Our opening partnership in ODIs in last two years

[ShoonyaSifar]

This is not an attempt to belittle Rohit or Dhawan as individual batsmen. But off late have they been far too inconsistent as a pair? Lots of 20s and 30s and then one of them getting out, almost always due to a lose shot. Thankfully with Kohli at 3, most of the times when there is a failure at the top, we still get huge partnerships and recover.

 

Some stats for last two years

Rohit-Dhawan as a pair have opened in 41 ODIs, have scored 1823 runs@44, 6 00s and 5 50s, i.e. a 50 partnership every 4th innings. Is that good enough? (from 2013 - Feb 2017) they had 7 100 and 8 50 partnerships in 48 innings, a 50+ every 3rd innings)

 

For the same matches, for 2nd wicket, Kolhi+Dhawan/Rohit/Rahane have scored 3234 runs@85 had 12 100s and 12 50s, i.e. a 50 partnership every 2nd innings.

 

Individually our top 3 are perhaps the best ever top 3 in international cricket, even better than Gilly, Hayden and Punter of the 2000s. But are the openers doing enough or should the team expect more from them? When they click, they score big 100 partnerships but a 50 partnership every 4th innings to me sounds underwhelming. Incidentally the opening partnership hasn't scored many runs in the key matches sincd 2013 when they started opening together-

2013 CT final  - 13

2014 WT20 final - Dhawan had to be dropped in semis and finals

2015 WC semi - 76

2016 WT20 Semi - Dhawan again was dropped

2017 CT final - 0

2018 Asia Cup final - 35

 

Again not asking for them to be separated. Should the expectation bar be set slightly higher?

[flamy]

The fact that we were 20 or so for 3 wickets in 3 matches in the last 8 is worrying. Rohit and Dhawan need to do much better. That's what we would expect from them if we are calling them the best opening pair.

[Nikola]

Both haven't done much in partnership but when one fails other does job most of the time. 

[maniac]

More than the opening partnership it is usually the first wicket partnership that has won us more games either Rohit-Virat or Dhawan-Virat

[philcric]

1 minute ago, maniac said:

More than the opening partnership it is usually the first wicket partnership that has won us more games either Rohit-Virat or Dhawan-Virat

 

Opening partnership and first wicket partnership are the same.

 

[maniac]

Just now, philcric said:

 

Opening partnership and first wicket partnership are the same.

 

Fine 2nd wicket. Sometimes acumen overlooks semantics

[Real McCoy]

49 minutes ago, maniac said:

Fine 2nd wicket. Sometimes acumen overlooks semantics

Acumen eh? I need evidence . You were praising Rayudud last match when he was 40 from 80 balls and running out Shankar who was batting well. He attempted that runout twice and succeeded finally. Is that acumen or maniacdu rayudu connection