With weather around, good cloud cover, and a fast and bouncy pitch – it will always be tough batting first. Tougher, if you are opening the innings. Toughest, if you are a Pakistan batsman opening the innings. Expect them to be back in the hut before you miss a blink. With the openers gone cheaply, more often than not, the middle order will fold cheaply too.
Unless of course, the opener has weathered the conditions, nicked a few, missed more than a few, survived the first session and softened the hard ball. He has not scored as many runs, but is still out there at the crease – however ugly the stay may be. The conditions have now eased, the ball older, eyes well set. You would expect the second session to be freer flowing. Remember – it is a test match. Another thing if you decide to forget it is one – and call your opener back in the quest of faster runs.
The next batsman will take his sweet time to get the eye in. The conditions have undoubtedly improved and the runs are coming. The credit that should have gone to the opener for not scoring many runs but biding enough time for others to have the easier of the conditions will go to the ones who did make those easy runs. Come the next match, relatively easier conditions, and you decide to drop your opener who helped you stay afloat. This time around, if you stutter at the start going hard from the onset, you will invariably end on the wrong side of the result end.
Imran Khan was the most successful Pakistan Test captain until recently, when Misbah took over. But that does not take the sheen away from the victories Imran had in his bag under his leadership. Home, away, and against the mightiest of oppositions too.
His first 20 matches as skipper brought him a massive nine wins. His next 28 brought only five more. There was one constant in his first 20 games as a skipper. His openers. Mohsin Khan opened in all those games and his partner Mudassar in all but two. He trusted his openers; he won many games, without the openers exactly setting the world on fire with massive runs. In the last 28 games, he kept changing them, the results too became different. Pakistan drew 20 off those 28 games. The openers started to play for their place.
Imran, the cricketer, knew who his best openers were for the best part of his tenure. He was also the de-facto chief selector of his team. Imran, the Prime Minister, knew who his opening batsman was. Well before the game even started. Is Imran, the Prime Minister, also the chief selector?
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