10 Indian players who opened the batting as a jugaad

7. VVS Laxman

The number of times Laxman has been moved around the order is astounding. Starting out as a middle order bat, he was sent out to open in Kingston as Mongia was shifted back to number 7 and India continued to experiment at the top. He responded with a fifty and opened for India in 10 matches before going to number 3 for one game and coming back to open for 3 matches.

He was then permanently moved to the middle order as India found a semblance of stability in the opening pair of Shiv Sundar Das and Sadagopan Ramesh. He kept shuffling around the upper and lower middle order for the rest of his career barring a couple of games in 2006 in which he opened.

Laxman got just 4 fifties and the swashbuckling century in Sydney at the top and an average of 28.54 did not make for a good reading. However, his epic against the Aussies ensured that he would go on to hold fort for India alongside Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly.

8. Manoj Prabhakar

Prabhakar and Iqbal Siddiqui have to be the strangest experiments. Prabhakar batted at number 9 in his first innings and opened in the second innings while Siddiqui opened the batting in his second innings after having batted at 10 in his first innings. Prabhakar however, went on to play a lot more for India and became a regular opener towards the end of his career after having been sent out to open on and off initially, mostly to replace an injured opener.

His role as the stable opener began in the 4th Test in South Africa in 1992 when Shastri, Raman and Jadeja couldn’t strike a successful combination at the top in the first three. From then on, he opened for India in tests till the end of his career with quite a bit of success. 5 of his 9 fifties and his only hundred came while opening the innings. His average at the top (35.48) was also slightly better than his overall average (32.65).