Anyone who reads my twitter feed or this blog will know that I have written much about cricket and the woes of the game in Australia. I wrote earlier today about Shane Watson and that has lead to much dialogue about the opening batting position for Australia that Shane Watson currently holds. I was asked two questions that I demurred in answering until after I had thought about it. They are:

1. How regularly does Watson get past the 40th over?
2. If there is to be a replacement for Shane Watson who is it to be?

This blog will purport to answer the first question. Equally, I consider it to be unfair to just focus on the work of Watson when answering this question so I have decided to expand the terms of reference here so as to compare the form of Shane Watson in getting past the 40th over in a game with those openers who have followed the last great opening partnership from these waters: Hayden and Langer.

First though: here is the simple answer to the principal question. Shane Watson has opened the batting for Australia 49 times (including in the first innings at Lords) and in those 49 innings he has gotten past the 40th over on 11 occasions which represents a strike rate in the context of this discussion of 22.44%

That initial answer out of the way: how does this compare to either of the other openers who have followed Hayden and Langer for Australia OR the current contemporaries of Shane Watson.

Justin Langer retired in January 2007 and Matthew Hayden retired in January 2009. Since that time there are have 8 openers excluding Shane Watson used by Australia. The results of an analysis of the batting of those 8 batsmen is as follows:

This analysis makes very interesting reading: only Simon Katich, Phil Jacques and Ed Cowan have averaged higher than Shane Watson in lasting until the magical 40 over mark.

The numbers from Shane Watson are not impressive but are not the worst of those Australia has relied upon to open the innings in recent time.

As an aside, reviewing all of the games that Australia has played since the retirements of Hayden and Langer has reaffirmed for me that P Jacques and S Katich were desperately unlucky NOT to play more cricket for Australia. The emphasis on fast scoring from the selectors has impugned the ability of our opening batsmen to grind out a start: that is the other fact that is clear from my analysis.

Look tomorrow for part 2 of this series by request.