England Test-capped leg-spinner Matt Parkinson became the latest spinner promoted to open the batting in the 2025 County Championship, making the move for Kent's second innings against Lancashire.
Kent went into the innings with a 253-run deficit after Lancashire declared on 639-9. Luke Wells, Josh Bohannon and Ashton Turner all scored centuries for Lancashire, before they put Kent back in during the morning session of day four.
However, when Kent's openers walked out to face James Anderson's opening over, it wasn't Jaydn Denly as expected who joined first innings centurion Ben Compton, it was Parkinson, who came in at No.9 in the first innings. With no obvious explanation for the move, commentators were initially surprised and caught unawares by Parkinson opening the batting. Parkinson has a first-class batting average of 9.93 from 70 matches, and a previous high score of 48.
Match 70, Lancashire vs Kent
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Matt Parkinson becomes latest England leggie to open batting this season
The move is the latest of several made by Championship teams to promote spinners up the order. Rehan Ahmed was promoted to open for Leicestershire early in the season, and subsequently moved to No.3. That decision has paid off in runs, with Rehan scoring his third century of the season earlier this week.
While Rehan's success up the order is not completely surprising, given that he already had a first-class century under his belt and is widely regarded as an all-rounder, Parkinson's move fits in with the more left-field of the genre.
ALSO READ: County side promote former England leggie to open after first-innings centurion taken ill
Yesterday (June 24), Glamorgan promoted fellow former England leg-spinner Mason Crane to open the innings. Crane, who's first-class batting average is 16.57, managed 12 runs before he was dismissed by Logan van Beek. However, Crane's promotion can be explained by regular opener Asa Tribe being too ill to bat.
There's no such explanation for Parkinson's promotion, however, with Denly walking out just 5.3 overs into the innings after Compton was trapped lbw by Tom Bailey. Parkinson managed to survive 27 balls before he inside edged a ball from Chris Green for four.
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