The most difficult positions to bat at in limited over cricket are undoubtedly the number five and six positions. Either you get in only with a few overs to spare, or else you get to bat with your team in a most precarious sitiuation with four or five down for a low total. You have to play under pressure all the time and if you are not an all rounder your place in the team is always up for the grabs as you are bound to put your team's interest before your own all the time. Not that players in other positions don't do that but they get a fair amount of time to score their runs. And in modern day cricket quite a few big hitters have played quite regularly in the number five and six positions. To start with, Shahid Afridi of Pakistan, MS Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan of India and Keiron Pollard of West Indies come to mind.
Now because of their reputation and ability, their team almost always try to save them for the last five overs or so of the game, so that they can blast their team to a good total. If you examine carefully this is not such an intelligent idea after all. More so, if these palyers happen to be more talented than those who are given chances to bat higher up in the order.
Let us take the case of Pakistan. They have been repeatedly playing Fawad Alam and Azhar Ali ahead of Shahid Afridi just because Afridi scores at a faster pace than these two batsmen. Eventually what happens is the team leaves a bit too much to do for Afridi in a very few balls. That lands him in a position where he has to go for the kill from the very first ball he faces and accounts for his failures most of the time. Good for him that he is an indispensible player in limited over cricket also due to his bowling abilities.
Same is the case for Keron Pollard and Yusuf Pathan. They bat so much down the order that it leaves hardly them with any other option other than wild heaves at whatever delieveries they get to face. Yusuf has already paid the price for it and is out of the Indian side.Now had their teams given them a chance to bat higher up, they would certainly have got more deliveries to get their eyes in. That aspect in cricket is still so much essential. At least Mumbai Indian have realised this after losing a couple of matches, putting in Pollard up the order and reaping rich dividend recently. In this particular Champions League match Pollard scored almost the same amount or runs single-handedly in the last five overs, what his entire team had managed in the first fifteen overs!
MS Dhoni, of late has stopped promoting himself up the order irrespective of the situation and India has sufferred quite a few losses because of this. Though it can be argued in his favor that in such an inexperienced batting line up, he wants to keep some experience towards the end of the innings, I don't subscribe to this idea by any means. A set Dhoni is harder to dis-lodge and he still could stay there till the end. And whenever he has batted higher up the order he has managed to put India in such strong positions that eventually lead his to victory.
Goes to show that the old world concept of "The best batsman of your side should get the maximum number of overs to play." was not such a bad idea afterall. Which means these players should get to play before batsmen who are less talented than them.
Hope, teams realise this sooner than later for their own good.
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