In the last three years, England’s disenchanting opening combinations have led to an imbalance in the English batting line-up in Tests. The opening combination has been disoriented since Alastair Cook retired from the longest format of the game.
In the ongoing series against Australia, England openers haven’t managed to score a fifty-run partnership. It has been a worry for them for a long time now. England have tried and tested many combinations, left-hand-right-hand pairs, experienced players, and even young players. None have been successful. Because of this, they have encountered enormous difficulties, which has led to numerous series being lost.
England openers’ performance: Last three years
Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed
England’s current opening pair of Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed has been the best opening pair for them in the last three years in terms of average. But the pair too has been disappointing in terms of consistency. They have just played seven innings together and scored 274 runs in that period. They average 8.50 in away venues in Tests, which is below par for any batting pair. Their overall average of 39.14 is decent enough, but they haven’t been consistent and have scored only two hundreds. Burns and Hameed still haven’t performed up to the mark, but they still have a point to prove in the ongoing Ashes series.
Rory Burns and Dom Sibley
In the last three years, Sibley and Burns’ pair has been the most experienced pair in terms of the number of matches played. They have played 26 innings together, and in them, they have managed to score 734 runs at an average of 28.23. They have been the best pair away from home, scoring 294 runs at an average of 32.66. The pair was considered the best and was given many chances too, but the lack of big partnerships resulted in discarding this opening pair.
Zak Crawley and Dom Sibley
Another pair to be tested by England during this phase was Crawley and Sibley. They played all their matches on away grounds. They played 13 innings, during which they managed to score 325 runs on an average of just 25 runs per inning. Their highest score was 117, which was their only hundred-run partnership. They lacked consistency and big-run partnerships.
Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook: England’s best opening pair
Ever since Cook retired from Tests, England have experimented with eight opening combinations. Cook was one of the most successful opening batters for the English cricket team. Cook and Strauss are the names that come to mind while speaking of opening pairs for England and world cricket. They both were the pillars of the team, and they added humongous partnerships at the top of the order in both home and away venues.
There is a massive difference in numbers between the set of batters and the opening pair of Strauss and Cook after the latter retired. Cook and Strauss batted during the 2006 to 2012 time period, and after that England haven’t been able to produce top-class opening pairs who would match this kind of quality.
After comparison, the eight opening combinations tried by England after Cook’s retirement scored 1730 runs in 65 innings, while Cook and Strauss scored a mammoth 4711 runs in 117 innings. Their average of 24.02 is half of that of Cook and Strauss’s 40.96.
Conclusion
Cook and Strauss have certainly set the benchmark, and no other opening pair after them has been able to match or even come close to the numbers they have achieved in Test cricket. Eventually, England will have to set up a strong opening pair that will not only help them to start well in matches but also help them to win both at home and away. Joe Root and company have got a major headache, and this needs to be solved, which will make England cricket and their batting unit as strong and fierce as before.