Ranking the Openers of the County Championship

Introduction

Heading into what may be considered the most eagerly anticipated Ashes summer since 2009, England’s batting lineup is in a good spot. With Jonny Bairstow’s extraordinary 2022, the rise of Harry Brook, and the reliable excellence of Joe Root, the middle order is particularly strong, whilst Ollie Pope looks increasingly at home at three - he has the best average of all numbers 3s to have faced at least 400 balls in the spot since the beginning of 2013.

Add to this Ben Stokes’ proven match-winning capabilities, as well as the aggressive and positive attitude the team takes as a collective, and it is a side which few bowling lineups in world cricket would fancy having a crack at just now.

The much-discussed omission of Ben Foakes from the squad, despite having had a productive stint as a regular in the starting lineup over the last year or so, speaks to the depth of talent available to the selectors too.  Foakes is certainly unfortunate, but the fact that there is genuine competition in the middle and lower order is no bad thing. Few Test sides have the luxury of players like Sam Hain chilling in their domestic setups, unable even to get into the squad.

And yet, things are not perfect. You have probably noted the title of this article, as well as the entire lack of comment on opening batters in the above paragraphs. If I were to add to this my belief that Ben Duckett is a very tidy batter, then you can probably fill in the rest. Scrutinising Zak Crawley’s position would hardly be an original discussion however, so I shall resist the urges of the devil within me and instead simply state that it is my view that there are better options available.

The creation of the opener rankings here was inspired partly by establishing who the best option might be, although also fulfills a broader purpose in that it suggests an overall ranking list which includes every (qualified) opener in the County Championship – to me, establishing whether Chris Dent is more or less useful than Sam Robson is, to me, almost as interesting a question as who should be opening for England!

The Metric

(If you want to skip the science bit (and/or trust my judgement!) then feel free to skip and go straight to the rankings).

Opening the batting in red ball cricket is by far the most specialised role in the batting lineup. Traditionally, the primary job of the opener was to see off the new ball so that the middle and lower order are not exposed to the swinging ball. It may be unfashionable in the age of Bazball and T20 and Ed Pollock, but I would suggest that this remains the most prudent and productive approach - a view backed up by the numbers.

Since the beginning of 2021, batters have faced 92472 balls in the first 15 overs, losing 3164 wickets – a balls faced per out ratio of 29.23. The overall league average is 58.94, meaning that wickets are essentially twice as likely in the first 15 overs as they are in the rest of the innings.

County Champ 2021-Present

Total Balls Faced:                                                         510255

Total Wickets Taken:                                                   8657

Total Balls Faced per Out:                                          58.94  

Total Balls Faced in First 15 Overs:                           92472

Total Wickets Taken in First 15 Overs:                     3164

Balls Faced per Out in first 15 Overs:                        29.23  

Of course, if you get a juicy half-volley on leg stump, then pop it away, but there really is no justification for taking risks at the top of the order given how much greater the risk of getting out is, as well as how much easier run scoring becomes as the ball gets older. The best openers survive, protect the middle order, then they all fill their boots together and live happily ever after on honours boards up and down the country. How well this role is performed by each player is exactly what I have tried to measure and, as such, have used the following statistics (all stats come exclusively  from County Championship games and are counted from the beginning of the 2021 season):

1. A batting average adjusted to give a premium for recency, i.e., 2023 runs are worth more 2022 runs, which are in turn worth more than 2021 runs.  This only includes innings in which the player batted in the top 3.

2. Balls per dismissal in the first 15 overs of innings.

3. % of innings in which the batter reached 25 runs.

4. % of match runs scored by the player.

5. Batting average in the first 15 overs of innings.

6. % of team’s runs scored by the player.

7. % of innings in which the batter reached 50 runs.

8. % of innings in which the batter reached 100 runs.

9. Batting average in away games.

10. Batting average against a hand-picked sample of the best 50 (or so) bowlers in the competition.

11. Batting average produced in Division 1 games.

To create the ‘Opener Metric Score’, each raw figure for the above stats has been compared to the overall league average of the same to create a differential. For example, Ben Compton’s Match Run % of 8.99 is divided by the league average Match Run % of 5.91 to give him a score of 1.52. The differential for each of the 11 statistics above have then all been combined to create a single figure for each player.

Across the 11 differentials created for the stats listed above, different weighting has been applied to many to reflect their relative importance to my view of what makes a good opening batter. This is the only point in the process where my own predilections have influence on the end result though, the rest is just numbers.

There are certainly some flaws in all of this, with the major one being that the advantage of playing home games on surfaces more amenable to batting failing to be fully accounted for. Ali Orr is the best example of this, with his overall batting average on the various roads produced at Hove of 48.83 being far superior to his away average of 32.82. All in all, however, I think it does provide a decent figure-based of how openers compare to one another.

The minimum requirements are 750 balls as an opener since 2021 and 100 balls as an opener in 2023.  This means that a few names one might expect to see here are not present, most notably Shan Masood and Fletcha Middleton (Masood would probably slot into the top 6 or 7 at least). This has left 37 qualified players, with numbers 37 to 11 counted down in the table below and followed by a more detailed analysis of each of the top ten.

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Players 37 to 11

The Top 10

10. Luke Wells

Something of a veteran these days, Wells is someone has been a solid player throughout of his career, although has never quite done enough to earn a chance in the Test cricket.

2022 was the best year of his career since 2017, with his 991 runs coming at 52.15, but he has struggled for form in 2023, averaging 23.50 and only passing 50 once. This has left his batting average at 41.67 since 2021, the tenth best of the 37 sampled players. His match run % is strong through that period too, whilst things like his 25+%, 50+% and balls per out in the first 15 innings are all reasonably good.

When you factor in the experience he has behind him on top of this, there is no doubt that he is a very good player to have in the dressing room.

9. Michael Jones

Jones is a Scottish international, who, over the last two years, has developed into a key player at the top of Durham’s lineup. With his 28 innings since the beginning of last season producing 1307 runs at an average of over 50, both his batting average and adjusted batting average sit inside the top 10.

Add to this that his balls/out (first 15 overs) is also in the top ten, whilst his 50+% is seventh best, and it could be argued that Jones is a bit of an under-rated talent.

This has included eight scores of 50+ and three of 100+, leaving him with a solid 50+% of 31.71%, ranked seventh, although he does struggle to convert these into hundreds, with his 100+% ranked only twentieth. 

He is currently some way off being a Test match player, but should he score at the same rates for another year or two then he may become a realistic candidate. In the meantime, if he decides to commit to them, Scotland have a very tidy player at their disposal, and someone who may well come to be seen as one of the leading batters in associate cricket in years to come.

8. Dom Sibley

Given that both his standard and adjusted batting averages, as well as each of his 50+ and 100+ percentages, are outside the top ten, it might be questioned why Sibley is ranked as high as eighth here.

Basically, he doesn’t get out early.

His balls/per out in the first 15 overs is nearly 90, good for fourth best, whilst he reaches 25 or more 53.85% of the time, ranked sixth, and each of these is given a premium in the metric. Combined with his standard batting average of 40.02, and it is clear that he is a useful opener.

 The issue is that he doesn’t convert enough of his starts, only reaching 100 in 5.77% of his innings (ranked 24). There is also the quirk that he doesn’t actually average very well against pace bowling, with his 1339 runs coming at only 32.66 - by far the lowest amongst the top ten.

His greatest roadblock to an England recall is probably his SR though, with his overall SR of 41.08 amongst the lowest in the field. None-the-less, he is likely to prove a solid signing for Surrey, even if he hasn’t been at his best so far in 2023.

7. Alex Lees

I was disappointed when Lees was dropped last year, particularly given that England have thrown so much support behind other struggling batters in the lineup.

He is, in many ways, quite similar to Sibley, in that he is very good at starting his innings, but not overly prolific in his conversion rates. Getting to 25 in 60% of innings is the best ratio of the 37 qualifying players, whilst his balls per out in the first 15 overs is over 80. Like Sibley, his 100+% is relatively low at 7.50%, good only for 19^th.  

Like many on this list, he will probably need to score prolifically at County level to earn a Test recall, although he does seem to have tried to adapt his game to score more quickly in 2023, with his SR sitting at 70.71 this year. It is probably he has done this perhaps with half an eye on trying to match the playing style desired by Stokes and McCullum.

6. Rory Burns

Burns has seemingly always produced good stats, averaging over 40 in every year in which he has played at least ten first class games since 2015 (seven years in total). His international career wasn’t as bad as many of the other openers England have tried out either, with the best batting average amongst English openers to have played 10 Tests since the beginning of 2018, although it does sit at only a fraction over 30.

Of the stats used here, his scores are reasonable across the board, and, like the above, is good at getting through the new ball, without going on as frequently as would be required for him to be considered a great, rather than a very good, County opener.

Part of this is because of how poorly he plays spin, with his average of 21.45 (236 runs) the second worst amongst the 37 players sampled. It is nearly half of the second lowest in the top 10 (Marcus Harris, 401 runs at 40.10), with SLA seeming to be a particular issue (104 runs at 13.00). As the table below shows, this is the lowest average amongst all players who have faced the same number of deliveries against SLA as Burns has (220):

5. Haseeb Hameed

Having gone from teenage Test debutant to Lancashire 2nds regular within a year (averaging less than 10 in 18 FC innings in 2018), before reviving his career at Notts and earning a Test recall in 2021, it is fair to say that Hameed’s career has been a bit of a roller-coaster.

Whilst he struggled in that last Ashes series on the quick and bouncy Australian pitches, his County record has remained excellent, with last year’s 1235 runs at 58.80 representing a career best. With these having been scored in the second division however, there may be some question as to the true value of this, especially as he has struggled so far in the six first division games he has played in 2023. The metric does take this into account to a certain degree, which is probably why he only sits in fifth.

One note to make is that Hameed’s reputation as a blocker, perhaps bestowed through his Test SR of 32.02, is not quite fair anymore: it has been above 50 in 2023, and in 2022 was 62.41. Even so, it feels as though he probably does not fit the swashbuckling mold required for an England recall in the immediate future, although if he is able to continue scoring at the rates he has done, it is not unreasonable to suggest that he might get another go at some point.

4. Ben Compton

Even when he was smashing out runs at the start of last season, Compton is someone about whom I reserved judgement for a while. When his form dropped off at the latter end of the campaign, it seemed as though this period of extreme form may have been something of a candle in the wind.

And yet, he has started the season off very reasonably again in 2023, giving his statistical output a very healthy look. Like the guys above, he deals with the new ball very competently, reaching 25 in 58.97% of his innings and going 91.07 balls per dismissal in the first 15 overs. Where he differs from them is that he has proven to be more than capable of going on (and on), with very decent 50+ and 100+ percentages. Since the start of last year, he has averaged 50.91, with all of 1629 of his runs having been scored in Division 1 games.

As a bit of late bloomer, there may always be a bit of skepticism about him, but I would argue that he is instead a good advocate for what playing a bit of cricket overseas can do for a player’s game. Indeed, the amount of time he has spent at the crease in Zimbabwe over each of the last two winters have proven to be highly successful for him with the first of these immediately preceeding his sudden rise to prominence last year. Whilst it is easy to look at his Logan Cup averages of 79.83 in 2022 and 79.33 in 2023 and dismiss them, this may do him a bit of a disservice. The Zimbabwean domestic league is by no means of the level of the County Championship, but given that players like Kiran Carlson, Ben Curran and Eddie Byrom have also been playing there and haven’t achieved anything like what Compton has suggests it is far from a free for all.

Such has been his form since the start of last season, in recent times gone by he may well have been given a shot at international level by now. However, as has been a familiar story thus far, his style does not suit the direction the current England setup is going in. This is absolutely to Kent’s benefit, as they are ultimately getting the better side of the deal with regard to which of their openers they are losing to international duty.

3. Ben Duckett

Ben Duckett is something of an anomaly amongst the players here, with his style of play about as close to perfect for what England want as is possible.  Of all 37 players, only Ed Pollock of Worcestershire has a SR higher than his 73.79 (with David Lloyd the only other player striking at above 60). Whilst Pollock’s knocks are often a bit of a flash in the pan, Duckett has scored runs consistently and heavily over the last two years, leaving him with both the second best match run % (11.72%) and 50+%, on top of very strong batting average figures.

After a strong winter in New Zealand and Pakistan, along with his exploits against Ireland at Lords the other week, his place in the England side is rightfully settled going into the Ashes. Of course, the Australians are going to provide a test for him that far surpasses those which he has faced thus far as a Test match batter. It has the feel of a series which may well set the tone for the immediate future of his international career, but he seems to me to have the kind of character which could thrive in the pressure of it.

2. Marcus Harris

In second is another player who is likely to feature in the Ashes this summer, although not as the solution to England’s opener woes. With Warner having struggled a lot over the last few years, and Harris having been exceptional in both the County Championship and the Sheffield Shield at the same time, he will not be far from the selectors’ minds going into the first test. Indeed, whilst he did not play against India at the Oval last week, I can see Australia making what will be deemed the surprise call to name him alongside Khawaja at the top of the order on Friday.

The amount of experience he has in English conditions plays massively to his advantage here, particularly as Warner averages only 25.74 in the 27 Test innings he has batted in the UK, without a century. Since last playing for Australia in in January 2022, during the previous Ashes series, Harris has spent two years with Gloucestershire, scoring 1183 runs at 47.32, with 5 hundreds, with his 2023 campaign having brought 457 runs at 57.13, with 2 hundreds. His peripheral figures since 2021 (which include his 2021 spell at Leicestershire on top of his runs at Gloucester) are also strong, and he has the third best match run % and the second best 100+% of the 37 players, as well as a decent balls per out in the first 15 overs of 82.64.

With Warner on his last legs as a Test match player, Harris will get another opportunity at some point, whether it is this summer or not. It is key that he takes it, as it will be his third shot at making the place his own. If he fails to improve on his current record, he averages with 25.29 in 26 innings without a hundred, then there is a chance that he will join the great hall of terrific First Class cricketers who were unable, for one reason or another, to make the step up in class.

For more on Marcus Harris, click here.

1. Keaton Jennings

By some way the leader, Jennings has been unbelievably good at the top of Lancashire’s order in recent years. The number of stats in which his output is ranked 1st here is fairly silly, with his batting average, recency adjusted batting average, 50+%, 100+%, match run % and balls per out vs the new ball all better than every other player. If there was one fault, it might be that his 25+% is only good for tenth best, but he more than makes up for this with the runs he scores when he does get going; of his 8 centuries since 2021, half have been scores of 150 or more, with two of these being 200s.

He last played for England four years ago, and has clearly improved massively in that time, so the question needs to be: what more does he need to do in order to earn a recall? Maybe I am missing something, but it does seem as though a sensible thing to do when you have one opening batter struggling immensely and another who is scoring a prolific number of runs might be to drop the first one and select the second one.

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