Cricket's Finest Pinch Hitters and a Brief History of the Role

The forthcoming cricket World Cup, played on hard and fast wickets, promises to be a bounty of runs, with the batsmen looking for boundaries from ball one to get their team off to a flying start.

But it hasn't always been like that. When limited overs cricket began in the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was to slowly accumulate runs and keep wickets in hand before accelerating over the last few overs.

Fortunately for spectators, this safety-first strategy was eventually eroded from the game by the onset of the pinch hitter, a player promoted to the top of the order and given a free-license to attack.

These days, the aggression and ability of almost every batsman to score quickly and clear the ropes has made the pinch hitter almost obsolete.

So let's take a closer look at the events and players that were responsible for this piece of cricketing evolution.

The Beginning

The birth of the pinch hitter can be traced back to the 1992 World Cup, which, held in Australia and New Zealand, was instantly notable for its coloured kits and use of a white ball for the first time.

Crucially, the tournament also introduced fielding restrictions to the effect that only two fielders were allowed outside the ring (a circle of 27 metres measured from the centre of the wicket) in the first 15 overs of each innings.

Some countries chose to bat through these early stages and see off the tight fields in order to classically build an innings and keep wickets in hand for a late crescendo.

However, the savvy New Zealanders tore up the guide book and promoted the powerful Mark Greatbatch to the top of the innings, hoping his penchant for hitting over the top would give them some flying starts.

England quickly followed suit with the legendary Ian Botham also receiving a surprise promotion to open the innings, forming a vastly experienced partnership with Graham Gooch.

Whether these moves were an overall success or not is somewhat debatable. Although Greatbatch blasted 13 sixes in seven innings, his strike rate was 87.92—fairly average by today's standards.

While Botham, perhaps hampered by the ultra-tight kit, made some useful contributions, he only scored 192 runs at a strike rate of just 58.35.

Of course, the bigger picture shows that New Zealand reached the semi-finals and England finished as runners up, so maybe the innovation did have an impact after all.

Sri Lanka

The next major step in the pinch hitter evolution was at the 1996 World Cup, when Sri Lanka took things to a new level, simultaneously elevating themselves from cricketing cannon fodder into champions.

Their explosive opening duo of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana quickly became box-office viewing with their ultra-aggressive approach shocking opposition attacks.

Jayasuriya, a powerful left-hander, would dine out on anything short, often miraculously cutting balls for six, while Kaluwitharana, although far from prolific in terms of run scoring, possessed incredible bat speed and was fearless in going for his shots.

Most other nations were still rooted in the patient accumulation of runs, but this all-action pair hunted boundaries from ball one and usually succeeded in getting their side ahead of the curve, allowing their "proper" batsmen plenty of time to come in and record a big total.

And when the Sri Lankans lifted the trophy at Lahore, courtesy of a comprehensive victory over Australia, it was clear that limited overs cricket had changed forever.

The Passion of Gilchrist

Over the next decade or so, the novelty of the pinch hitter wore off a little as aggression and power becoming necessities rather than luxuries at the top of the order.

Players such as Herschelle Gibbs and Shahid Afridi embodied this approach, turning slogging in to an art form. 

However, the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Mark Waugh showed a different way of playing the role, scoring rapidly by using their classical styles to find the gaps in the field rather than go over the top.

Perhaps the most dominant hitter of this era was Adam Gilchrist. The Australian wicketkeeper batted at No. 7 in Test cricket, but his fluid stroke play and rapid-scoring ways made him a formidable presence at the top of the order in white-ball cricket.

Brutal on anything short or over-pitched, over a 12-year ODI career, the left-hander scored nearly 10,000 runs at just under a run-a-ball, helping his country win three consecutive World Cups.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Of course, it is a fine line between pinch hitters and sloggers, and along the way there have been numerous comedy performers in the role, many employed by England!

Believe it or not, Phil DeFreitas once opened the batting for his country, while county stalwarts like Mark Ealham and an out-of-his-depth Matthew Fleming batted at three for a few games.

Comically, in English domestic cricket, Devon Malcolm, a classic No. 11, once opened the batting for Leicestershire in a Sunday league game, while Shane Warne occasionally batted up the order for Hampshire.

Sehwag and Gayle

These days, the arrival of Twenty20 cricket has led to almost every player in the top seven or even eight needing to be able to clear the ropes and score quickly. If they can’t, their days—see Alastair Cook—are limited.

This evolution has made the term "pinch hitter" almost obsolete and has produced consummate modern-day run machines like Virender Sehwag and Chris Gayle, who have taken aggressive batting to new levels.

Indeed, Sehwag only knows one way to play and boasts strike rates of 82.23, 104.33 and 145.38 in Tests, ODIs and T20 Internationals respectively.

Similarly, Gayle, although capable of playing patiently, epitomises the power of today's players and has bludgeoned a staggering 486 sixes in T20 cricket.

The Future

With hitters like AB de Villiers, Aaron Finch, Alex Hales, Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell continuing to take feats of attacking batting to new levels, high scores and strike rates seem set to rise and rise.

But if it wasn't for the 1992 World Cup's fielding restrictions, New Zealand taking a punt on Mark Greatbatch or Sri Lanka rolling the dice in 1996, would we have the all-action game that we have today?