Middle order gets the pulse racing
THE middle order can be the golden wave a batting lineup team rides all the way to victory beach. Once it rises and rolls, it is irresistible.
But the middle order can also be a side’s Bermuda Triangle, swallowing players whole. Then teams’ chances of winning sink without trace.
SA, like all teams, will sink or swim on the ability of their middle order to stay afloat.
AB de Villiers can, of course, walk on water. But others who lurk further below the surface of the order and how they perform will matter as much.
Middle order batsmen need several tentacles to their game and a knack for changing the colour of their approach to suit the situation.
“The best middle order players have been able to perform in different scenarios,” Dale Benkenstein, a denizen of the middle order for the Dolphins and Durham and 23 one-day internationals for SA, said.
“When you’re 20/3 early in the innings you’ve got to batten down the hatches and rebuild. Really good players have the ability to get themselves in in those situations, but they also have the armoury to get you to a winning score.
“When your team have a good start, you come in and you haven’t got too many balls to waste and you set a good total. When you’re batting second, there’s the added pressure of having to win a game.”
What sets middle order batsmen apart from those on the order’s upper and lower decks?
“The great middle order players are able to keep calm and perform their skills under pressure,” Benkenstein said.
“An opening batsman tends to have his way of playing and he bats like that right through the innings. Lower order batsmen know just one way; they’re there to finish games.
“Middle order players have to adapt to different roles and have the skills to do it.”
That is a decent job description. Do SA have the best men to do it going to the World Cup?
“This may be the platform that sets David Miller’s international career alight,” Benkenstein said. “He was known for his hitting in T20 cricket, but he really has learnt his role, he is a proper cricketer and the pitches will suit him. He is . . . suited to that position.
“JP Duminy is the same but he has more experience.”
Along with death bowling, the middle order has been the area of most concern for South Africans heading into the perfect storm of the World Cup. Too many times they have seen solid starts ebb away to mediocrity.
Untested is Farhaan Behardien, whose selection has raised quite a few eyebrows.
Miller, whose 63 ODI caps make him not as inexperienced as he is sometimes seen to be, and Duminy, a veteran of 134 games in the format, represent SA’s best chance of exploiting fully the opportunities created by players like Hashim Amla and De Villiers.
“The only problem is that Miller and Duminy are both left-handed, so if they get in together an offspinner could tie them down,” Benkenstein stated.
“But they are world-class players and they will be crucial in conditions in which the new ball could knock a few wickets over. Then they’ll have to win matches.”
Whether the World Cup waters rage or are calm, it will fall to Miller and Duminy to keep SA waving, not drowning.