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| April 05, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 16, 1428 |
Form teams rely on in-form opening batsmen
ST JOHN’S (Antigua), April 4: The World Cup is turning into a showcase for top opening batsmen. Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa are being led from the front and living up to their billing as likely World Cup semi-finalists.
The wickets in the Caribbean are, once any early moisture has evaporated from the pitch, offering batsmen a friendly track on which to hit big scores. All openers need to do, it seems, is survive the first few overs and then take advantage.
Each of the form teams so far has a player at the top of the order capable of patiently negotiating the tricky opening spell before hitting out to up the pace and help their teams to big totals.
Australia's Matthew Hayden, South Africa's Graeme Smith, Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya and New Zealand's Stephen Fleming have dominated attacks to fill the first four places in the run-scoring charts.
Since ending his international retirement, the 37-year-old Jayasuriya hit his sixth century against West Indies on Sunday. His team would almost certainly not be challenging for a place in the top four of the Super Eights without him.
“He has been amazing,” Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene said. “He is working harder, has a great attitude and is enjoying his cricket.
“He has played some really good innings, not just the one we saw against West Indies the other day.”
Hard work is a recurring theme when the subject of these openers comes up. It applies in practice, in getting used to conditions and in rallying team-mates with big performances.
Hayden, who has a tournament high 395 runs from five innings, was out of Australia's team for about a year and had to struggle to get back his place in time for the World Cup.
He hit 158 to set up victory over West Indies and a 66-ball century against South Africa in St Kitts, the quickest ever at the World Cup.
“I had a lot commitment and passion to get back in the one-day squad,” Hayden said. “If we keep working hard, I can't see why we can't keep improving throughout this tournament.”
New Zealand captain Fleming hit an unbeaten 102 off 92 balls in Monday's nine-wicket win over Bangladesh to take his team level with Australia atop the Super Eights standings.
The quickfire manner in which Fleming and Hamish Marshall knocked off the winning runs with almost 21 overs to spare came two days a similar performance against the same opponents by Australia openers Hayden and Adam Gilchrist.
It took Fleming to 280 runs for the tournament and could give the Kiwis an edge if qualification for the semi-finals has to be decided by run rate.
“I felt my form in this World Cup has been outstanding,” Fleming said. “I'm striking the ball well, generating a good strike rate and it was good to push on from 40, 50, 60 and get something substantial.”
England is one team that has struggled to get used to conditions, their openers fulfilling their brief to start solidly but not going on to get to a big total.
The three-time runner up has been uninspiring against the weak attacks of smaller cricket nations such as Ireland, Canada and Kenya, and failed against New Zealand.
Openers Michael Vaughan and Ed Joyce scored a total seven and 76 respectively in the past two matches against Kenya and Ireland. An inability to get on top of aggressive opening bowling may be exposed further when they come up against the likes of Australia and South Africa.
“There's always a lot of talk about power-plays and being aggressive at the top of the order,” captain Michael Vaughan said. “Where we have struggled, is that we've not got players to 100.”—AP
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