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What is a new ball mantra?. To compel batsman play every delivery!.

An opening batsman is responsible for building team’s platform, and at the start of an innings he is not aware how the pitch will behave, and how much the ball will swing. Adding to this, he is unaware of what tactics fielding side will employ, and how their opening bowlers will execute them.

Hence most opening batsmen will take some time to settle down. The time period is marginal, depending on different formats of game, adding pitch condition, and also character of a player.

So it becomes important for an opening bowler to make the best use of new ball, and make him play each delivery. If things are not going in his favor, and has tried all his tricks, he still needs to continue doing what he is doing, because even though a batsman will look comfortable, nevertheless forced to solve one problem after another at the start of an innings, which reduces the success rate of scoring runs, and increases possibility of a wicket.

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List of bowlers opening the innings.

For India

List of bowlers opening the innings.

For all countries

A look at India’s opening bowling spell during the ongoing Pataudi series.

1st Test Match, England(1^st Innings)

Zaheer Khan and Praveen Kumar opened the bowling, and their spell lasted 14overs(84 balls). England were 23-1. Below is how English openers batted those 14overs.

England(2^nd Innings)

Due to injury to Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar & Ishant Sharma opened the bowling for India, and their spell lasted 16overs(96balls). England were 34-1. Below is how English openers started their reply after taking a lead of 188runs.

2nd Test Match, England(1^st Innings)

Once again India chose to field after winning the toss, and they opened the bowling with Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma. Their spell lasted 10overs (60 balls), and England were struggling at 18-1. Below is how it all started.

England(2^nd Innings)

India were ahead when England batted again, taking a lead of 67Runs. Once again they opened the bowling with Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma, but this they had a short spell of 6overs(36balls). England were 16-1.

3rd Test Match, England(1^st Innings)

India batted first, and were bundled out for 224, and made a change to their bowling line up. They employed Sreesanth to open the bowling with Praveen Kumar. Their spell lasted 7overs.

England were comfortably placed at 24-0 after 7overs.

Data processed from Jan 2010 till end of England(1st Inn) 3rd Test, Aug 2011.

Trent Bridge Review

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This season in English County, every 2^nd game teams manage to score 400!.

18 Teams play 138 games in Two Division in English County.

This season, at the end of 88 games, 54 times teams manage to go past the 400 score, which is about every second game a total of 400 is scored by a Team.

An excellent opportunity for Indian Team!!

…….neverthless 22 times teams were forced to follow-on, which works up to 25%, not a good sign for Indians.

Major Partnership density is in middle order (56 %)

Earlier in July, game between Nottinghamshire v Somerset could be a confidence factor for India!.

What is a job of a top order batsman when he is batting with lower order/tail?.

1- If they are batting first, then look to score as many runs as possible with a better strike rate.

2- If they are replying a 1^st Inning score, then make sure they come as close as possible(after avoiding follow on) to that score, by building partnerships with tail, and have a strike rate at which his partner(lower/tail) is comfortable with (some tail-enders like to be scoreless and stick around as long as they can, some like to hit boundaries every second ball).

Neverthless Rahul Dravid’s innings had value in terms of personal landmark, and averting follow on, but could he along with lower order posted substantial  partnerships, and come much closer to England’s 1^st inn score ?.

Lately Dravid has been involved with lower order partnerships, yet India couldn’t reach 400 or even 300, so is it possible for him to change his batting style, and bat faster ?

If that happens, then partnerships can be build.

Here one is not suggesting 50 or 100 runs, but partnerships of 30s,/40s can be substantial runs for  teams.

India’s current line-up is blessed with excellent lower order strikers, and they have enough experience  batting with top batsmen.

Here one feels Dravid should change his batting style, and once that happens, the fielding side will become defensive, and instead of attacking to pick wickets, they would try and stop runs, which will allow Dravid to  build partnerships with lower order, and India can score decent total consistently.

Here is a look at Dravid’s involvement in partnerships  with lower order batsmen in Test cricket.

Rahul Dravid’s Partnerships with lower order batsmen(All Tests)

Now, if one has to sum up all these partnerships (add all lower order partnerships), then Dravid’s involvement with tail fetched India @23 Runs/Wkt.

… If one has to compare this analysis with Ricky Ponting, his contemporary Test No .3 batsman, then his involvement with tail has fetched Australia 42 Runs/Wkt.

Ricky Ponting’s Partnerships with lower order batsmen (Batting Position No.3,since 2001)

They both have different batting style, and there is nothing much in terms of average (unless one can measure strike rate of each partnerships) neverthless Dravid  can take a leaf from this Aussie.

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