Basically no (though I’m sure there are times where it may have happened.)
A batsman doesn’t need to be scoring a lot of runs as long as his partner is scoring well. Then the poorly scoring bastman only needs to get a single run as required to put his partner on strike, and not get out. It is quite normal to have one batsman in each partnership playing the solid, no risks roll, while the other guy takes a few risks and goes for the big shots.
Also, the lower order batsmen generally aren’t very good. They may be able to wack a few runs at the end when the adrenalin is running, but they are not good enough to bat that way for a long time.
If a batsman is genuinly struggling, then they’ll normally get frustrated, take a risk, and get out anyway; but it is unlikely to be intentional suicide.
One case where you do find basmen making sacrifices is where there is a confusion with running and both batters end up at the same end of the pitch. One of them must be out and normally the weaker batsman will be the one to go.
The shorter answer is that the batsmen are sent to bat in decreasing order of skill. So anyone further down the order will be even worse.
Also, to expand on what 1920s said, by the time you get to the “tail enders” the major risk is usually that of losing all wickets. So someone getting out deliberately is almost never going to be tactically worthwhile.
While not an instance of a batter deliberately sacrificing themselves, there’s a well-known instance in which it is alleged that the remainder of the team decided to get rid of a batsman because he was scoring too slowly! From Wikipedia…
Also, you should note that the 50 overs limit applies only to one-day cricket, a relatively recent form of the game. ‘Classic’ cricket is Test Match cricket, in which everyone bats unless the captain chooses to ‘declare’ the innings over early.
Occasionally a night watchman makes a major contribution. Also Alex Tudor for England versus New Zealand once made 99 not out (England won the game before he could make the hundred).
There’s a nice story concerning fast bowler Harold Larwood who was once sent in late in the day after a hard day in the field and, disgruntled, tried to get himself run out at once. The throw missed the stumps and went for four overthrows, making Larwood’s first scoring shot into a five. Next day, after a good rest overnight, he carried on hitting and was eventually out for 98. This was on a tour in which England’s bowling tactics (viewed then as tantamount to a physical attack on the batsmen, though tame by the standards of forty-odd years later) had made Larwood an object of hate with a fair few Australian supporters, but they nevertheless cheered his fine innings to the echo.
Although lower-order batsmen are technically inferior to those higher up the order, it’s not that unusual for some of them to be the kind who score rapidly as long as they’re in (but don’t last long). It’d be worth his while for a reliable but slow-scoring batsman to get himself out if there were few overs left and a couple of sloggers below him in the order.
The problem is that the batsman need not be struggling, as such.
Take the case of Saurav Ganguly, the Indian opener. I just don’t see how he merits a place in the limited-overs side as a batsman, especially as an opener. Thanks to CricInfo, let’s look at his last five innings (3 in the world cup; 2 earlier), most recent first:
VS. Sri Lanka 7(23) i.e. 7 in 3.5 overs @ RR 1.83 [rest of team: 170 @ RR 4.3]
VS. Bermuda 89(114) i.e. 89 in 19 overs @ RR 4.68 [rest of team: 293 @ RR 9.45]
VS. Bangladesh 66(129) i.e. 66 in 21.3 overs @ RR 3.07 [rest of team: 109 @ RR 3.89]
VS. Sri Lanka 58(74) i.e. 58 in 12.2 overs @ RR 4.70 [rest of team: 194 @ RR 6.77]
VS. Sri Lanka 48(72) i.e. 48 in 12 overs @ RR 4.00 [rest of team: 171 @ RR 4.96]
Extras have been factored out. Remember, Ganguly is an opener, hence one of the putative better batsman in the team. He scored runs in 4 innings, hence was’nt “struggling” as per the usual definition. Now, the key point to keep in mind in limited-overs matches is the economic concept of marginal or opportunity cost. Each 2 balls that Ganguly wastes in scoring a run is potentially lost to other faster-scoring batsman. The ‘old school’ argument that Ganguly is “anchoring” the innings ought to be rendered moot by that fact. There are other batsmen who can fulfill the role yet maintain a respectable strike rate. Ganguly seems to be stuck in Test mode, only somewhat superficially adapted to the reality of limited overs. Of course, this post has morphed into a rant of why Ganguly needs to be kicked out of the one-day team despite his “success”. The provided 5 results are only a fair representation of his batting profile. I’ve noticed this aspect since his debut. Onto the posed question, if the batsman is struggling to meet the needs of the team at the moment, irrespective of whether there’s a good score to his name, then he should go for it and if he gets out, hopefully someone better suited can come in. The sole exception being when there’s no good batsman left. Then, of course, slow runs are better than no runs. Now, as to whether it happens, I do think that my proposed attitude, is in fact, practiced at times by batsmen from other teams like Australia or South Africa.
Well, last night was nailbiting, I tell you. The sudden collapse against Sri Lanka, Malinga taking 4 in 4. Pieterson facing the same, 2 runs needed. Boy, was I relieved when he hit a 4.
So we’re in the points now.
Yep, that was looking like an early contender for Choke Of The Century there. I logged on to Cricinfo just in time to catch the closing overs and I couldn’t believe they’d gone from five down to nine down in less than two overs. Apparently Malinga missed taking a fifth by a coat of varnish!
There is the notion of “get on or get out”. Sometimes, if a captain wants to be a few more runs to the good before he declares a message will go out to a batsman to speed things up a notch, to risk his wicket in the quest for fast runs so that the team either racks up the score or the stodgy batsman gets out and some beefy brute comes in to hoick a few sixers. The batsman in the middle is expected to comply, regardless of the consequences.
I don’t mean to transform this into a “Teach Jackknifed Juggernaut about the basics of cricket” thread. But knowing that the cricket experts will always check back here, I’ll risk their wrath.
As I follow the World Cup scores, I’ve noticed that the most overs that a bowler can bowl is 10. And it seems that they throw all 6 balls of the over, meaning that another bowler doesn’t come in during an over. Is this a rule? What happens if a bowler gets hurt in the middle of an over? He would have to be replaced. Would he later be allowed to return to bowl again?
In reference to my previous question, Im noticing that, as of now, Styris on NZ has only 9 runs on 30 balls. To my virgin eyes, this strikes me as atrocious batting. Since NZ only has 2 outs, it almost seems obvious that they should tell this guy to swing for the fences, or get himself out. Am I wrong here?
The runs per balls is what is known as the Strike Rate, and there are many nuances to it as far as what is acceptable.
I didn’t actually see the NZ game, but if NZ had lost a couple of wickets early, the team would rather see Styris “play himself in” then go out there swinging away. Unlike baseball many batsmen in cricket can and like to take some time to get a feel for what the pitch is doing, what the bowlers are doing, a feel for the general conditions. During this team the batsmen will generally play a very defensive game, not scoring a lot of runs, once they get comfortable with the bowlers and conditions they can hopefully then accelerate their scoring rate.
The amount of time each batsmen can take to get settled varies with the batsmen, the conditions themselves, their batting order, & the state of the game when they come in. E.G An Opener (the first batsmen in) can afford to take some time getting settled, while a mid order batsmen coming in in the 47th over is expected to start scoring immediately
