Hands vs Eyes

[Гурин]

Something that's made me think has been the reason why a player bats RH or LH.

When I started playing cricket, being a natural right arm player I was made to bat right handed - and couldn't put bat on ball even if my life was on the line, highest score in two years been a 5 (when a nick went all the way for four). One of the reasons was surely that at the time I didn't had footwork nor a backlift, but the truth was also that I had problems picking the ball early.

Since then, I switched to a left handed stance, honestly saying only to rob a measly few wides at the absymal level I played, but after a couple of innings when I feeled uneasy I started middling the ball a few times, because I was actually able to see it better, and getting going easily into double figures.

Now. We know that the top and the bottom hands are doing completely different but still important work on the bat on every different shot, so it's not really about which one is the natural leading hand. Just look at tennis, where a two-handed backhand is actually the equivalent of an opposite-hand cricketing shot, to see that it's not much of a problem. The late Peter Roebuck wrote about how he thought that natural lefties should bat right handed and vice-versa.

My experience however made me thinking. Wouldn't be better to have young players batting based on their dominant eye instead of their dominant hand? Technique could be teached, but how well does one see does not, and that's why in clay-pigeon shooting or in archery they force people to shoot with thier opposite hand if the dominant eye is not the same. A player could maybe have some natural talent so at the beginning one would not notice, but by the time he's in club/grade/regional cricket his improving might be hampered by always seeing the ball fractionally later, and then it would be too late to change his stance as a low-lever rank amateur like me could do.

[The Coach]

Needn't be so drastic.
If I have a r/h bat who is left eye dominant just get them to open the stance - slide left foot back towards square leg 2 or 3 inches.
This will enable the dominate right eye to track the ball even from right-arm round going down leg.
Simples.