ROOM 111: The nightwatchman role isn't a problem... it's the blind conviction that it's the right thing to do

In this series, our writers and guests break down their own, very particular cricketing bugbears, starting with SAM MORSHEAD and the criticism of batsmen who choose not to call for a nightwatchman

Cricket might be the world’s greatest sport but there are still elements of the game which rankle us all.

In this series, our writers and guests break down their own, very particular bugbears, starting with SAM MORSHEAD and the criticism of batsmen who choose not to have a nightwatchman...

Given the reaction, you might have thought Jonny Bairstow had been chucking a ball of plutonium at the Crazy Catch.

“It’s unnecessarily dangerous… absolutely crazy,” groaned Graeme Swann.

“Not sensible,” snapped Michael Vaughan.

Bairstow’s folly?

Running with scissors? Placing the missus’s life savings on red?

Nope. Not even slightly. Exception had in fact been taken to England’s wicketkeeper having the gall to trust his abilities and stroll to the wicket with just three overs remaining in the day’s play. Otherwise known as ‘doing his job’.

^{Jason Gillespie hit 201 not out as a nightwatchman}

As it so happened, Bairstow didn’t last until stumps on this particular occasion, after edging Josh Hazlewood behind - but the backlash on the first day of the fifth Ashes Test was ridiculous; a bombastic reaction from pundits bristling with faux outrage.

But that is generally the norm now when players fail to adhere to one of cricket’s least technical conventions.

In a sport wallowing in statistical science so meticulous it could quite easily bag itself a Prozac prescription, the role of the nightwatchman stands out for its lack of analysis.

It is typically claimed that the position offers teams a buffer. While not sacrificial, sticking your No. 10 up the order to sponge up a dozen or so deliveries, in fading light, has become the done thing over cricket’s many, many decades.

Fans have become taught to expect their six-foot six seamer to trundle to the crease when wickets fall late in the day, wowed perhaps by stories of Jason Gillespie in Chittagong and Alex Tudor being left stranded just shy of a century.

Yet there is little research available relating to the actual benefits and drawbacks of sending in a bowler to do a batsman’s job in conditions the batsman deems too difficult to bat in.

While a remarkable piece of work by Anantha Narayanan in 2008 found that less than 40 per cent of nightwatchmen in Test cricket could be deemed a success, most of the evidence presented in support of the tactic is anecdotal. For want of a better phrase, it’s all about “gut feel”.

We are forever discovering new and increasingly exotic ways of breaking down our game into numbers - Jarrod Kimber recently presented an enlightening glossary of nouveau cricket terms such as ‘true economy’ and ‘activity rate’ to better analyse T20, for example - but a trawl of the internet brings up next to nothing about the science behind the nightwatchman.

^{Alex Tudor hit 99 not out for England against New Zealand}

And yet commentators and onlookers are so quick to bark when a batsman chooses not to use a team-mate as some sort of extra padding and instead takes it on himself to get the job done, only to fall short.

Even the professionals and ex-professionals are split.

Steve Waugh famously abandoned Australia’s use of the nightwatchman because the role was being employed “just for the sake of it”, while Nasser Hussain called its implementation a “weakness” on the part of a batsman.

Steve James, writing in The Telegraph in 2012, suggested that “it is one of the few areas of sport where I think you really need to have experienced it to understand it” and that’s fair enough.

To those of us who have only played club cricket - whether that’s a Sunday beer match or a top-of-the-table Premier League clash - the concept of starting an innings twice is totally alien, with the exception of those all-too-common occasions when a hit-about is hastily arranged after an apocalyptic batting collapse.

So this isn’t necessarily a call to bin nightwatchmen.

Instead, it is a call to arms to get some hard numbers to support its use before loosening critical lips.

TOP SCORES BY NIGHTWATCHMEN IN TESTS

201* - Jason Gillespie (Australia vs Bangladesh, Chittagong, 2006)

125 - Mark Boucher (South Africa vs Zimbabwe, Harare, 1999-2000)

108 - Mark Boucher (South Africa vs England, Durban, 1999-2000)

105 - Tony Mann (Australia vs India, Perth, 1977-78)

In an industry which relies on algorithms and metrics like never before, it is a call to bring an end to the lazy analysis which heaps blame on batsmen who decide that they and their team will be better served by the batting order remaining as printed on the scorecard.

Rarely, and for the life of me I cannot think of an example, are centurions who have started their innings with 15 minutes or so left in a day’s play heralded for that particular reason.

Batsmen who back themselves, it seems, can expect double the criticism if their decision goes wrong and no praise if they succeed. Those who ask for a nightwatchman and see their team-mate fail are not berated for sitting in the comfort of the pavilion.

Back in January, Bairstow coolly explained why he’d not given Mason Crane a nudge.

“How many times do you face the second new ball coming in to bat as a No 6 or No 7? Quite a few, I would guess,” he wrote in his Daily Mail column.

“That was something I considered and felt I was the best person to come out and deal with the remaining 18 balls that evening.

“Would I make that decision again? Yes, I would.”

Surely discouraging such conviction, self-belief and willingness to shoulder responsibility is the mistake, not roaring those qualities on in full voice.

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