Pakistan and Saim Ayub’s Fibonacci faux pas

As it stands, Saim Ayub has played in three Asia Cup matches, and not yet made a run or lasted until the second over.

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Weird patterns occur in nature. You can see them in flowers and shells, or even pine cones. The most famous one is called the Fibonacci sequence. They are often beautiful and captivating to look at.

Mathematically, it is a list of numbers where each term is the sum of the two terms before it, starting with 0 and 1. This creates a pattern like 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on. Even when written down in numbers, it has a sort of elegance and purpose.

In cricket, we see odd patterns all the time, but usually, not the Fibonacci sequence itself. Yet, somehow Pakistan opener Saim Ayub has managed to bring this beautiful sequence to our sport.

But for him the Fibonacci sequence is a death spiral.

In the first match he made a duck off one ball, in the second, a duck off one ball, and in this match, a duck from two balls.

If he keeps this sequence going for another nine matches, he will face an impossible 144 deliveries, which will be one of the magnificent efforts in the history of the 120-ball format.

As it stands, Saim Ayub has played in three Asia Cup matches, and not yet made a run or lasted until the second over.

There are various ways to open the batting. Anchors might like to survive the first three overs, and then attack the rest of the powerplay. Someone else might be sent in to maximise the six overs and go full on attack mode. There are guys who just try to ensure no wickets are taken, and others sent up to disrupt everything. There is no one regular pattern for going in first.

Opening is weird. Traditionally, it has been a place for sick individuals who are happy to go out and face the first ball without knowing what can happen next. The people who do that are special, and should be treated carefully at a distance, but with curiosity and respect.

White ball cricket has changed things a lot. Mark Greatbatch, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Mark Waugh went up the order. These middle order guys couldn’t wait behind boring openers and asked to go in first and smash it.

Different formats, different roles, different eras have all come and gone. But no matter what type of opener you are, I think we can all agree that a major part of the job is getting through the first over. Saim Ayub does not.

In all T20Is, he’s been out in the first over 8 times. The record in a career is Paul Stirling, with 14. But Ireland’s mainstay has batted in the first 122 times, Ayub has done it 29. That is a crazy high percentage of times you don’t make it to the second set of six.