Why players are ill equipped to play short bowling these days

Ian Chappell in Cricinfo

Following the tragically unlucky death of Phillip Hughes when he was struck by a short-pitched delivery, Cricket Australia conducted a review into safety in the game.

At the time I asked CA's CEO, James Sutherland, if that review included batting technique. He was unsure but eventually the answer came back that the review didn't include technique.

The ignorance of that decision is now being exposed as batsmen are regularly being hit in the helmet in all forms of the game.

As a result of the review, the knowledge about the damage done to the brain by blows to the head has greatly increased and sensible concussion rules have been put in place. The concussion rules are non-negotiable, and if a batsman is unable to pass the on-field test, he can take no further part in the match.

This is even more reason why batting technique in respect to short-pitched deliveries should be given far greater importance. With just a few runs required for victory in a Test but only one wicket in hand, a game can be lost if a batsman is felled by a bouncer.

The main reason for more batsmen being hit by short-pitched bowling is the advent of helmets and protective equipment, and the increased amount of T20 cricket, which has led to a drastic change in batting technique.

Before helmets, batting technique was more inclined to the back foot, succinctly summed up by former Australia batsman Stan McCabe's edict: "Drive or play back." Now there's an increasing tendency to charge onto the front foot, emboldened by the impression that the chances of injury are severely reduced than in days past. This change in attitude makes it harder to evade short-pitched deliveries, and this is exacerbated if the batsman takes his eyes off the ball.

When talking to young players about playing short-pitched deliveries, I emphasise that it's better to ensure the ball misses the target rather than relying on chance.

If a batsman is in position to move onto the back foot once he senses a short-pitched delivery, he can make sure his head is inside the line of the delivery, thereby ensuring that even if he misses an attempted hook shot, the ball passes by harmlessly. Once a player's head is inside the line of the ball he is far more likely to watch the delivery closely because he knows he has reduced the danger. 

Conversely, if a batsman is trying to hook a ball that is unerringly on a line for his head, he is almost certain to avert his eyes. This is when trouble occurs and it's more likely to happen when the player has prematurely charged onto the front foot. Once the weight is planted firmly on the front foot, it's virtually impossible to get the head inside the line of the ball unless the original path of the delivery placed the head inside the line.

There are players who have no intention of hooking but duck immediately on seeing a short-pitched delivery, and in doing so, take their eyes off the ball. This is inviting trouble, especially if the ball doesn't bounce as high as expected.

Before helmets, fewer players were hit in the head, because they had an interest in avoiding contact: it was going to hurt. Therefore they tended to watch the ball closely to make sure they didn't get hit.

Players who play the hook are rarely hit because it's a difficult shot to play and requires the player to watch the ball closely. The biggest danger for a player who hooks is of a top edge deflecting the ball onto the head.

With the increased emphasis on fast scoring in the modern game, there's a tendency to encourage young players to practise fancy shots like reverse sweeps and scoops. My advice would be to learn the traditional shots first, and, as it could cause injury and the possible loss of a match, ensure you know how to deal with the short-pitched delivery before attempting to practice any fancy shots.

Rahul Dravid and Sanjay Manjrekar on Batting

S Dinakar in The Hindu

Rahul Dravid.


Batting legend Rahul Dravid shared his thoughts on India’s troubles with spin and the dynamics of technique in an exclusive conversation with The Hindu.

Here is the first part of excerpts from the interview.



Q. Indian batting has become increasingly vulnerable to spinners over the last few years.

Playing spin was one of our big strengths. What can happen is that when you are with an international team you are not getting to play a lot of spin bowling in matches. Perhaps the pitches in India have changed.



Q. Does it boil down to the use of feet?

Good footwork certainly helps, but different players can play spin differently. Even in the team that I played, Laxman for example, would use his feet, but not that much. He had great reach and used the depth of the crease well. He didn’t have a sweep shot, but had a great on-drive.

Sehwag used his feet against spin a lot more than some of us.

Ganguly stepped down to the left-arm spinner whenever he could.

It always helps to have a sweep shot.



Q. The present day batsmen are playing too many shots too early against spin?

You need to be a bit more patient against spin. People now want to dominate the spinner from the beginning.

Sometimes we need to give the ball the respect it deserves.



Q. Batsmen rarely come across worthy spinners in domestic cricket these days.

You still have the odd good spinner in domestic cricket, but the numbers have dipped. The top four spinners are good but we had a lot more spinners in the domestic scene then.

Maybe, domestically, our batsmen are not getting exposed to quality spin bowling. Wickets have improved in India too. I have played on some absolute turners.



Q. International line-ups have become increasingly vulnerable on pitches doing a bit.

You are seeing a lot of results in Tests. People are playing more aggressively.

The flip side of that is, sometimes, on tricky wickets where there is seam and swing or turn, you get found out.

Generally, very rarely do you get seaming or turning wickets in international cricket these days. Most wickets are flat.

If you see a difficult wicket, you should have a certain level of personal pride to perform. If you have that you will practice for it.

To succeed in any form of the game, your game has to be built around your defence. It then expands from there.



Q. Do you believe the cash-rich T20 format has taken the cricketers’ focus away from Tests?

To be a successful Test cricketer was our primary focus then. Now you can easily make a living without being a Test cricketer. Maybe the incentive is not there anymore.

Then it boils down to personal pride, getting satisfaction in succeeding in all and the most difficult of conditions.



Q. What, in your mind, is good footwork?

Good footwork is being able to pick the length of the ball early, get to it as quickly as possible and get yourself into a good position. Good footwork is really about using the depth of the crease when you need to go back, and getting a good stride forward when you need to go forward.

You need to ensure that you are not stuck in the crease.



Q. As we saw with the Aussies in England recently, batsmen are increasingly vulnerable on or outside the off-stump.

The key is being balanced and knowing your head position. You need to be going towards the ball than across the wicket. The body weight is going down the wicket than across the wicket.

Once your head starts falling over and goes across the wicket, you lose [sense of] where your off-stump is. Your head has to be in the right position to know where your off-stump is.



Q. Sunil Gavaskar recently spoke about the alignment of right eye with the off-stump.

I thought that was a brilliant technical suggestion. If you are balanced, with your right eye guiding where your off-stump is, then there is a good chance that you go down the wicket, the weight is going towards the ball, and your head is still and in a good position. Anything outside the right eye-line you could leave.

But if you are going across the stumps, your right eye actually loses where your off-stump is. And you end up playing balls that are wide outside the off-stump.



Q. Do you believe the wide and excessive back-lifts are an issue too?

Typically, you want the bat to come from second slip, swing around and come down straight.

Hashim Amla picks up his bat, almost towards gully, but when it comes down it does so really straight. That’s what really matters.

The ideal way to pick it up will be between first and second slip. But there are cases of people who pick it up slightly wider but are able to align it straight.

I used to pick it up a lot wider than first or second slip, but generally I was able to get into good positions to bring the willow straighter.

When I was not playing well, that was an area that bothered me. If I wasn’t able to get the timing right of bringing the bat down, then balls, especially those coming back in, got me bowled or lbw, which happened towards the end of my career.

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Sanjay Manjrekar on Playing Spin (from Cricinfo)



I think batsmen around the world are not playing spin too well these days.

We have seen it in the Ashes, seen Sri Lankan batsmen struggle against the legspin of Yasir Shah, and now India disintegrate against Rangana Herath to lose a Test match that was firmly in their grasp. All this is suggestive of the fact that international batsmen are not playing spin too well at the moment.

The focus is so much on playing pace and seam well that it seems there is no headspace left for them to try to be adept at spin too. Before India went to England last summer, how many of their batsmen tried to hone their skills against offspin? I am sure James Anderson and Stuart Broad would have been on their minds, not Moeen Ali. No wonder Moeen ended up getting 19 wickets in that series.

Historically, Indian batsmen have tended to take spin lightly. You just have to watch them bat in the nets - they bat with caution and respect against fast bowlers, but when they see a spinner come in to bowl they dance down the pitch to hit the ball for a six. They are not fussed if they miss a few; they basically look to have fun against the spinners before they put their heads down and get serious against the fast bowlers.

Then, in a tense match situation, when the ball is turning square and the batsman sees four fielders around the bat, dancing down the pitch and hitting the ball into the stands is not an option any more, but they do not know what to do instead. Now the batsman has to do something he has never done before: try and defend the spinner from the crease and make sure the ball rolls safely along the ground off the defensive bat, away from the close-in catchers.

This is a highly specialised skill, to defend confidently against the spinning ball, using only the bat, with catchers hovering four feet away. (With the DRS and umpires willing to give batsmen out lbw on the front foot, thrusting the pad at the ball is not an option any more, as it used to be in my time.)

It is a skill no one practises enough these days, and that is why you see a Rohit Sharma in defence planting his front foot on leg stump, to a turning ball from Herath that has pitched on middle and off stump.

The other critical defensive technique that has practically vanished from the game is a batsman trying to play a good-length ball and then letting it go at the very last minute, when he realises it has changed direction and is not going to hit the stumps any more. It's amazing to see how many batsmen get out - to seamers and spinners alike - while playing defensive shots to balls that are going to miss the stumps.

Mind you, in my time too, spinners were treated no differently in the nets. The advantage we had, though, was that we still played a decent amount of domestic first-class cricket as international players, so our skills against spin had not become dormant. But I remember, every time I came home to domestic cricket after travelling the world playing international cricket, it took some time getting used to playing spin well again.

In the first innings in Galle it was evident that the Indian batsmen were treating the Sri Lankan spinners with respect - they did not want to make the same mistakes they made against Moeen. But their defensive game against spinners is far from perfect.



VVS Laxman set a worthy example of how to play on a pitch that takes turn: by scoring more off the back foot than off the front © Getty Images

Every time an Indian batsman decides to get on to the front foot to defend against spin, I cringe. They leave far too much distance between the bat and the spot where the ball has pitched. This is a recipe for disaster on a turning pitch. By leaving this space between the bat and the spot where the ball has pitched, you are allowing the ball to spin and bounce or straighten. You are giving the ball the space to behave mischievously. This is how Ajinkya Rahane got out in the first innings and Virat Kohli in the second - two big wickets.

The golden rule of playing spin is judging the length early, and then, when choosing to play on the front foot, getting right on top of the ball to smother its spin and whatever venom it carries.

If you think you can't reach the pitch of the ball with the front foot, go right back in the crease and watch the ball closely off the pitch. In fact, on turning pitches you should look to score more off the back foot than off the front, just as VVS Laxman used to do. When you are on the back foot, because the ball is turning so much, you get the width to play the cut and the pull or play it away for a single safely. Catchers around the bat are placed there mostly for errors arising out of front-foot defensive shots.

With all good intentions, domestic pitches have changed in India. There is more grass on the pitches now, and spinners don't rule the roost any more. The flip side is, this means less good practice against spin for Indian domestic batsmen. KL Rahul, very much a recent product of Indian domestic cricket, looked far more assured against pace than he did against spin in Galle. That is telling.

The fact is quite simple: your chances of surviving against spin increase if you practise for hours in the nets what you need to do in the match.

On Batting: Go forward, not back

Why an initial back-foot trigger movement may not be a great idea

Sanjay Manjrekar

December 18, 2013

 

Alastair Cook: too late into position in Perth © Getty Images

A fireman once said, "We are crazy guys, you know. When a house is on fire, people are running out and we are running in." A batsman has to do something similar when a bowler like Mitchell Johnson is steaming in, hurling thunderbolts at 150kph.

Like for the firemen, it is like an inferno approaching a batsman from 22 yards away, and like the fireman, the batsman has a job to do, and it does not include running away. Watching some of the England batsmen in this Ashes series, I have been reminded of this analogy.

When Johnson runs in to bowl, they take a significant step backwards in the crease before the ball is delivered. That is fine when the ball is short, but when it is full - and Johnson bowls a lot of those along with bouncers - they become extremely vulnerable, as we have seen.

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Also Read - Martin Crowe on Gavaskar's technique

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Look at Alastair Cook's dismissal in the first innings in Adelaide and in the second in Perth. Both times, the ball was pitched up, but he was just too late to get into position to defend it solidly, which would not have been the case if they were short deliveries. We talk about how great those deliveries from Johnson and Ryan Harris were, and they were good, especially the Harris one in the second innings in Perth, but if Cook had got forward to them quicker, they would have been just two other pitched-up balls that a batsman defended safely.

I am not a big fan of the big back-foot movement - the one batsmen make with their feet before the ball is delivered - unless it's made in order to propel another movement forward. Both the England openers have that initial back-foot movement and only when are set do they use it to spring forward - until then, they seem to hang back a bit and so become vulnerable to balls pitched up, and miss a few scoring opportunities to balls pitched up.

	A short, quick delivery is best handled by a batsman when he is reacting instinctively to it - whether he is playing an attacking shot or defending

With a big initial back-foot movement, you are committing yourself completely to a delivery of a particular length, short. So when the ball is short you seem to have plenty of time to play it, but when it is full you are invariably late on it, and if your luck as a batsman has run out, as Cook found out, that full, seaming ball will come early in the innings, hit the right spot and get through your defence.

As a batsman you ideally want the smallest trigger movement, so that you are prepared for all kinds of lengths and lines. In this Ashes, Michael Clarke, Steve Smith, Joe Root, and also Ben Stokes, have shown that kind of technique, with no pronounced prior commitment to any length. Because of that they have looked much better positioned to balls that are pitched up. Batsmen make the initial move in the crease because that way they feel they are setting themselves up for the challenge. Very often it's just a matter of "mental preparedness". Some do it to be in a good position to face a particular kind of delivery that they feel they are susceptible to.

My view is that if you have to move your feet before the ball is released, it's better to have a front-foot movement instead of a back-foot one: looking to move forward before the ball is bowled rather than back. That way, you are better prepared to handle the ball that gets most batsmen out in this game - the one that is full in length.

What about the short ball then, you ask? Doesn't the front-foot movement make you a sitting duck against it? Well, there you need to trust the instincts that we have all been gifted with as human beings, born of our evolution over millions of years and our survival instincts against physical threats. That short ball from a fast bowler is a physical threat to a batsman. Look at how batsmen react to a short ball from a spinner as opposed to one from a fast bowler.

	Batsmen like Hashim Amla have shown you can be extremely successful with big initial back-foot movements © AFP  Enlarge

As a batsman you will be amazed at how quickly you get on the back foot - though you are telling yourself to go forward - when the ball is short and quick. This back-foot movement happens automatically; it is a case of natural instinct taking over. My argument is, why deliberately try to do something that is going to happen automatically; instead, why not train yourself to do something that is against your instinct? Like getting forward to a fast bowler, because the ball that is pitched up is the one that's most likely to get you out.

The other great benefit in trying to get forward is, that way you also handle the short ball better. I believe that a short, quick delivery is best handled by a batsman when he is reacting instinctively to it - whether he is playing an attacking shot or defending.

During the course of my batting career I had two distinct phases, one when I handled the short ball well and the other when I didn't. It was quite obvious to me that when I was in good form and in a good frame of mind I would look to go towards the fast bowler, try to get on the front foot, and that was when I handled the short ball comfortably. When you are looking to get forward, the head tends to stay forward, and with it the body weight. That is the perfect kind of balance you want to have as a batsman, whether you are playing off front foot or back.

When you are out of form, with a big back-foot movement, the head tends to stay back that fraction of a second longer, and because you are expecting a short ball, the head also stays quite high, which means you are poorly prepared for the full delivery.

Having said all this, there are still many extremely successful contemporary batsmen, like Hashim Amla, Graeme Smith, and Cook himself, who have big back-foot movements. Their success can be attributed to all the other strengths they have brought into play to succeed, but you will see even they look vulnerable early in the innings to balls that are pitched up and seaming.

As a batsman you should have a technique you can fall back on when you are out of form and low on confidence. Your other strengths will have deserted you by then, and your technique will be the only thing you can count on. You need a technique that can get you back into form from a bad patch, and that's where I have a problem with the big back-foot trigger movement.

Switch is a hit

Mark Nicholas in Cricinfo

Pity the umpire in the split second before the switch hit. ICC's directive picks the moment that a bowler's back foot lands as the start of the delivery. From this point the batsman can do as he pleases with hands and feet but not before. Three times Kevin Pietersen made to switch and three times Tillakaratne Dilshan pulled away from releasing his offbreak. On the third occasion Asad Rauf warned Pietersen for time wasting. 

Incredible really. International teams bowl their overs at 13 an hour and no one blinks an eye while the most thrilling batsman makes to switch hit and finds himself on the wrong side of the law. Not Rauf's fault, he is the messenger and one with a lot on his plate. Rauf could not possibly have been sure of exactly the moment when Pietersen changed his stance because he was watching Dilshan's back foot. Er, or was he watching Dilshan's front foot, lest he no ball? Hmm, or was he watching the return crease, lest he no ball there? Or was he intent on the striker's end of the wicket, the business end, with the popping crease in his peripheral? Or was he briefly somewhere else? Long days out there in the Colombo sun.

David Warner's switch hit six over mid-off - or is it mid-on?- in a T20I against India earlier this year rang the bells once more. Now Pietersen has them clanging like Notre Dame. The switch hit is different from the reverse hit because the batsman swaps his hands on the bat and rotates his body 180 degrees, to become a left-hander in Pietersen's case. Generally, the stroke is a plus for a game that is not completely sure how to embrace the 21st century. When it is played successfully spectators, quite literally, gasp in wonder. They talk about it, most love it. We don't see it often because it is difficult, showy and takes big cojones. It's right up Pietersen's street, and Warner's. Less so say Andrew Strauss or Rahul Dravid. But they wouldn't want to stand in the way of progress.

There are two things to consider here. Cricket's lifeline is the balance between bat and ball. Given the bowler must commit to releasing the ball from one side of the wicket and with a part of his foot behind the popping crease, the batsman who is not so shackled must give something away if he wishes to change striking position. This should be leg stump.

As the law stands, a batsman should not be given out lbw if the ball pitches outside leg stump. A simple change to that law, effectively taking the leg-stump advantage away from the batsman would even it up. Thus, if you choose to switch hit you forego your leg stump and can be lbw if you are hit between wicket and wicket either way round.

The second thing is the ICC directive mentioned above. Once the bowler is at the point of delivery there is little he can do in response to the batsman's move. The directive should be that the batsman may do as he pleases from the start of the bowlers' approach to the crease. This way the bowler has a better chance to respond and should not feel that pulling way is his only defence. Were the lbw law changed, the bowler would have an aggressive option and may even see the batsman's change of stance as an opportunity to take his wicket.

From this more evenly balanced reaction to the switch hit would come the conclusion that it is the bowler who is timewasting by refusing to deliver. Not the batsman, who is bringing to the game his sense of imagination and adventure.