In cricket, an opener or an opening batsman is the batsman who "opens" the innings. It is considered an important position in the batting order for several reasons:

1. Opening batsmen must face the new ball which is harder and has a more pronounced seam. This means that it is liable to bounce higher and seam more than an older ball which lower order batsmen may face. Opening batsmen may also have to deal with the optimum conditions for swing bowling, once the new ball has been roughed up on one side.
2. Opening batsmen get the first look at the pitch and the conditions and must be able to adjust quickly to them.
3. Early fall of wickets can have a psychological impact on the dressing room (the batsmen to follow) and thus affect the performance of the team.

In First-class cricket, the opener's duties are primarily to take the 'shine' off the new ball, thus reducing its ability to move through the air after being bowled; this protects the rest of the batting line-up from facing the moving ball. Openers thus traditionally have been less fluent stroke-players, but technically more circumspect, than the specialist batsmen to follow. An example of a classic opener in this mould was Geoffrey Boycott.

In One-day cricket, however, the introduction of field restrictions in the early 1990s led to a redefinition of the openers role. To take advantage of the field restrictions, some teams - notably Martin Crowe's New Zealand team in the 1992 World Cup, took to promoting pinch-hitters up the order - in this case, Mark Greatbatch. After Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana destroyed bowling attacks in the 1996 World Cup through aggressive batting in the first 15 overs, the position of one-day opener began to be regarded as one reserved for individuals capable of clean hitting against fast bowling.

Batting (cricket)