Re my point about England often selecting another opener at 3, most of Alastair Cook's first year in test cricket was at no.3 behind the likes of Trescothick and Strauss. Don't forget that Vaughan played a fair bit as an opener and no.3 as well.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I would definitely think that this is the case. I always reckoned it was probably more advantageous to be an opener, certainly 10-15 years ago in South Asia and West Indies than it might be a middle order player coming in against spin.

Re my point about England often selecting another opener at 3, most of Alastair Cook's first year in test cricket was at no.3 behind the likes of Trescothick and Strauss. Don't forget that Vaughan played a fair bit as an opener and no.3 as well.

To be clear I'm not saying most players would do better opening in Tests, it's quite the opposite. Most would do worse. Just that the ones that were most successful were probably suited to it.

 

[Chin Music]

To be clear I'm not saying most players would do better opening in Tests, it's quite the opposite. Most would do worse. Just that the ones that were most successful were probably suited to it.

I wasn't trying to counteract it to be honest. I would agree that opening is a fairly niche role. I reckon someone like Cook, with is limited stroke play, would probably have struggled in the middle order with more people in the field rather than the slip cordon. The counter point to that though, is that the stroke players would often find the kinks in their defensive technique and the necessity to leave the ball would be a flaw they couldn't mask.

 

[Johan]

I wasn't trying to counteract it to be honest. I would agree that opening is a fairly niche role. I reckon someone like Cook, with is limited stroke play, would probably have struggled in the middle order with more people in the field rather than the slip cordon. The counter point to that though, is that the stroke players would often find the kinks in their defensive technique and the necessity to leave the ball would be a flaw they couldn't mask.

Cook would be a better Middle order Batsman imo, he has such a heavy footed technique against fast bowling that the extra bounce of the new ball combined with tall pacers was often his undoing, both Morkel and Ishant showed that much, he wasn't good at getting on top of bounce or attacking swing. lower bounce and lesser movement with the old ball means his pace weakness would be less exploited and he was one of the best against spin anyway.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Yeah I think English openers more than any would be reasonably to apply an across the board tax to. Not in recent years though of course with the BazBall roads they've been dishing out

 

[Chin Music]

Cook would be a better Middle order Batsman imo, he has such a heavy footed technique against fast bowling that the extra bounce of the new ball combined with tall pacers was often his undoing, both Morkel and Ishant showed that much, he wasn't good at getting on top of bounce or attacking swing. lower bounce and lesser movement with the old ball means his pace weakness would be less exploited and he was one of the best against spin anyway.

But one of Cook's assets was leaving the ball. No matter that his technique against top class fast bowling wasn't quite of the highest order, his judgement in leaving the ball would have set him apart from say Pietersen and Bell, the stroke makers from the side that he played with. I think he would have been a lot easier to tie down as a player against the older ball. He would have also found it a different challenge coming in against spinners than already having runs on the board before they come on. I admit though, that this is just my speculation. I simply don't think he had the shotplay to be that good down the order.