An Opening Problem?

The venerable Geoffrey Boycott once published a book, entitled 'Opening Up'. Well, I too am going to open up about what I have identified as a possible shortcoming for Yorkshire's first XI, if recent results from this summer are anything to go by. Yes I acknowledge that the white rose did awfully well to finish in the lofty position of second in the County Championship and yes our batsmen generally gave a very good account of themselves, but if one drills down into the facts (and facts rarely lie) then Yorkshire's opening partnerships in the County Championship have been below par and represent a cause for concern for next summer.

Perhaps what distorts Yorkshire's apparent progress at accumulating lots of runs in the first-class fixtures of 2013 is that much of the high-scoring was a product of the prolific Gary Ballance, as well as various notable contributions from other middle-order batsmen such as Andrew Gale and Adil Rashid. I am not suggesting that Alex Lees, Adam Lyth, and Joe Root under-achieved, as nothing could be further from the truth. However, for all of the admirable efforts of Yorkshire's openers, the Tykes failed once too often to get off to a flier, with a solid opening stand. Instead of which, the county's first wicket partnerships in the County Championship of 2013 amounted to a mediocre average of 24.32. Allowing for the fact that openers are sometimes pitched in at the deep end in unfavourable conditions against the new ball, the failure of Yorkshire's openers to construct higher first-wicket stands is something that needs to be assessed.

Here below are the statistics that tell their own story. Only one century first-wicket partnership and two half-century opening stands were achieved by Yorkshire's first XI in their sixteen fixtures in the County Championship of 2013. Nine times our opening batsmen failed to even produce ten runs for the opening wicket. Is this of the required standard for a county with major ambitions for its playing staff in the future? 

4 and 4 versus Sussex

0 and 23 versus Durham

126 versus Derbyshire by Adam Lyth and Joe Root

0 versus Somerset

77 versus Warwickshire by Adam Lyth and Joe Sayers

2 and 14 versus Somerset

7 versus Nottinghamshire

32 and 7* versus Middlesex

62 and 42 versus Surrey by Alex Lees and Adam Lyth

22 versus Derbyshire

25 and 14 versus Warwickshire

20 and 12* versus Nottinghamshire

18 and 19 versus Durham

25 and 22 versus Sussex

1 and 4 versus Middlesex

22 and 4 versus Surrey