Why don't teams reverse the batting order on greentops?

[Gollum]

Don Bradman once did it in 1936-37 Ashes on a wet wicket. The idea was for the lower order to spend some time while the wet wicket was exposed to the sun, hence making conditions easier for the top order batsmen. 

 

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/17549/scorecard/62643/Australia-vs-England-3rd-Test-england-tour-of-australia-1936-37/

 

As you can see Bradman (no 3 batsman) came at no 7 as did other top batsmen like Fingleton and McCabe. Numbers 9, 10, 11 were top 3 and other lower order batsmen too were pushed up (wasn't a complete reversal per se). The previous innings England had been bowled out for 76, the main Aussie batsmen came after 30-35 overs and plundered the Poms, Bradman got 270, Fingleton 136 and Aussies won by 365 runs !!!

 

I don't think this radical approach was repeated again in test cricket, I wonder why. On a greentop more often than not you lose your top order for not many, might as well send the tail 1st and pray for the best. If it works out fine, if not rather them dismissed than your best batsmen. On green/moist decks batting gets easier after the 1st 25-30 overs because the ball gets older/softer, ball loses the pronounced seam, pitch eases up and the quicks aren't as fresh as in the 1st spell. Too often we see 40/3 or 60/5 in such situations, is it any better than 30/5 (30 overs) with your best players not yet dismissed? Unlike the top order the tail doesn't have much hope of scoring runs but do those extra 20-30 runs really matter, just send them out there and ask them to defend/leave and just look to survive. Who knows if they stick there for some time even the opposition will start getting frustrated. And another thing, most of the balls Smith/Kohli/Root/ABDV/KW nick to the keeper/slip cordon, I doubt the lower order are good enough to even make contact with such deliveries. We often hear that the batsman is too good for that jaffa to not nick it, even in this SA series a number of deliveries that took the edge  had movement that was so extravagant that the tailenders could only have wafted at thin air there. 

 

In Cape Town in both innings we lost our top 6 for not many and our last 5 had the best batting conditions. Had Kohli/Dhawan/Vijay/Rohit got such batting conditions we could have scored a lot more. In the 2nd innings of Centurion the new ball was doing all sorts of crazy up down stuff and there was only an hour and a half before stumps. May be the tail was too hopeless to expect much of but if we had Bhuvi in that match may be a batting order of Bhuvi, Ishant, Che, Patel, Ashwin could have seen off that phase with our best batsmen starting fresh on day 5 in relatively easier conditions. No need for full reversal, put a Pujara at no 3 in stead of the slogger Shami who won't necessarily do the job. 

 

What say? Not talking only specifically about India but all teams on greentops or conditions where the new ball bowlers have tremendous advantage. May be 20-30 years ago the tailenders were mugs with the bat with no protection like helmet, chest guard, arm guard etc. Modern day tailenders I would presume are more capable and may even pull it off. When I say pull it off, I mean a paltry 55/5 after 30 overs would count as a huge tactical victory. 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by Gollum

[Tattieboy]

I think we have something called covers now and wickets are never wet like they were 

[WeStMiDz]

Because we will be 3 down in the first over with the level of our tailenders.

[Gollum]

11 minutes ago, Tattieboy said:

I think we have something called covers now and wickets are never wet like they were 

But we do have greentops and occasional moist pitches (India vs SA Centurion 2010). Besides modern day batsmen aren't good enough to deal with movement unlike their great predecessors. They have a wider range of shots and better fitness/athleticism, but their defence is much weaker. Also unlikely to see much improvement on that front with excessive white ball cricket/T20 leagues and no off season these days. Players neither have the time nor the incentive to improve their defence because in modern day cricket 9 out of 10 matches will not demand a thorough examination of defensive technique like old days. I am not talking about all matches, only on the odd occasion here or there when new ball bowlers have undue advantage.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Gollum

[Tattieboy]

6 minutes ago, Gollum said:

But we do have greentops and occasional moist pitches (India vs SA Centurion 2010). Besides modern day batsmen aren't good enough to deal with movement unlike their great predecessors. They have a wider range of shots and better fitness/athleticism, but their defence is much weaker. Also unlikely to see much improvement on that front with excessive white ball cricket/T20 leagues and no off season these days. Players neither have the time nor the incentive to improve their defence because in modern day cricket 9 out of 10 matches will not demand a thorough examination of defensive technique like old days. I am not talking about all matches, only on the odd occasion here or there when new ball bowlers have undue advantage.

Green tops and occasional moist !!

The wickets were completely open to the elements.  The players today have no idea what green and wet are .

Your answer about modern players and not batting correctly is  another thing. 

If you want high run rate per over then you get modern player playing rash shots and always thinking attack rather than defend 

[diga]

Because a top order player has a better chance of surviving the new ball

[Gollum]

13 minutes ago, Tattieboy said:

Green tops and occasional moist !!

The wickets were completely open to the elements.  The players today have no idea what green and wet are .

Your answer about modern players and not batting correctly is  another thing. 

If you want high run rate per over then you get modern player playing rash shots and always thinking attack rather than defend 

Are bhai I am talking about modern day cricket. Ofc the uncovered wickets open to nature's elements were much harder to bat on but let us stick to the current era, esp post 2008 when the T20 bubble has captured the imagination of all and sundry, an era which rewards offence over defence. Modern day batsmen aren't good enough on greentops and moist pitches. Ofc they encounter such tracks with less frequency but still they aren't 100% out of vogue. Let the batting order be normal for most decks, but once in a while (10/15/20 matches whatever) when the pitch has an extra tadka in it for the new ball bowlers, isn't it a good idea to apply Bradman's formula? 

Edited January 21, 2018 by Gollum

[Khota]

You want your best against their best. If we start with tail we might lose 5 wkts in 5 overs. The tail only looks good because the attack is exhausted.

[Tattieboy]

Bradman formula I suspect was a protest at having to bat on what he thought was a wicket they should not have been playing on , because if it was a formula as you say why did he never do it again? 

There are absolutely zero conditions in test matches now that would cause any captain to reverse the batting order. 

They don't even field now in a damp pitch .

Maybe just a little more preparation and application would help 

[Gollum]

7 minutes ago, diga said:

Because a top order player has a better chance of surviving the new ball

But the loss of a top order batsman will hit the team much harder than a tailender. We can always have stonewallers like Renshaw, Pujara, Azhar Ali, Elgar, Jeet Raval, Hasib Hameed bat at their normal positions because their game is built on defence, even if they survive the phase they won't score quickly to hurt the opposition. But guys like Warner, Root, Smith, Kohli, KW, ABDV are too valuable to lose upfront...these guys can make the opposition pay when the conditions get easier, but if they bat at their normal positions there is a fat chance they will be consumed in the initial burst by the quicks after breezy 20s and 30s. Look at the 1st test, when Pandya came to bat conditions were much easier, a Kohli/Dhawan/Vijay at that stage would have contributed more to the team than what they did in the first 25 odd overs. 

[Gollum]

2 minutes ago, Tattieboy said:

Bradman formula I suspect was a protest at having to bat on what he thought was a wicket they should not have been playing on , because if it was a formula as you say why did he never do it again? 

There are absolutely zero conditions in test matches now that would cause any captain to reverse the batting order. 

They don't even field now in a damp pitch .

Maybe just a little more preparation and application would help 

May be he never encountered such extreme conditions again. I am talking about matches that pop out once in 5 years where batting against the new ball becomes notoriously difficult. 

[Tattieboy]

3 minutes ago, Gollum said:

May be he never encountered such extreme conditions again. I am talking about matches that pop out once in 5 years where batting against the new ball becomes notoriously difficult. 

I am not sure you understand what was in place before. No wickets were ever covered,  if it was raining the got soaked. You are saying it only rained every 5 years.  It rained nearly everyday in England.  Wickets were covered In sawdust . 

It has nothing to do with wickets in today's cricket but everything to do with batsmen attacking mindset against race to get totals averaging at least 4 per over 

[kira]

Phattu bradman hiding behind tailenders 

[Gollum]

8 minutes ago, Khota said:

You want your best against their best. If we start with tail we might lose 5 wkts in 5 overs. The tail only looks good because the attack is exhausted.

Think of it like a chess game. In chess you often sacrifice a pawn or go for an exchange sacrifice where even with lesser material you have long term compensation. I am not advocating a complete reversal, I am advocating a top 5 of say Bhuvi, Ishant, Pujara, Karthik/Patel, Ashwin/Jadeja.....I don't think these 5 are that bad that they will lose 5 wickets in 5 overs !!! Even Bradman didn't go for a complete reversal, he placed a few solid blockers(like modern day Pujara/Renshaw) in between the tailenders to stem the flow of wickets if needed.

 

Best vs best won't always be a good strategy. Again a chess example (sorry if I am boring you with my chess analogies): In chess Olympiad 4 players of 1 country play the 4 players of another country. Most of the times the best player plays board 1, 2nd best plays board 2 and so on. But sometimes if the board 4 player is solid (as in drawmaster, a player who goes for drawish lines and is very hard to beat albeit he himself doesn't win many because of his conservative style eg Leko {Hungary}, Giri {Netherlands}) the team captain may ask him to play on board 1 and draw against the opponent board 1 if the latter is a great player like Kasparov, Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik. In chess at the elite level draws are very common and drawmaster can draw these heavyweights by going into extremely dry lifeless positions. This opens up the lower boards where the best player of your team can play the 3rd/4th best player of the opposition and get victories, thus pushing your team to overall victory. My point about reversal of batting order can be related with this example.

 

Again this hasn't been tried since 1936, so we don't know whether it will work or not, just speculate. Why are we in cricket so conservative and unwilling to experiment and try out different strategies/tactics? Other games are so dynamic and fast changing with new ideas, tactics emerging every now and then, but looks like cricket is still stuck in a time warp for the last 100 years. 

[speedheat]

No we can't, fresh bowlers new ball, wll be reduced to 10/5, you just can't expose the tail against pacers like Johnson,starc,akhtar etc.even if its on green top, what if some of them get injured?? wll result in heavy workload in bowling.

[Gollum]

10 minutes ago, Tattieboy said:

I am not sure you understand what was in place before. No wickets were ever covered,  if it was raining the got soaked. You are saying it only rained every 5 years.  It rained nearly everyday in England.  Wickets were covered In sawdust . 

It has nothing to do with wickets in today's cricket but everything to do with batsmen attacking mindset against race to get totals averaging at least 4 per over 

Bradman played 20 tests after the one in question , may be he didn't get such extreme conditions in those 20 tests....don't think of it like 5 years, we didn't have frequent matches back then and no cricket for 7-8 years because of WW-2. 

 

I guess Bradman was a master tactician ahead of his time. That no one tried this after him points to the conservative approach in cricket bereft of any new ideas/tactics. Also shows how ingenious the great man was, no wonder he averaged close to 100 !!!

[Gollum]

1 minute ago, speedheat said:

No we can't, fresh bowlers new ball, wll be reduced to 10/5, you just can't expose the tail against pacers like Johnson,starc,akhtar etc.even if its on green top, what if some of them get injured?? wll result in heavy workload in bowling.

1. We have never tried it so we won't know for sure if it will be 10/5 or 40/5.

 

2. Modern day tailenders are no mugs, they are capable with the bat and spend lots of time batting in the nets. They have all the tools to face genuine pace bowling in the nets and there is a focus by modern day coaches to get them to contribute with the bat. You won't find tailenders like Walsh, Ambrose, Mcgrath, Murali in the future. Moreover they have the best protection possible: chest guard, helmet, thigh pad, arm guard, shin guard, kya nahi hai............complete body armor unlike earlier times. Also new ball bowlers on green tops will generally try to hit a good length than bowling bouncers lest they waste the new ball. And what is the guarantee the poor chaps won't be hit at over no 65? Morkel, Starc, Rabada, Cummins can hit them any time, employ bodyline any time.. ...with new ball or old. 

[Tattieboy]

7 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Bradman played 20 tests after the one in question , may be he didn't get such extreme conditions in those 20 tests....don't think of it like 5 years, we didn't have frequent matches back then and no cricket for 7-8 years because of WW-2. 

 

I guess Bradman was a master tactician ahead of his time. That no one tried this after him points to the conservative approach in cricket bereft of any new ideas/tactics. Also shows how ingenious the great man was, no wonder he averaged close to 100 !!!

Have you played cricket , captained and used this tactic?

[Khota]

22 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Think of it like a chess game. In chess you often sacrifice a pawn or go for an exchange sacrifice where even with lesser material you have long term compensation. I am not advocating a complete reversal, I am advocating a top 5 of say Bhuvi, Ishant, Pujara, Karthik/Patel, Ashwin/Jadeja.....I don't think these 5 are that bad that they will lose 5 wickets in 5 overs !!! Even Bradman didn't go for a complete reversal, he placed a few solid blockers(like modern day Pujara/Renshaw) in between the tailenders to stem the flow of wickets if needed.

 

Best vs best won't always be a good strategy. Again a chess example (sorry if I am boring you with my chess analogies): In chess Olympiad 4 players of 1 country play the 4 players of another country. Most of the times the best player plays board 1, 2nd best plays board 2 and so on. But sometimes if the board 4 player is solid (as in drawmaster, a player who goes for drawish lines and is very hard to beat albeit he himself doesn't win many because of his conservative style eg Leko {Hungary}, Giri {Netherlands}) the team captain may ask him to play on board 1 and draw against the opponent board 1 if the latter is a great player like Kasparov, Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik. In chess at the elite level draws are very common and drawmaster can draw these heavyweights by going into extremely dry lifeless positions. This opens up the lower boards where the best player of your team can play the 3rd/4th best player of the opposition and get victories, thus pushing your team to overall victory. My point about reversal of batting order can be related with this example.

 

Again this hasn't been tried since 1936, so we don't know whether it will work or not, just speculate. Why are we in cricket so conservative and unwilling to experiment and try out different strategies/tactics? Other games are so dynamic and fast changing with new ideas, tactics emerging every now and then, but looks like cricket is still stuck in a time warp for the last 100 years. 

If our best cannot negotiate their best we are doomed anyway. This is what happened in test 1 and 2. Now your strategy might work if a six down opens and plays ten overs without losing wkt. That could put them on the backfoot but I am not sure. That ios such a low percentage thing that it will never work against good teams.

 

Think of it as a war. Your first attack always have to be the most lethal to cause max damage. If someone on this forum is expert on game theory they can shed light on it but my understanding is best against best. If your best dont survive it is game over most of the time.

[zen]

Reversing the batting order on green top would mean likes of Bumrah opening the batting and Vijay batting at 11, Pujara at 9 and Kohli at 8. And for eg if #10 is out, Vijay, an opener tasked with seeing the ball through, would not have faced a ball 

 

If such strategies can be successful, Gavaskar will  feel that his position as an ATG opener is threatened as tailenders can now do his job

 

Edited January 21, 2018 by zen