Nightwatchmen in Cricket

[bigsteve]

Completely random thread, but I really don't understand why any team puts a nightwatchman in. It inevitably ends in the team losing a cheap wicket, and, unless its the last over of the day, puts in the higher order batsman anyway.

Look at England on Thursday - put in Hoggard, and he gets out. Fortunately he'd done his job in 'saving' the higher order batsman, but we were another wicket down.

And in any case, the high order batsmen are 'high order' because they are there as a batsman and should be able to bat well, whenever they go in.

[Neuro]

I think it's a light thing - in the old days you wouldnt risk a high oder batsman coming in for just 2 overs in poor light and risk getting out because of the conditions, and instead keep him back til the next fresh morning where he is better suited to unleash his skills

[bigsteve]

Maybe its just Hoggard then? :smirk:

[Briggsy]

They're useful if used effectively - and in most cases, England don't use them effectively. Hoggard has put on some big scores on a couple of occasions in the past, but most of the time, he's out cheaply. The best nightwatchman England had over recent years was Andy Cadd*** - he did manage to hang around for a while, and I remember him getting a couple of fifties. If my memory serves me correctly, he also got a 98 as nightwatchman once.

The problem with England is that they sometimes put them in with an hour to spare - and in most cases, they don't last that over, so then they end up having to put a specialist batsman in anyway - so they've achieved nothing.

The other problem with England is that they're useless - a specialist batsman doesn't get many more runs than than a tailender anyway, do they Andrew Strauss?