Why Shimron Hetmyer must be floated up the order from CPL2023 onwards
How the West Indies and T20 teams continue to stand in the way of Hetmyer and further greatness in the format
After Shimron Hetmyer notoriously missed his flight to Australia for last year’s T20 World Cup and was replaced by Shamarh Brooks, it was largely speculated that this would be it for him in the Maroon for quite a while.
But after the West Indies failed to qualify for this year’s ODI World Cup, head coach Darren Sammy went back to the drawing board and started an open dialogue with him along with other white ball players who have reservations against the board, and Hetmyer returned to the T20I team nearly an exact 365 days later.
Hetty’s return to the national side with the 2024 T20 World Cup just looming around the corner and with no worries of him missing flights within the Caribbean (ideally), makes it all the more important to further echo one of the biggest talking points on T20 cricket Twitter: he must be floated up the batting order.
Hetmyer is one of the most in-demand players on the T20 circuit, yet continues to be used incorrectly mostly.
Whether it’s playing T20Is for the West Indies or yet another T20 franchise, a lot of the time, both share one thing in common, that being they use him solely as a finishing option down the order rather than as a floater.
Post-pandemic, the West Indian T20 team has been synonymous with batting collapses often, and when they’ve had the services of Hetmyer, very rarely have they opted to float Hetmyer up the order to arrest the collapse, opting to take the suicidal route of losing more wickets before he comes in at #6/#7.
But in the few instances they did, it worked like a charm, such as when then skipper Nicholas Pooran sent Hetmyer at #4 during the 2nd match of the 5 match T20I series against Australia at home in 2021, top-scoring with a match-winning knock of 61 runs off 36 deliveries striking at 169.44 to help them post a target of 197.
And when he’s had to bat as a lower-middle order or finisher (which is very often), he’s found himself coming in dilemmas like the group stage fixture against Sri Lanka in the 2021 T20 World Cup at Abu Dhabi: no support from the other end to reach the finish line, as there was too much on his plate to deal with.
Chasing 190 runs to remain in contention for the semi-finals, he came in with the Windies at 47/3 with 3 balls remaining in the powerplay and was the only batter other than Pooran to reach double figures that innings, top-scoring with 81 runs off 54 deliveries striking at 150.
Hetmyer was also a part of their highest partnership of 38* runs off 18 deliveries that came at their ninth wicket, of which he contributed 35 runs off 17 deliveries, but eventually fell short by 20 runs.
Yet in spite of this, it didn’t occur to the West Indian management that they could use Hetmyer up the order consistently, continuing to use him as a finishing option.
Such knocks scream that he is a dynamic player who should be floated up to the middle order, with the numbers showing that his only major matchup weaknesses are legspin and offspin.
And yet, not just the West Indies, but none of the T20 franchises he’s played for has gotten the memo.
You get the best out of Hetmyer when he is floated up the order to 3/4, and this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) season as well as his return to the T20I side provide further substance to this claim.
A 21-ball 39 striking at 185.71 against the Delhi Capitals coming in at #5 during the 13th over to help set a target of 200, a Man of the Match performance of 56 off 26 deliveries at a strike rate of 215.38 coming in to bat at #6 with the Rajasthan Royals at 56/4 during the 10th over with a required run rate of 12.5 to successfully chase down 178 with 4 balls to spare against the Gujarat Titans and a 39-ball 61 against India striking at 156.41 this week at Lauderhill at #6 with the Windies reeling at 57/4 in the first over after the powerplay to elevate them to 179, all are typical entry points for a middle-order batter.
But still, it is unlikely that the Windies, T20 franchises, and even Hetmyer himself will realize this is the position where he should be batting regularly.
After Pooran departed from the Guyana Amazon Warriors last year, Hetmyer was appointed his successor as captain, and he promoted himself to #4 thrice.
And in one of those instances, he led from the front and played a blazing cameo of 46 runs off 21 deliveries striking at 219.04, including 4 sixes and a four, eventually their top-scorer that match and helped them post a target of 163.
Hetmyer would float himself to #4 only once more after that, otherwise utilizing himself as how all the other teams he plays for do: pigeonholed as a finishing option.
The 46 would also ultimately be his season-highest score, which particularly ahead of a home T20 World Cup to be played on these very surfaces next year, should have the bells ringing even louder as to the middle order really being home to Hetmyer like Emerald City is to Doherty; irreplaceable.
With the Amazon Warriors also having Dwaine Pretorius, Keemo Paul, Odean Smith, and Romario Shepherd as finishing options at their disposal this season, it becomes even more pertinent that Hetmyer recognizes he must float himself to #3/#4.
And with next year’s T20 World Cup dawning closer and closer, to best mitigate their chances of yet another humiliation, and that too in front of a home crowd, given the regularity at which the Windies’ batting lineup collapses like a house of cards, it is just as pertinent for coach Sammy and the management to take this call, which can be made significantly easier by not playing an all-opener top 3 and Rovman Powell not sending himself before Hetmyer.
Evidently in his prime currently, Hetmyer continues to show elite consistency in whatever role he is given and the situation he comes in to bat post-pandemic, and with the modern-day T20 format being all about maximizing your resources, how Hetmyer is utilized nine times out of ten is anything but that.
In spite of getting the big bucks these days, it’s like he's a debutant being pushed down the order (think of Virat Kohli making his T20I debut at #5, Rohit Sharma at #7 and Steve Smith all the way at #8), but 7 years later, given this context, Hetmyer is still being treated like a debutant, in that from the perspective of most T20 franchises he plays for, he must not bat higher than #6/#7.
If there's one flight Shimron Hetmyer must book and not miss, it'd be the flight to play at #3/#4 for the West Indies and the next T20 team he plays for, for which he should book first-class tickets, as this is the biggest boulder that stands between him and achieving further greatness in T20 cricket.