Sarfraz Ahmed and Virat Kohli realising the value of batting at number four position in T20s

Waseem Ahmed 06:57 05/07/2018
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  • Batting order is a delicate balancing act.  When it comes to bowling, it pretty much sorts itself out. Most teams have two or at best three very good bowlers and others who play the holding role.

    The best seamers open the attack and spinners bowl in the middle overs. In T20s, captains like to experiment by opening the bowling with spinners, while sometimes captains hold back their best bowlers when a new batsman comes in due to a miscalculation. But that’s not always the case.

    However almost every team nowadays struggles with the batting order. Who to open with, who to send at one down, at four, five and six. They look like mere numbers but each batting position has its own characteristic which needs a very particular skillset for the team to work like clockwork every time.

    India captain Virat Kohli has made the number three position his own in limited overs cricket, especially in ODIs. In T20s, Kohli has been a lot more flexible since 2017, batting at numbers one, two, three, four and six.

    Then in the first T20 against England, Kohli decided to drop himself to number four position and allow the in-form KL Rahul to bat the number three. That move worked like a dream as Rahul smashed an unbeaten century.

    This has the potential of greatly reducing the pressure on Kohli to deliver every single time as the top three know they have the cushion of Kohli and MS Dhoni in the middle order and can make a big and quick impact.

    The situation in Pakistan is different. They are without their best batsman – Babar Azam – at the moment which has put a spanner in their works.

    That has amplified the pressure on captain Sarfraz Ahmed to add steel to the batting order. However, even with Azam in the team, Sarfraz had been batted at the number four position in T20s in 2018 to beef up the batting.

    In the T20 tri-series in Zimbabwe, it was even more important for Sarfraz to bat number four. In the clash against Zimbabwe on Wednesday, world No1 Pakistan were feeling the pinch chasing 163.

    It took a calm 38 from 21 balls from Sarfraz to see his side home on the final over. Batting at number four, Sarfraz is able to stop a collapse in the first place and thus avoid doing the repair job, as he had been doing for a couple of seasons across formats.

    Both captains have made a move in the opposite direction in the batting line-ups lately. Kohli might continue to do it to accommodate Rahul in the T20 team and possibly use it as a ploy on ODIs as well, while Sarfraz has already embraced the idea.

    For the time being, the number four position in India and Pakistan’s T20 teams are occupied by the ideal batsmen.

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