England tour of SA, ODI series, Feb 3-14

[bigfluffylemon]

Listening to the TMS podcast, I think Geoffrey Boycott has a man crush on Jos Buttler.

[KipperJohn]

Looking at those stats Tres and Bell would have been a decent opening pair.

[ianp1970]

SRs for England openers.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

If this was listed in age order, would there be a correlation?

[Arthur Crabtree]

In era? You can click on the year column and it puts them in order of debut. Amiss scored quickly for his time.

[backfootpunch]

You can just about pinpoint when the white ball stopped swinging loads when it was new in those stats

Up until the mid 2000s a Sr in the 70's was good going, then suddenly it became the easiest time to bat and strike rates rocketed into the 80s and 90s

[Arthur Crabtree]

If you look at the players from all countries, it seems that openers now aren't quite the big hitters they were. Players like Jayasuriya and Gilly are up there still. Roy is, but he's just started. McCullum is, but the new players don't load the top end. It's the players from Sehwag's era. But with England, the new players are at the top, rather than those of ten years ago.

[backfootpunch]

If you look at the players from all countries, it seems that openers now aren't quite the big hitters they were. Players like Jayasuriya and Gilly are up there still. Roy is, but he's just started. McCullum is, but the new players don't load the top end. It's the players from Sehwag's era. But with England, the new players are at the top, rather than those of ten years ago.

the list of highest strike rates ever in ODIs actually suggests that the biggest progression has been the hitting ability of the middle to lower order guys to club it at the end

the 5 players with the highest strike rates in the history of ODI cricket are andre russell, maxwell, buttler, ronchi and corey anderson

there are 22 players that have had a strike rate above 100 and 14 of them are currently playing

and apart from jason roy who doesnt really count due to a small number of games they are all middle to lower order hitters

[Arthur Crabtree]

I was looking at openers, but yes the trend is openers scoring slightly less quickly, and finishers scoring faster.

[Arthur Crabtree]

England win the toss and bat. No changes, so CJ gets another chance to impress. Might be some swing early on with the cloud cover.

[backfootpunch]

roy was looking so good

what a way to get out

[Alviro Patterson]

Top class stumping to be fair

[backfootpunch]

Big shot coming

Been a few quiet overs

[Arthur Crabtree]

Fifties for Root and Hales.

Hales might be doing his Test chances some favours in this series with his consistent scores. And with his runs in UAE, it could be we can say he has shown signs he can cross over from 20 to 50 overs.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Looking a bit like Root wants to get Buttler in.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Buttler out first ball! Two in an over for Rabada.