Spinners in charge and Southern Brave show how not to construct an XI: The Men's Hundred in focus

KIERAN PARMLEY - ANALYSIS: We have now seen all eight teams in the men's Hundred play their first games. So what have we learnt about the new format?

Oval Invincibles lead the way

Before a ball was bowled on Thursday evening there was a real taste of the sort of tactical battles we are likely to see throughout The Hundred, with left-hand batter Sam Curran walking out to open the batting with right-hander Jason Roy. 

To the average fan promoting Curran may seem like a strange tactic but with left-arm spinner Tom Hartley poised to open the bowling for Manchester Originals, the Oval Invincibles thinktank wanted to pounce and have a left-hander who would ‘match up’ positively with the ball spinning into them rather than away from them.

And with Roy (a right-handed batter who generally struggles with the ball turning away from him) taking up one of the opening spots, they elected to send in Curran ahead of right-handed Will Jacks, who will presumably be the ‘regular’ opener going forward bar this kind of scenario.

Strangely Roy faced up to the first ball despite all the thinking behind the Curran promotion, something Billings laughed about post match, but once Roy got off strike Curran got to work, stepping down the pitch second ball and hitting Hartley over long on for six. His dismissal followed the very next ball, Curran ending up with 6 (3)...but Oval weren’t done yet. 

Instead of reverting to the norm and sending in Jacks, Oval Invincibles elected to keep on the matchup offensive with another left-hand batter and specialist pinch hitter, Sunil Narine walking out to join Roy. Narine looked sluggish and fell for 2 (5). 

While a total contribution of 8 (8) between S.Curran and Narine may seem relatively poor these are two players likely to bat at No.7 and No.8 in a normal batting lineup, making the value of their wicket in a 100-ball game very small and the upside of a short blitz in favourable matchup conditions from either batter worthwhile. Expect to see this sort of thinking throughout the tournament as sides begin to exploit opposition bowling trends.

^{Action from the first game of the men's Hundred}

Frontloaded batting...meet frontloaded bowling.

In this column’s season preview it was highlighted how likely it would be for sides to ‘frontload’ their batting: the theory of playing your highest quality batters in the top order, allowing them to face the highest numbers of balls. 

Manchester Originals did just this in their opening fixture with Jos Buttler, a prime candidate in the ‘where should he bat?’ debate opening the batting alongside Phil Salt, followed up by Blast star Joe Clarke with Kiwi Colin Munro rounding out a strong top four.

Oval Invincibles however had a response to this tactic: defending an ‘average’ score of 145 they decided to frontload their bowling with higher quality options in search for the ever valuable early wickets.

The Invincibles went on the attack inside the first 35 balls of the Originals innings, making use of the bowling flexibility offered by the new rules. Sam Curran bowled 10 balls up front and took the wicket of Salt with a sneaky slower ball, while tight sets of five from Saqib Mahmood and Sunil Narine kept the pressure on from the other end. What followed was an exceptional 10-ball spell of pace from Reece Topley on a slowish pitch, during which Joe Clarke was caught behind trying to ramp him over the keeper. Narine rounded off the onslaught with another set of five and the prized wicket of Jos Buttler caught at short cover off a leading edge. 

This left the Manchester Originals, and their frontloaded batting unit, at 42 for 3 after 35 balls, down their three best batters and still needing 104 from 65 balls. They would eventually fall nine runs short of the target, a plan executed to perfection by Oval Invincibles.

^{Joe Root of Trent Rockets}

More spin geared towards the backend?

This is a point Nasser Hussain made on commentary on Saturday that I promise I thought of first. It seems as though teams are holding back their main spin bowler towards the back end of the innings more frequently in The Hundred than they do in T20 cricket. 

A quick glimpse at the grid below will point towards that being true, with Narine the only one to bowl in the powerplay, thanks in part to the Invincibles’ frontloaded bowling approach. 

One factor at play here could be that all pitches are somewhat used, with the women’s games preceding the men’s matches, making them a little slower and potentially providing some grip.

As well as supporting the spinners, this is something that slower ball specialists Benny Howell and Tom Curran also exploited to return economical spells in the opening two men’s fixtures. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as returns are a little hit or miss in this first round of fixtures, with some spinners - even Rashid Khan - being lined up.

On the contrary, fellow Aghan Qais Ahmad returned at the death to seal a win for his Welsh Fire side with the wicket of Harry Brook.

^{Birmingham Phoenix's men started with a win}

The basics of team construction

Southern Brave were tipped by many to be the team to beat ahead of the start of the Hundred but their opening performance against Trent Rockets left plenty to be desired. Despite missing Quinton de Kock and Jofra Archer it wasn’t a lack of quality in the side that let them down but instead how the side was pieced together.

With the bat Southern Brave lost two early wickets in right-handers James Vince and Alex Davies, leaving Devon Conway and Delray Rawlins, two left-handed batters, at the crease at the end of the powerplay. 

Immediately Rockets captain Lewis Gregory turned to Joe Root’s off-spin to match up positively against the left-handed duo and gave him a spell of 10 balls at the expense of just 7 runs. After a spell of quality fast paced bowling from Marchant de Lange, Root would return to bowl largely at Conway and another left-hand batter in Ross Whiteley. 

Root returned figures of 1 for 17from his 20 balls, the wicket of Liam Dawson one of only two balls he bowled to right-handers in the game; for 18 balls he had the upper hand. 

Things weren’t much better for Southern Brave with the ball. Whilst George Garton and Tymal Mills offered serious threat up front and took the wicket of Alex Hales early, the Trent Rockets batting unit could afford to sit around and protect their wicket, both due to the modest total put up by Southern Brave as well as the remaining bowlers to come. Trent Rockets are a side with three left-hand batters in their top five and yet Southern Brave elected to pick two left-arm finger spinners, Liam Dawson and Danny Briggs, as main bowlers in their XI, with another left-arm finger spinner, Delray Rawlins, in support. 

Trent Rockets won the game at a canter, with Southern Brave’s spin attack unable to break the left-handed partnership of Malan and Short, no doubt leaving Mahela Jayawardene and his coaching staff with plenty of questions around their team construction. It would be no surprise to see leg-spinner Max Waller or left-arm wrist spinner Jake Lintott in the side for their next game if Jofra Archer is fit, as well as a rejig to the batting order to split up their left-handed batters. 

^{Jos Buttler at the crease for Manchester Originals}

Bowlers largely in control?

One final point. It feels as though with the rule changes (the 10-ball over option and new batters on strike after a wicket rules in particular) bowlers have mainly bossed the games. It took until the fourth game to see a score in excess of 150, with Welsh Fire - thanks to quick blitzes from all of Bairstow, Duckett, Phillips and Neesham - putting up 173. 

It remains to be seen as to whether or not batters can make the adjustment to consistently offer what is expected of them, to either bat as a unit with multiple contributors as Welsh Fire did or have one batter make a monster score. 

Retaining the strike for that approach may be difficult as Zak Crawley proved, facing only 38 balls despite being at the crease for all bar one ball of an innings.