Left Handed Openers

[StinkyBoHoon]

I never knew that. I wonder how he'd go at left hand. What about Ponting?

well I assume he is because he bowls left arm spin. Punter is a natural righty and Katich is a natural lefty. Hussey, Clarke and North all bat opposite direction.

it's weird though, as from wristy technique you'd assume it was better to bat natural handed to play spin. However Clarke is the aussies best player of spin and Ponting is relatively average (compared to how he slaughters pace bowlers any way)

 

[TumTum]

This might be a load of crap but here goes:

Left-handers are naturally strong on playing right arm pace bowlers and off-spinners.

And there are many right arm pace and spin bowlers.

If the bowler bowls outside off-stump, they'll get put away in the off-side using the angle. If the bowler bowls at the stumps, the batsmen can use the pace of the ball coming at them to wack it on the on-side. (Hayden, Gilly etc)

However a right arm bowler can cramp up a right handed batsmen by bowling outside off stump and angling in towards them.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I would think it's more because if the ball is coming across you, moving back means the ball is going to get wider and wider giving you more room and if you move forward it's going to be taken before it gets across your body letting you play it off your legs. it kinda means you can reduce your margin for error by taking balls off your legs coming forward and cut strokes late. unless they cut in or back dramatically you'll still be playing the right shot.

if you're a righty and a right hander bowls to you it's going to keep it's distance to you no matter if you move back or forward, this makes swing a lot trickier to judge as if you miss-read the swing and move back or forward it's going to leave the bat.

I don't know, that's just a guess though but Smith is a good example of someone that gets forward and plays across his body a lot for easy runs.

 

[nz0003]

Fleming and Richardson come to mind from New Zealand.

 

[aussie1st]

Its just one of those phases that happen, right now the Aussie side in general is at an all time low when it comes to left handers in the side. We have gone from having 4-5 lefties to 1-2 and most recently its been down to 1 in the ODI side. It's the same with all these left arm bowlers we have now, before we couldn't buy a left arm bowler, now they are coming thick and fast.

 

[King Pietersen]

Interesting to compare the openers of every country, just shows how ridiculous the number of lefty openers is.

Australia

Katich, Watson, Hughes, Jaques, Marsh

India

Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar

England

Cook, Strauss, Denly

South Africa

Smith, Gibbs, Imraan Khan

New Zealand

McIntosh, Guptill, McCullum, Ryder, Redmond

Sri Lanka

Jayasuriya, Dilshan, Paranavitana

Pakistan

Manzoor, Alam, Butt, Latif

West Indies

Gayle, Smith, Barath

Bangladesh

Iqbal, Siddique, Kayes

Pretty incredible really, that out of 30 opening batsmen currently playing, or have recently played International cricket, only 12 are right handed.

 

[McLOVIN]

Zimbabew - Masakadza

the % would be higher if we include recently retired players or all the openers from 2000