World Cup: Ian Bell and Moeen Ali can rise to opening challenge
Assessing high-risk and low-risk shots is key to getting your team off to a flyer...
Friday 13 February 2015 11:17, UK
Andrew Strauss says opposition teams will rightly be wary of Ian Bell's opening partnership with Moeen Ali in the upcoming World Cup...
The challenge for openers in one-day cricket since the beginning of time has been to judge how quickly to go off depending on conditions, with the need to conserve wickets in hand – and this World Cup will be no different.
As an opener you want to set the tone – and in this day and age you can’t spend too long getting yourself in – but at the same time you don’t want to give away your wicket needlessly.
In this era of Twenty20 cricket, there’s an even greater expectation on openers to push on in those first powerplay overs – they are looked upon as an opportunity for easier runs against the new balls rather than a time to respect the bowlers.
But you have to be ready for anything. In the subcontinent you might find a spinner opening the bowling, which might be something you’re not necessarily prepared for, while in Australia you’ll face 90mph bowlers coming at you with a lot of hostility and you’ve got to be good enough to adapt to each and understand the risks at play with each scenario.
One thing we know for sure is that the teams with the best openers who can overcome those challenges and get their team off to a good start are at a huge advantage. If you scratch around to begin with and you can’t find your timing in the middle, it’s even harder to find form when the games become more pressurised at the back end of the tournament.
Generally in Australia and New Zealand the first eight overs – particularly with two new balls – you will face pace, bounce and carry; they may well be a little bit more nibble in New Zealand as well. So you won’t see too many openers playing themselves in, but they will be assessing the high-risk and low-risk shots as quickly as they can on each particular pitch and they’ll always be wary of getting a brute of a delivery too.
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The ability to do that does come a lot with experience, which Ian Bell has plenty of. It’s great to see him getting a go at the top of the order and taking it with both hands.
When he’s on form he looks perfectly suited to doing that job – he’s got shots all around the wicket off the front and back foot; there’s usually a really nice tempo to his innings.
He and Moeen Ali, who really excites me, complement each other really well.
Moeen Ali is an opener who opposition teams will rightfully be very wary of because he has an incredible array of shots and is determined to go at the bowling. But at the moment I think he hasn’t quite worked out the risk-reward aspect of the role; sometimes he’ll go too hard too early; it’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve for him to choose the right shot at the right time in a World Cup.
The one opening partnership that most teams will be fearful of is Australia’s. Aaron Finch and David Warner are dangerous in many ways; they each play an aggressive game and are very good at doing it.
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But if you look around the world pretty much every team has got an attacking opening pair; Sri Lanka, for example, have Tillakaratne Dilshan and Lahiru Thirimanne; New Zealand have got Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptill; South Africa have a strong pair in Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock.
My point is that there is no shortage of strong players at the top of the order in world cricket and that puts the onus on the bowlers to take early wickets. If your side gets early wickets then you can really stem that flow or runs.
Teams used to just accumulate in the middle overs but these days if you’ve got wickets in hand they go on the offensive in a big way and earn a great advantage, propelling the team well past 300, which is where England need to be if – as I hope – they are to reach the semi-finals.
Watch each and every game of the ICC Cricket World Cup on our dedicated channel, Sky Sports World Cup, starting with New Zealand against Sri Lanka from 10pm on Friday 13 February.
Before then don’t miss our World Cup Preview Show, with Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan, from 8pm on Friday on the same channel.
