LONDON, UK: England’s calamitous descent into defeat on the second day of the first Ashes Test of the 2025-26 series at Perth was an embarrassment for their players, management and supporters.

Amidst the pre-series hype, injuries to key Australian players had given renewed hope for England’s chances of victory. Early on the second day, England were 105 runs ahead with nine second-innings wickets remaining.

They slumped to 164 all out and Australia then raced to its target of 205 in 28.2 overs, a brutal slap down of England’s hopes. This was mainly due to Travis Head, who was promoted to open the innings because the usual opener was injured. He scored 123 runs from 83 deliveries.

In the 2,609 Test matches played to date, it was only the 27th to have been completed in two days. Eleven of these were prior to 1914, when pitch conditions were difficult. Only England, Australia and South Africa, who were not a strong team, played Test cricket in that era.

Since 2017, there have been seven Tests completed in two days. Criticism of England’s performance at Perth has fallen on the batters, their technique and their attitude toward batting. Much has been made of the latter under the current management regime which encourages freedom of expression, a positive attacking approach, and an exhortation to eschew a fear of failure.

This is a high-risk strategy, exhilarating to watch when it works, but prone to the sort of abject collapse witnessed at Perth. In England’s last Test in August 2025, another self-induced collapse turned a highly probable victory into an unnecessary loss by six runs against India. The team management has made it clear that the approach will not change under their watch.

Any more batting performances like the one at Perth may turn their most ardent supporters into doubters. There is a clue in the name given to five-day international matches — they are, or should be, a test of technique, temperament, character, fitness, concentration and determination.

On these counts, most of England’s batters failed at Perth, especially in the second innings. There is a particular concern about technique, especially against bowlers who are skilled at moving the ball in the air and off the pitch.

In these situations, a team looks to its opening pair to see off that challenge and provide a solid basis for the rest of the innings. This requirement makes opening the batting a specialist job. One of England’s openers, Zak Crawley, was dismissed for nought in both innings. In 60 Tests, he averages 30.96 across 109 innings.

An average of over 40 is generally considered to be reasonably successful, whilst one of over 50 is a sign of class. His partner, Ben Duckett, has been more successful, averaging 42.3 with a swashbuckling style of batting. There is talk that Crawley’s recent failure may mean that the partnership will be broken up.

Opening the batting is a tough task and the criteria for success are subjective. A partnership of 50 may be considered successful, especially if conditions are challenging. One of a 100, if it survives the first session of two hours, could be considered twice as successful.

After that, different criteria set in: Are the openers who have often, sometimes unfairly, been branded as slow scorers, occupying time which other, quicker scoring members of the team could be utilizing more effectively?

This suggestion is one at which openers often bridle. There is more than one successful opening batter who has been regarded as selfish. This is not an accusation that can be levelled at either Duckett or Crawley.    

A fascinating analysis of successful opening partnerships by Anantha Narayanan was published by ESPN in September 2024. He assumed that 50 constituted a successful partnership. Analysis of 9,275 opening partnerships revealed an average of 36.1 runs, some way below the success threshold.

Indeed, failed partnerships — under 25 runs scored — accounted for 47 percent of all partnerships, compared with 25 percent for successful ones. A cutoff for inclusion was set at 1,500 runs scored together by the opening pair. This generated 40 pairs, which, instinctively, feels like quite a low number. It suggests that successful opening partnerships are not in abundance.

In terms of runs scored, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes of the West Indies top the list, scoring just under 6,500 runs together in 148 innings. This is 900 runs more than the second pairing, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden of Australia, who are nearly 1,000 runs ahead of the English pair, Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook.

Close on their heels are Sri Lanka’s Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya, followed by India’s Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. In seventh place lie Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, who opened for England between 1924 and 1930, scoring 3,249 runs in 38 innings.

It is not just the number of runs scored that should be considered a measure of success by an opening pair. In Narayanan’s analysis, he deploys a complex formula, based on runs per innings and strike rate to rank individual openers and partnerships.

Using a simple average of runs scored and number of innings shared, Hobbs and Sutcliffe are head and shoulders above all others, scoring an average of 85.5 runs per partnership. The next highest was 56.8, whilst Haynes and Greenidge averaged 43.8.

Attempts to make comparisons of performance across different eras are fraught with difficulties. Playing and pitch conditions, quality of bowlers, laws, equipment, strategies and attitudes change over time. Even so, the performance of Hobbs and Sutcliffe must be considered the pinnacle of opening batting partnerships in the history of cricket.

They failed to make a 50 partnership only once in six attempts and posted a 100 partnership 15 times in 30 attempts. On top of that, they batted on uncovered wickets. These were left open to the elements. One rainstorm could render them almost impossible to bat on, as bowlers were able to make the ball deviate sharply and unpredictably off the wicket.

Hobbs and Sutcliffe were masters of batting in such conditions. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that they batted with minimal protective equipment compared with players in the modern era.

Crawley and Duckett have opened together in 55 innings, scoring over 2,500 runs at an average of 46.5 per innings. They are the sixth English opening partnership to exceed 2,500 runs. And established a record last summer by becoming the first opening pair in the world to register nine opening partnerships in excess of 50 runs in Tests against India.

This beat a record previously held by Greenidge and Haynes, so they are in good company. In the context of opening batting partnerships in Test cricket, theirs has to be marked as relatively successful so far.

In order for a partnership to be successful, there needs to be a chemistry and understanding between the pair. Despite their different statures, height and styles, Crawley and Duckett seem to have that and England’s management is unlikely to disrupt it.

England’s supporters will be hoping that the partnership will prosper in the rest of the series.