Alastair Cook’s 39 yesterday at the SCG on the opening day of the fifth Ashes Test took the Englishman further out of sight as the world’s leading opening batsman.
Not only is he the only one with five figures (11,368), but the closest current batsman – Chris Gayle with 7028, and David Warner’s 6051 – have a long way to go, and not much time to catch him.
The following table has thrown up some fascinating facts.
Few Australian fans would realise Matthew Hayden, and former skipper Mark Taylor, feature so strongly.
Hayden, so unfairly knocked throughout his stellar career as a flat track bully, is fourth among the all-time greats, with Taylor eighth.
And they are the only two batsmen in the top ten to never bat anywhere other than open.
Other Australians to figure:
David Warner is 15th with 6051 at 49.60.
Michael Slater 20th with 5312 at 42.84.
Bill Lawry 23rd with 5234 at 47.15.
And Justin Langer 25th with 5112 at 48.23.
There’s no argument Bobby Simpson has been one of the great opening batsman but during his two-prong career, he’s batted in every position down to number eight so his opening stats are limited to 3664 at 55.51.
Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge are the most successful opening batting combination in Test history, with the latter the most successful of the two in a photo finish.
Greenidge scored 7488 to Haynes’ 7472, but Greenidge batted 19 less times.
The legendary English openers Sir Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe are well down the list, but in their era Test matches were sparse.
Sir Jack (5130 at 56.37) batted only 97 times, and Sutcliffe’s 4522 at 48.23 was the result of just 83 visits to the crease.
Andrew Strauss (6741 at 40.85), just pipped Sir Leonard Hutton (6721 at 56.48), but Strauss batted 40 times more.
The top ten opening batsmen in Test cricket history, with their other career batting positions.
(1) Alastair Cook – 261 innings, 14 not outs, 11368 runs at 46.02.
Batting 3 and 7: 13 – 2 627 – 57.00
(Photo by Morgan Hancock/Action Plus via Getty Images)
(2) Sunil Gavaskar – 203 – 12 – 9607 – 50.30.
Batting 2/4/5/6/7/8/9: 11 – 4 – 515 – 73.57.
(3) Graeme Smith – 196 – 12 – 9034 – 49.08.
Batting 3/4/5/8/11: 8 – 1 235 – 33.57.
(4) Matthew Hayden – 184 – 14 – 8625 – 50.74.
Batting elsewhere – none.
(5) Virender Sehwag – 170 6 – 8207 – 50.04.
Batting 3/6/7: 10 – 0 – 379 – 37.90.
(6) Geoff Boycott – 191 – 23 – 8091 – 48.10.
Batting 4: 2 – 0 – 23 – 11.50.
(7) Graham Gooch – 184 – 6 7811 – 43.88
Batting 3/4/5: 31 – 0 -1089 – 35.13.
(8) Mark Taylor – 186 – 13 – 7525 – 43.50.
Batting elsewhere – none.
(9) Gordon Greenidge – 182 – 16 – 7488 – 45.11.
Batting 4: 3 – 0 – 70 – 23.30.
(10) Mike Atherton – 197 – 6 – 7476 – 39.14.
Batting 3/6/7: 15 – 1 – 252 – 18.00.
The leading opening batting centurions:
33 – Gavaskar.
30 – Hayden, Cook.
27 – Smith.
22 – Boycott, Sehwag.
21 – Warner.
20 – Strauss.
19 – Hutton, Greenidge, Taylor.
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