Nightwatchman (cricket) Nightwatchman (cricket) In the sport of cricket, a nightwatchman is a lower-order batsman who comes in to bat higher up the order than usual near the end of the day's play. The nightwatchman's job is to maintain most of the strike until the close of play (remaining in overnight, hence the name) and so protect other, more capable batsmen from being out cheaply in what may be a period of tiredness or in poor light at the end of the day, and then again the following morning when the batsmen have not yet ‘got their eye in', or when the
Nightwatchman (cricket) batsmen, and Cricinfo considers them to have been nightwatchmen. Alex Tudor (England) was close to making a century as a nightwatchman; he made 99 not out against New Zealand in 1999 at Edgbaston, and was stranded one run short of a maiden test century when Graham Thorpe got the total to the point where Tudor would’ve needed a six to reach a century. Tudor then hit the winning runs with a four, leaving him on 99*. Also close was Harold Larwood. In the final Test of the 1932–33 Ashes, Larwood made 98 as a nightwatchman, the highest innings made in