Partnership (cricket) - Style of Play

Style of Play

Unsurprisingly, lower order partnerships are usually much smaller than those for the early wickets, but are often the most tactically intense. A lot of spectator enjoyment derives either from the frequent combination of a last recognised batsman adopting extremely aggressive play (in an effort to score as many runs as possible before he runs out of batting partners - one reason why aggressive batsmen like Andrew Flintoff and Adam Gilchrist are often deliberately placed relatively low in the batting order) and the constant risk of a wicket, the alternative situation where no recognised batsmen remains and the tail-enders (relieved of their responsibility to bat carefully for anybody else) often unleash their rarely seen arsenal of attacking shots, or alternatively the extremely tense situation which sometimes emerges towards the end of a match when a batting side, facing defeat, can only salvage a draw and save the match by batting to the end of the final day, which becomes difficult once the worst batsmen are in, and their survival is always nerve-wracking — English fans fondly remember the last wicket stand of Angus Fraser and Robert Croft, batting out the last few overs of the drawn Third Test against South Africa at Old Trafford in 1998, when the dismissal of either of them would have resulted in a loss. This contrasts with the spirit of earlier wicket partnerships, where the batsmen usually dominate and the bowlers have to work especially hard to take their wickets.