Found an interesting post on selecting a club cricket batting line up.
As a club cricket captain (of the mighty Terrigal/Matcham 8th grade side), I have found positions 3 to 11 are usually very easy to fill. Finding openers (apart from a few occasions) can be a bugger and some persuasion is needed. Occasionally I have gone out to face the new ball myself. This usually means that whoever is number 3 does not have long to wait for their innings.
Most players want to bat in the middle order (unless they know their limitations and are happy in the tail). Part of the reason is that in the lower grades, once you see off the opposition’s opening bowlers, the rest of the attack tends to be lesser quality. But that can lead a side into complacency.
As captain, I’ve seen me lads salivate at the thought of facing some seemingly innocuous part time tweaker. Alas what often happens is they treat the bowling with little respect and a batting collapse is the end result. In the lower grades line and length, regardless of the bowler’s speed, still works a treat.
I’ll likely have the usual dilemma regarding openers this weekend. Hopefully the players will understand their skipper likes his dashing cameos batting around 8 or 9 and will fill out the top order.
