Are Roy and Bairstow the greatest opening pair in ODI history?

[sandeep]

On 3/26/2021 at 4:49 PM, zen said:

^ 13 in just 43 games = 30% of the time! 

 

 

Crucially, the days they don't give that top=flight start - they don't put the team in a run-rate hole by eating deliveries either.  

 

As high class and undeniably great ODI openers, both Rohit and Dhawan are, the percentage of times where they set India on the right innings trajectory is much lower than 30%.  

 

I wish there was a way to compile team stats for India and England, and compare their batting outputs in games batting first, at the 30 over mark, 35 over mark.  That is how you evaluate the top order.  Not by their individual overall average and strikerates.  But how many times the top order did their job of setting the team total on a trajectory to a par+ score.  

 

 

[sandeep]

On 3/27/2021 at 4:49 AM, YCCC said:

Can’t look past the Aussies and West Indians on the list above. But Bairstow is the best white ball opener at the moment. Should open for England in T20s as well. Don’t understand why he doesn’t

because he's the red-headed step child of the boys club that is the ECB selection engine room.

 

Buttler is a generational talent in white-ball cricket, but his emergence and the anointing as Morgan's successor, has led to Bairstow being dealt an unfair hand in test cricket.  And lets not forget the fact that ECB didn't even allow Bairstow to play much whiteball cricket in the name of 'preserving' him for test cricket!  Bairstow's ODI/T20 career was unnecessarily delayed by years, and it cost him millions in potential IPL earnings too.

 

 

[zen]

My top 5 opening p’ships in the order of debut:

 

Haynes-Greenidge, masters of red ball cricket 

Jayasuriya-X, high on impact

Gilchrist-M Waugh/Hayden, solid 

Sachin-Sehwag, twin dragons 

Bairstow-Roy, raw power 

[Laaloo]

Bairstow is legit but Roy is a hack and today it proves it.