5 Test openers who played with the most number of batting partners

South Africa-born Keaton Jennings joined an illustrious list of players who have scored a century on debut, having replaced the injured Haseeb Hameed in the fourth Test against India in Mumbai. Jennings became the eleventh opening partner for Alastair Cook since Andrew Strauss’ retirement in 2012. Cook, who made his debut against India in 2006, has had to open the innings with multiple partners, as England continue to struggle with finding the perfect batting combination at the top.

Also read: Stats – India vs England, Fourth Test Day 1

Yet, Cook doesn’t even make it to the top 5 in the list of most batting partners for an opening batsman, Here are five such openers, who were never able to carry on for long with one batting partner:

 

Sunil Gavaskar – 19 partners

Hailed as one of the greatest opening batsmen of all time, Gavaskar did not have the comfort of settling with one particular partner for a long time. He had as many as 23 opening partners over the course of 16-year career. The first batsman to score 30 tons and compile over 10,000 Test runs, Gavaskar made his debut at Port of Spain, opening the innings with Ashok Mankad on India’s tour to the West Indies in 1971.

His last Test in 1987, against Pakistan at Bangalore, saw him open with Krishnamachari Srikkanth. He scored 96 in his last innings.

Opening partners:

Ashok Mankad, Syed Abid Ali, R Parkar, Chetan Chauhan, Farokh Engineer, Eknath Solkar, Sudhir Naik, Hemant Kanitkar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Parthasarthy Sharma, Anshuman Gaekwad, Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Pranab Roy, Ghulam Parkar, Ravi Shastri, Arun Lal, Manoj Prabhakar

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