Cricket: Black Cap openers remain

Craig Spearman. Adam Parore. Matt Horne. Matthew Bell. Lou Vincent. Michael Papps. Stephen Fleming. James Marshall. Mathew Sinclair. Craig Cumming. Hamish Marshall. Peter Fulton, Jamie How.

An interesting 13-man cricket squad. It's a bit light on bowling but then it would be. It is the list of opening batsmen that New Zealand has tried in the last six years, since 2000. Add in Mark Richardson, one of the few constants but who retired in late 2004, and you have a fuller picture of the problem that is now - still - confronting New Zealand cricket.

To say that New Zealand has not replaced Richardson is like saying that the Amazon is a bit of scrub. We haven't even replaced the guy at the other end from Richardson.

Since then, most recently in South Africa, coach John Bracewell has raised more ire with his revolving door policy at the top of the order in what looks to be an increasingly desperate search to find a combination - or even one opener.

So why do New Zealand struggle to produce test class openers? And what can we do about it?

Ross Dykes

Former national selector and now chief executive of the Otago Cricket Association, Ross Dykes, said there are four reasons: one day cricket; money; our domestic cricket; and a lack of genuinely quick bowlers.

Dykes knows a thing or two about developing opening batsmen. The problem of finding a settled opening combination has been with New Zealand cricket since the halcyon days of Bruce Edgar and John Wright and Dykes helped plug the gap when he suggested to Northland wicketkeeper-batsman Bryan Young that he might want to drop the big gloves and become an opener.

It was a successful transition. Young, through 35 tests, hit more than 2000 test runs at an average of not quite 32 - acceptable for an opener - including two centuries (267 not out v Sri Lanka in 1996) and 12 half-centuries. His last test was in 1999, just before the 2000-2006 opening batsmen merry-go-round that New Zealand cricket has been on ever since.

Dykes said the one-day game has had an obvious effect on test cricket. It's well-known that the focus and the shots required for the 'hit and giggle' game are vastly different from the intensity of test cricket. But Dykes said player payments also get in the way.

Cricketers earn more for playing one-dayers than they do in test matches so talented batsmen naturally want to shine in the one-day game and feel the middle order is the place to do it - after someone else has started the innings off and seen off the new ball. There is still plenty of time to make a big score and the middle-order batsmen tend to like to play their shots.

"We have got a lot of very, very good middle order batsmen," said Dykes. "But they are just that - middle order. And you don't really do yourself any favours in the one day game by trying to open the batting in a test match."

New Zealand's domestic league is another well-known problem in that it is usually played without international players and is thus a long way below international standard. Apart from Shane Bond, there are also no bowlers of express pace who can produce the speed, bounce and aggression found at the top level - as evidenced by South Africa's Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn in the recent series defeat.

The lack of seasoning in New Zealand's openers could be seen when Papps and How took to the batting crease against South Africa.

Top bowlers then seize on the batsmen's weaknesses and bowl to them, so confidence is knocked and a vicious circle begins.

"Without that school of hard knocks it is very difficult for them - as it would be for anyone - if they haven't already been through it when they get to test cricket," said Dykes.

"I think everyone would agree that the best way is to select openers and stick with them through an extended period, helping them to build up that 'hard knocks' experience and to get the exposure they need. That will mean some failures, of course, but maybe it is the only way we can find a pair and develop them."

Mark Richardson

The man whose retirement brought the ongoing problems at the top order into an even harsher light is in no doubt about when the problem started.

"I thought the whole thing really began around the time of Matt Horne," said Richardson. "He had a very rough time of it internationally but I have no doubt that he should have been my international partner for much of the time that we have been looking at openers. He had the all-round game for opening."

Horne, now 35, played his last test in 2003 and scored 1788 runs in 35 test matches, including four centuries, at an average of 28. Richardson is in no doubt that Horne had the ability if he had been backed further.

"I did think what happened to him wasn't entirely fair," he said. "He became a bit of a fall guy. All of a sudden, he was playing for his place and that wasn't a scenario which suited him.

"He's an amenable guy and he tried hard to do what was wanted but just got himself worked up about it."

Richardson is also unsure what can be done about the opening dilemma but said: "If we're serious about Marshall and Fulton being openers, then they have to open for their provinces in domestic cricket. If we don't do that, we are making no progress at all."

Of Papps and How, Richardson likes the way both play as openers and said Papps, in particular, has "an opener's mentality" but has issues outside the off-stump, with the ball that leaves him and where he hits it.

How also has technical issues, he said, with the way he brings the bat down from the backswing - and was undone by two deliveries that kept low that a better technique might have successfully defended.

"I can tell you what the players are thinking - they are wondering whether you just select your best six batsmen and two of them open, or whether you select two openers and then have two specialists but not necessarily your six best batsmen."

This is a theory which divides cricketing opinion. Ross Dykes, for example, believes the "six best bats" theory is not acceptable and said anyone who opens really has to want to bat there.

Richardson agrees that opening is a "massive mind shift" for anyone not used to it but doesn't dismiss the "six best bats" theory.

And there New Zealand cricket is stuck, still discussing the theory with no practical end in sight to one of its oldest problems.