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We were moaning about Matt Prior as opener the other day. When Luke Wright was called up to the England squad, it opened up the possibility of his opening up some possibilities through opening… up.
He didn’t and Matt Prior scored six, so Wright didn’t do his opening ambitions any harm at all by hitting 50 off 39 balls on his debut.
The thinking behind Luke Wright opening is that as a quick run-scorer he’ll provide a burst of runs at the start of the innings to bookend Dimitri Mascarenhas’s barely-sane six-hitting at the close.
Luke Wright’s fifty was in sharp contrast to Mascarenhas’s haphazard power however. If you were to watch his innings highlights, you wouldn’t think it had been a particularly pacey innings. It looks like a batsman going about his business: good shots; good timing. There was nothing too outrageous that would make you think this was a frenetic knock at quicker than a run a ball. It was just good batting.
England v India, sixth one-day international at The Oval
England 316-6 (Owais Shah 107 not out, Kevin Pietersen 53, Luke Wright 50)
India 317-8 (Sachin Tendulkar 94, Sourav Ganguly 53)
