Neil Pickup
Cricket Web Moderator
I'm sitting here at home, poring over a squad list ahead of the first couple of school games of the season and staring at the number two position on the batting order, without the slightest idea of who's going to fill it.
I have one natural, obvious opener, and am pretty happy about my 3-4-5 combination, but there are five or six boys who could conceivably do a job, in all kinds of different ways. Some are strokeless, some almost reckless, some give a left-right combination, some hard working, some with outstanding hand-eye...
So I started to think, what would you want from your ideal opening partners?
Who have been the greatest opening pairs of all time (I can answer that without help) - and what's made them so effective. What would be the all-time partnership: not just as the two best openers, but the best combination?
I have one natural, obvious opener, and am pretty happy about my 3-4-5 combination, but there are five or six boys who could conceivably do a job, in all kinds of different ways. Some are strokeless, some almost reckless, some give a left-right combination, some hard working, some with outstanding hand-eye...
So I started to think, what would you want from your ideal opening partners?
Who have been the greatest opening pairs of all time (I can answer that without help) - and what's made them so effective. What would be the all-time partnership: not just as the two best openers, but the best combination?