Batting Order (cricket) - Opening Batsmen

Opening Batsmen

The opening batsmen or "openers" are the batsmen who bat first in the innings. This position is important as the openers need to get the innings off to a good start. The early fall of wickets can have a psychological impact on the rest of the team, affecting their performance with the bat. The opening batsmen also get the first experience of the pitch and conditions, and must be able to adjust to them quickly.

Most importantly, the opening batsmen must face a new ball, which is hard and has a pronounced seam. This makes it more liable to travel fast, bounce high, seam around (i.e., bounce unpredictably off the seam) and swing (i.e., deviate sideways when travelling through the air). These early conditions favour the bowling team, so the opening batsmen must have a sound technique and be good defensively. As the ball gets older, its condition starts to favour the batting team. Therefore, the openers will ideally stay at the crease long enough to protect the batsmen further down the order.

In first-class cricket, the rate at which the openers score runs is not as important as "taking the shine off" the new ball. This is the process of softening and roughening the cricket ball, whose condition tends to degrade the longer it is in play. By occupying the crease for a long time and taking the shine off the ball, the openers themselves are able to score more freely later on. This also makes batting easier for the rest of the order. Because of the defensive technique required early on, openers are sometimes less fluent stroke-players than the specialist batsmen who follow.

In limited overs cricket, the role of opening batsman is slightly different. In this type of cricket a high run rate is a necessity. Also, in the early 1990s, fielding restrictions were introduced in the early overs of the game, limiting the fielding side to only two players on the boundary. To start the innings effectively and take advantage of the fielding restrictions, it became beneficial to have an aggressive batsman opening the innings.

If an opening batsman remains not out at the end of the team's inning, after all 10 other batsmen have been dismissed, he is said to have carried the bat.