5 Top opening batting pairs in ODI Cricket

Here is the list of the top five opening batting pairs in One Day Internatinational (ODI) Cricket by runs. The list features two Indian and two Australian batting pairs. The other partnership is a West Indies opening pair. India’s Sachin Tendulkar features in two such batting pairs, as does Australia’s wicket-keeper batsman Adam Gilchrist.

Adam Gilchrist & Mark Waugh (AUS)

Mark Waugh & Adam Gilchrist

Two of the best batsmen in ODI cricket, Australia’s Adam Gilchrist and Mark Waugh, opened the innings on 93 occasions between 1998 and 2002, when Waugh retired from the shorter format of the game. The belligerent left-handed Gilchrist had good support in the more solid right-handed Waugh. The duo partnered during the 1999 Cricket World Cup in England, a tournament that Australia went on to win beating Pakistan in the final. Gilchrist and Waugh scored 3853 runs, including eight century run stands and twenty half- century run stands.Their highest partnership of 206 runs came against West Indies in the third match of the Carlton Series in January 2001, while chasing a total of 236. Australia won the match by 9 wickets.

Virender Sehwag & Sachin Tendulkar (IND)

India’s Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar opened the innings for India in 93 innings between 2002 and 2012.Together, Sehwag and Tendulkar have been involved in 12 century run-stands and in 18 half-century run stands. Sehwag and Tendulkar put on 182 runs against New Zealand at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad in November 2003, their highest opening partnership in One-Day Cricket. In exactly the same number of innings as Gilchrist and Waugh, Sehwag and Tendulkar finished with 3919 runs.

Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes (WI)

Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes put together 5150 runs between 1979 and 1991 in 102 innings for the West Indies. Greendige and Haynes stood strong as an opening pair and batted freely against even the best bowlers of their times. The pair was responsible for putting together consistently good opening partnerships during the Prudential Cricket World Cups of 1975 and 1979, both of which the West Indies went on to triumph. Their statistics speak for their brilliance as a batting pair, fifteen century run stands and twenty four half century run stands, at an average of 52.55, the highest amongst the five batting pairs on this list.Their best partnership together was an unbeaten 192 against New Zealand at Christchurch in March 1987, which took the West Indies to a comfortable 10-wicket victory.

Adam Gilchrist & Matthew Hayden (AUS)

Matthew Hayden & Adam Gilchrist

Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden walked out to bat in 114 innings between 2001 and 2008. They scored 5372 runs together at an average of just over 48 and put on sixteen century run stands and twenty nine half-century stands during that period. One of those sixteen century run stands came during the final of the 2007 Cricket World Cup at Barbados, a match in which Adam Gilchrist smashed a record-breaking 149 to help Australia post a massive first innings total of 281 runs in 38 overs. Gilchrist and Hayden shared a breathtaking 172-run opening stand before Hayden eventually fell for 38. It remains the pair’s highest opening partnership in ODI Cricket.
1. Sourav Ganguly & Sachin Tendulkar (IND)

Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly put together 6609 runs in 136 innings between 1996 and 2007, the highest for any pair in the history of the game.The duo put on twenty-one century run stands and twenty three half-century run stands, with a highest partnership of 258 runs against Kenya in October 2001. That partnership remained the highest opening partnership between any two batsmen in the history of ODI cricket, until it was beaten by the 286-run stand between Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga against England in July 2006.