There is dearth of quality test openers especially when playing in unfamiliar condition. I believe picking non-experienced players while playing overseas is one of major reason for them to perform poorly.
Since 1st Jan 2017, 84 batsmen opened the batting for their teams, of which 31 made their debut!. It means 36.90% of openers were playing Test cricket for the very first time.
In below tables I have used five indicators to reflect their performance.
Avg – Runs/ wkt
Balls/Inns
Boundary rate
Frequency of dismissals for zeros per innings
Frequency of 50 plus score per innings(including centuries)
Overall performance
Non- Asian countries
Here the scenario changes completely, with teams from Asia not featuring at the top. England is leading team followed by South Africa. Indian openers have faired poorly in this category, scoring one century and taking almost 7 test to score one fifty!.
South Africa frequency of 50 is the best, i.e every 4 inns there is a 50 plus score by one of their openers.
Asia
In Asia India being the best team by huge margin. They dominate all indicators, with frequency of 50 plus being top notch, i.e a 50 every test match!.
