SportsCenter India's Achint Gupta finds out why conventional batting is better than pinch-hitting even in Twenty20 cricket.

Praveen Kumar like most of the other sturdy fast-bowlers is a massive hitter of the cricket ball. His application may not excite the captain's confidence but his ability to hit boundaries does tempt a captain to promote him in the batting order.

Perhaps, it was his 98 studded with 3 sixes and eight boundaries against Railways in the Ranji Championship this season made people believe in his batting prowess. So when Bangalore Royal Challengers (BRC) captain Kevin Pietersen promoted him to open it was not a surprising decision. But Praveen failed miserably and got out bowled on a half-volley for a duck. The age-old experiment of using a pinch-hitter again fell flat on its face.

"The BRC think-tank would have thought that Praveen's effectiveness in the later half of the innings would be reduced as there won't be any powerplay, so they asked him to open. But clearly he wasn't up to the mark and his failure showed that there isn't much scope for a pinch-hitter in Twenty20 games," says former India coach Lal Chand Rajput, who led India to the Twenty20 World Cup win.

Like fashion, trends in cricket also come back in cycles, and like fashion again if an experiment lacks common sense it fails. Javagal Srinath used the long handle at number nine to good effect but when he was promoted at three he could never get going except for an occasional fifty.

Same was the case with South Africa's Pat Symcox. Anshuman Gaekwad, who was India coach when Srinath was promoted tells us how the experiment was done. "We wanted Srinath to bat up the order because he could hit big shots and could disturb the strategies of the opposition. It comes off at times and it doesn't come off, but the key thing is the selection of the pinch-hitter. He should have a normal ball sense."

Bangalore Royal Challengers have a strong batting line-up and Praveen's promotion meant that the previous match's top-scorer Rahul Dravid came at six when the match had already slipped off.

Perhaps, in a Twenty20 game where there is not much time to come back after a setback it would be a better idea to trust the conventional batsmen to score rather than a pinch-hitter.

For more on pinch hitters, watch India Cricket Weekly this Saturday at 7.00 PM IST only on STAR Cricket