What is a Night-Watchman in Cricket?
Cricket is full of strange terms for what goes on. One of them is explained here!
A night watchman is a lower-order batter who comes to the crease instead of a higher-order batter should a wicket fall close to the end of a day’s play during a three, four or five day cricket match.
It is common practice for a batting side to bat in approximate order of quality in terms of the players’ ability to score runs. The opening batters tend to be specialists who are good at fending off the bowling side’s opening fast bowlers, while the batters at positions three to six are expected to score the bulk of the runs. At the end of the list come the side’s bowlers who are not in the team because of their batting skills and are not expected to make large individual scores. Night watchmen tend to come from their ranks.
However, despite their relatively greater skill as run scorers, the fact remains that every specialist batter is vulnerable at the start of his innings. A new batter, once he/she has arrived at the crease and taken their guard, has to adjust to a number of factors, such as the condition of the light, the state and pace of the pitch, and how the bowlers are performing in terms of their pace and how they are moving or spinning the ball (depending on the type of bowler they are). It…