Best Test Opener ?

[open365]

Erm....

I'm really confused by that,during the recent South Africa V Aus test series,his stats were shown on screen and his average was around 52.

 

[open365]

Trescothick is massively overrated by a lot of England fans, I feel.

Yes he averages a very respectable 45 but check out his average outside England : it's only 36.

I get that feeling aswell,everyone in England sees him as our rock,our player that never fails,and he allways seems to play well when everyone else fails.

 

[Top_Cat]

1) Sehwag
2) Langer
3) Hayden
4) Trescothick
5) Smith
6) Butt
6) The rest.

 

[Francis]

No he didn't, he showed he could score runs off the SA and WI attacks.

The knock on the WI attack is valid since that team is in tatters. South Africa have a great team. Granted it's not versatile enough... but anybody who can score centuries off guys like Pollock, Nel and Ntini is impressive.

I really don't know how to rank the players. Trescothick made some really underrated contributions this year and his average just kept getting better. Hayden had a rough Ashes, but after that he's been impressive, especially in the Super Test. Since then he's been money in the bank. I haven't seen enough Sehwag but he might be number one. His 1st and 2nd innings averages are confusing. How can somebody have such a good 1st innings average and a bad 2nd innings average. Langer isn't a contender for me. He looked good in the Ashes, but only pushed on in the last test when it was too late. After that he hasn't done much.

 

[Top_Cat]

Langer isn't a contender for me. He looked good in the Ashes, but only pushed on in the last test when it was too late. After that he hasn't done much.

1) So the fact he was Australia's most consistent batsman in the series is meaningless? Sure he didn't get a hundred before that last Test but other than Ponting's 156, neither did anyone else. He was too busy fighting his guts out just to survive because everyone else was falling over. Langer did way more than 'his bit' in that series and rating his series as virtually a failure because he didn't score a hundred until the last Test is ignorant in the context of the series and how tough it was and highly unfair to him. You may consider it 'too late' to score a hundred in the last Test but at least it was technically still alive by that point; without his other contributions, the series would have been over by the Oval. He batted as well as anyone could have expected.

2) His stellar form for three years before that is suddenly meaningless in the context of where he sits overall?

3) The fact he's been injured twice since the Ashes (one of them a broken-rib from a Denton thunderbolt) meaningless too?

His scores since the Ashes;

0, 22, 99, 20, 37, 47, 25, 20.

Considering the injuries and no chance to find some form with WA because of them, those aren't bad. I was there for that 99 and he played brilliantly. He's definitely in form; just has had some bad luck with injuries.

 

[aussie]

Atapattu ahead of Smith? Atapattu is woefully inconsistent.Smith is far more potent for mine.

the reason i put in attapatu over Smith is because to me Smith as flourished a lot againts poor bowling attacks & the 2 times he faced decent attacks in his career vs England 2004/05 & Australia just recently he failed miserbaly & looked so out of depth againts the ball coming back into him.

 

[aussie]

No he didn't, he showed he could score runs off the SA and WI attacks.

so what you forgeting about the super test?, isnt the SA attack a good? & didn't he score runs in the last ashes test?. Gimme a break..

 

[aussie]

Trescothick is massively overrated by a lot of England fans, I feel.

Yes he averages a very respectable 45 but check out his average outside England : it's only 36.

that may be so, but he has been doing very well overall since 2003, especially last year, he is the rock in which England bulid their innings around these days & even though he may seems to give an awfull amount of chances before he makes big scores i think the accolades he gets is just about right.

 

[danish]

1) Sehwag
2) Langer
3) Hayden
4) Trescothick
5) Smith
6) Butt
6) The rest.

As much as I'd like to agree with this, IMO Butt definately is not in the top 6 openers. Sure, if this was a potential best openers thread, Butt would be in the top 3 for me. However, he is too inconsistent, and his tecnique has too many defensive flaws. I think if Butt is to be rated as one of the best openers, Akmal has to be above him.

 

[open365]

I really don't know how to rank the players. Trescothick made some really underratedcontributions this year and his average just kept getting better. Hayden had a rough Ashes, but after that he's been impressive, especially in the Super Test. Since then he's been money in the bank. I haven't seen enough Sehwag but he might be number one. His 1st and 2nd innings averages are confusing. How can somebody have such a good 1st innings average and a bad 2nd innings average. Langer isn't a contender for me. He looked good in the Ashes, but only pushed on in the last test when it was too late. After that he hasn't done much.

I'd have to dis-agree there...

 

[Jono]

Trescothick is massively overrated by a lot of England fans, I feel.

Yes he averages a very respectable 45 but check out his average outside England : it's only 36.

Trescothick a year to 18 months ago wasn't anywhere close to the best opener in the world, but he has improved and ignoring that would be silly. He has also improved his record away from England recently, with some decent performances against SA and Pakistan. The fact is, since the SA series he's become a much better player whilst Vaughan has significantly dropped off and Thorpe has gone. Flintoff's record away from home is nothing to write home about, and Pietersen is still fairly new to test cricket. Strauss simply isn't as good as Trescothick yet IMO, so Tresco is England's best bat and right now I'd rather have him than Hayden (but overall Hayden's been the better player throughout his career).

That being said, Sehwag and Langer are comfortably better opening batsman. There is a large gap between those two and the other test openers in the world IMO.

 

[Jono]

As much as I'd like to agree with this, IMO Butt definately is not in the top 6 openers. Sure, if this was a potential best openers thread, Butt would be in the top 3 for me. However, he is too inconsistent, and his tecnique has too many defensive flaws. I think if Butt is to be rated as one of the best openers, Akmal has to be above him.

Well we're talking tests here, and since Akmal doesn't open that won't work.

I do pretty much agree with you though, but you can't deny Butt's success at the moment. Obviously he needs to replicate that outside of Pakistan and there's a chance he may struggle in England. Very good talent though.

 

[andyc]

I'm really confused by that,during the recent South Africa V Aus test series,his stats were shown on screen and his average was around 52.

Well he's only played 14 tests, so his low scores would have had a considerable effect on his average, although I didn't think they would have brought it down that much.

 

[marc71178]

so what you forgeting about the super test?

It's funny how when it suits people they include the Super Test, but when it doesn't they ignore it isn't it?

 

[Richard]

Sehwag
Hayden
Langer
Smith
Trescothick

How on Earth anyone can possibly call Hayden better than Smith is beyond me when both clearly have huge (and identical) flaws in their game yet Smith has had his exposed far less often.

 

[Richard]

Surprised no-one has mentioned De Villiers at all. He didn't have the best tour to Oz, but he still averages well over 50. More techinically correct batter than anyone mentioned bar Langer for me.

How on Earth is Langer better technically equipped than de Villiers?
de Villiers does not tend to get hit 50 times every Test. Langer mightn't be troubled by the short-ball in terms of losing his wicket, but de Villiers generally tends to avoid it.
Obviously it's not too difficult to have a better technique than Hayden, Trescothick or Sehwag (or Smith, really) and I find it near enough inconceivable that any would average much more than the early 30s in an era of better bowling and more seam-friendly pitches. That they can be ranked at the top of the openers' tree is a sad commentary on the times and it'll be a gross injustice if any are ranked ahead of the like of Atherton, Kirsten, Slater, Taylor, Anwar, etc.
As for Atapattu - most infuriating batsman. Ever. How anyone can go from being so immovable to so stupidly vulnerable in the space of a week (sometimes even less) is totally beyond me. If he could have less single-figure days and more 30s and 70s he'd be up there with the best openers in history.

 

[Richard]

Erm....

Until the last 3 innings in Australia de Villiers' average was comfortably over 50.

 

[Richard]

Trescothick is massively overrated by a lot of England fans, I feel.

Yes he averages a very respectable 45 but check out his average outside England : it's only 36.

Added to that he was early in his career one of the more fortunate batsmen going around, and added again last summer when everyone talked as if he was a totally different player to his previous Ashes series when the difference was in the opposition not Trescothick himself.

 

[Richard]

the reason i put in attapatu over Smith is because to me Smith as flourished a lot againts poor bowling attacks & the 2 times he faced decent attacks in his career vs England 2004/05 & Australia just recently he failed miserbaly & looked so out of depth againts the ball coming back into him.

Of course he had so many problems with the inswinger in Australia?
Most of his lbws were just missing straight balls, not inswingers, which suggests lack of form, not technical problems.
Smith, incidentally, has faced good bowling-attacks on more than 2 occasions.

 

[aussie]

Of course he had so many problems with the inswinger in Australia?
Most of his lbws were just missing straight balls, not inswingers, which suggests lack of form, not technical problems.
Smith, incidentally, has faced good bowling-attacks on more than 2 occasions.

well him missing those simple straight balls isn't a technical fault?, and please tell me the others occassion in Smith's career that he faced a quality all-round attack other than vs England 2004/05 & Australia just recently?