Just for openers

GH on Steve Smith and his opening rivals

Should Steve Smith open? As a cricket question, its appeal is bottomless. Everyone has a view. There is no obviously right answer. By the time it is resolved once and for all, in two months, nobody will remember what anyone said except, maybe, cricket journalists, and then only vestigially. It is certainly a great deal more immediately involving than the question of whether a thirty-five-year-old daddy’s boy should run world cricket while elasticising the definition of the word ‘independent’ so far that it wraps round the game’s neck.

Anyway, let’s have a think. It’s interesting that we’re having the debate at all, really, in this cricket world that increasingly stresses infinite fungibility. Anyone can open in T20, from Virat Kohli to Sunil Narine. ODI cricket is almost as ecumenical. But the failure against Sri Lanka of Dan Lawrence as an ersatz opener in place of the injured Zak Crawley was a timely reminder of the case for specialist openers, from such authorities as Mike Atherton, who saw the Lawrence pick as evidence of confused thinking .

Only England know their rationale behind the decision to use Lawrence to an opener. Did they think he could be a success there? Was it a case of finding out a little more about him? Was it a loyalty reward for being the spare batsman over a long period of time? Were they simply avoiding picking a “specialist” opener because they did not want to confuse the situation for Zak Crawley’s impending return? Possibly, it was a combination of all those things.

On the basis of his own vast contribution to the genre of opening batsmanship, Mike’s analysis included a nice personal disclaimer before proceeding on to the nub of his argument:

It is true that those of us experienced in that specialist position tend to overplay its challenges to burnish our achievements or reason away our failings — new ball, fresh bowlers, fresh pitch and all that — but it remains startling how few successful instances there have been of converting middle-order players to openers in Test cricket. Generally with age, players drop down the order, while few make the journey with sustained success the other way. Doubts loom over Steve Smith’s continuing experiment for Australia in that position, and he is one of the greats of the game.

So here we are back at Smith again, and last season provided evidence of us having spun middle-order gold into opening silver or even bronze. Still, a caveat to Athers’s commentary: we can find examples of successful promotions, including Smith’s partner. Yes, Usman Khawaja opened at junior level, but he was eight years a Test cricketer before he did the job regularly at the top level. Perhaps the best opener in the world, averaging 50 in the position, is India’s captain, who got the job after averaging 40 down the list in a long and spasmodic career : of Rohit Sharma, it was, perhaps, the making.

There’s actually not a bad history here. Ten years after getting England over the line as the last wicket, Wilf Rhodes was breaking records for the first wicket; Frank Woolley took up opening the batting aged fifty-one and wondered why he’d waited so long. Modern classics include Graham Gooch, David Boon and Ravi Shastri are modern classics, while Australian teams have done well from their manufacturing efforts. For Justin Langer it was a short journey from number three; for Simon Katich a longer journey from numbers four and five; it was a highly successful cobbling when he coupled with Shane Watson, promoted from number six.

Athers is probably still right - he’s seldom wrong - because perhaps these are exceptions that prove the rule. But perhaps they also suggest that a prerequisite for success is a strong desire to do the job. When opening allowed Watson to reinvent himself, for example, he became a tremendous enthusiast for the position, to the extent that when injury and the emergence of David Warner curtailed his opportunities he never looked quite the same player again. I’m not sure that Dan Lawrence ever looked an excited volunteer; more, perhaps, an initially willing but steadily disillusioned conscript. The argument in Smith’s favour at the start of 2024 was that he was an enthusiast for the promotion; latterly he’s sounded less sure. That may a sign of waning enthusiasm. Alternatively, maybe he’s bored answering the question….

Anyway, now we have the beauty contest, with Cricinfo usefully lining the candidates on the catwalk. Interestingly, the survey includes neither Marcus Harris, who was reserve opener as recently as last year, and Cameron Bancroft, who to me was the boringly obvious candidate in January. The latter choice then had the same virtues as it does now. Bancroft is an excellent cricketer - tough, fit and an outstanding catcher. He has done everything right in his rehabilitation from ignominy, being at thirty-one a vastly improved version of the player whom Australia selected in 2017-18. His selection would send the constructive message that the Australian team is not a closed shop and that first-class runs are a currency that still matters: he’s averaged 50 for the last two years with ten hundreds. The argument for a specialist opener gains strength from the new ball talent Australia will face this summer. When Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami are in your opposition is not the moment when you look around your dressing room and ask: ‘So who fancies a crack?’

The candidates parade also sidesteps the key rationale for Smith opening, which was to open a vacancy for the reinclusion in an ageing XI of twenty-five-year-old Cameron Green without having to exclude newly reestablished Mitchell Marsh. So maybe the question that underlies ‘Should Smith open?’ is ‘Does Australia need a second all-rounder/sixth bowling option?’ It’s been heartening to have Marsh back in the colours - his hundred at Headingley last year still brings a smile to one’s face. But he turns thirty-three next month, averages 40 with the ball when he’s fit to bowl at all, and with the T20 captaincy could be playing a lot of white ball cricket in the next few years. Sure, it would be handy on a hot day and a flat pitch to be able to throw Marsh the ball for a few overs to relieve an attack with a lot of miles on the clock. But if five bowlers can’t do the job for you, will a sixth make much difference? Are we fetishising options at the expense of specialisations? Travis Head is, in any case, a bowling alternative Australia could make more use of, both to relieve its medium pace monotony and improve its always borderline over rate.

Test cricket is in its fifteenth decade, in which a standard XI has usually included two experienced openers and one all-rounder. We may be reinventing the wheel in ignorance of the wheel's prior existence.