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Originally Posted by hanuma
i agree with your lineup, i would like it if strauss could bat further down the order.
do you reckon pieterson could be an opener when he comes in? or would that be a waste?
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Being an opener at first-class or Test match level is very much a specialist discipline - less so in the One-Day game, but it still requires different skills. It's far more common for an opener to move down the order than for someone else to move up, but it still doesn't happen very often. Vaughan moved down the order to allow Strauss to open with Trescothick, because Strauss was picked as an opener, and it took the pressure off Vaughan a little as captain. Strauss won't move down the order until either England find another opener good enough to replace him, or the middle order becomes severely weakened for some reason in the future. He was picked as an opener, he's succeeded as an opener, and there's no logical reason why he'd move down the order just yet.
Pietersen, on the other hand, will never be an opener in any format of the game (except possibly Twenty20) - he's just got the wrong style of play. His aggressive hitting is far more useful in the late overs, when a team tries to up the run rate to around 7 or 8 an over for the last 8-12 overs, depending on the situation. That's why he bats at 6 for England with Flintoff at 5 - the plan is, use Tresco and Strauss to get off to a solid start, keep it ticking over with Vaughan and Collingwood in the middle overs, and then let Flintoff and Pietersen come in at 5 and 6 with 20 overs left and play themselves in before they start smashing the bowling everywhere.
Pietersen would indeed be wasted as an opener, especially in Test matches - as an opener, you have to have a patient enough mentality to gauge what the pitch and conditions are like, as well as what the bowlers are doing, before you make a decision as to what style of play is necessary. Openers have to be more adaptable, so Pietersen won't ever be one, unless he has a complete personality transplant! He's just too aggressive - some openers like to take the attack to the bowlers, but they are generally the ones who will smash a quick 70 one day and get bowled for 3 the next. You need stability in your openers, that's what success is built on - preferably a fairly aggressive stability, but certainly not the kind of abandon Pietersen plays with. Marcus Trescothick is pretty much the model of an international One-Day opener (aggressive, yet calm and controlled), with Michael Atherton having been the model of a Test match opener (gritty, patient, adaptable, determined and frustratingly tough to dismiss). Hope that clears things up.