aussie said:
interesting observation SJS, now i'm confused but look at it mate Tendulkar has close to perfect technique i have heard Richie Benaud say that so much its boring
, Lara technique is a bit flashy with the way he moves all over the crease but has i have said before:
``The thing with Lara is that he has never been a perfectionist of Technique but in cricket ``Batting Maestros has Lara never needed any great Technique``, Lara is all about great hand-eye co-ordination, utter brilliance, powerful, stamina, a huge appetite for runs & an the temperament for the big occassion.``. I just love this quote
Hi mate,
Ravings and rantings apart
First and foremost, both Lara and Tendulkar have excellent batting techniques. Being such gifted stroke players, they will always try to do something more, something innovtive, something beyond mere mortals to do. This does not necessarily mean bad technique.
When we discuss basic techniques of players we must keep this in mind and flaws or weaknesses in technique , if any, can be only seen in the context of the overall normal game and not what they may try to do for achieving specific goals in specific situations.
Secondly, each batsman has some relative strengths which he will try to make best use of and at times this may appear to be un orthodox and the puritanical may again call it lack of technique. Wrong again. In this second case comes something like a great gift of a quick judgement of length like The Don had.
I once asked my coach what exactly is a good length delivery. I was fifteen and was really wanting him to point out the area on the crease where the bal has to pitch for it to be classified as of good length and he gave me an answer which I havent forgotten til today. I am not quoting his name here since no one will know who he was. But cricketers from North India revered him in the sixties and seventies. He was as good a coach as one has seen in India ever. His name was not as glamourous as Sunil Manohar Gavaskar but he could teach Sunny a thing or two about what was wrong with Sunny's batting.
Anyway, he said, there is no such thing as a good length ball. Everyball can be played off either backfot or of the frontfoot and for runs if you can judge the length early enough. There is a length, which is very short and can be sen earlier and allows the batsman the luxury of deciding very quickly to go off the backfoot and hit it and there is the ball which is very full or a full toss, which too can be seen to be such as to cause no confusion in the batsman's mind and he decides to go forward and also what he wants to do with it in good time.
Then there is the ball which is of a length that the batsman is not able to decide quickly enough what to do with. This is what we call the good length and it varies from batsman to batsman. And since there isnt enough time to hit it for runs, the bats,man prefers to play it defensively, off the backfoot or off the front foot depending upon the strengths of the batsman in question.
Then there are batsmen like Bradman, who could see this length much earlier than most cricketers and being a strong backfoot player, he would go back and across and pull them for boundaries !!
Most people who saw Bradman do this in Australia said he would never be sucessful in England because he had a "faulty technique". They proclaimed from roof tops that a tour of England would show Bradman for being the inept batsman that he was. We all know what he did in 1930 in England. Before those who have learnt about technique from reading what others have writen about it, start their raving and ranting, let me add that we are not talking here of how god or bad a batsman Bradman was on wet wickets which is a different subject from what is being discussed.
So. The point is that a batsman puling a ball others would have to defend is not necessarily displaying a faulty technique. He is showing a physical attribute/gift, a strength and a skill which others dont necessarily posess. Bradmans technique of pulling could not be faulted because he played the shot absolutely to perfection - to the extent perfection can be achieved by humans.
Now. Coming back to Lara and Tendulkar. I dont know exactly what Benaud and others have said about them and in what context. With all humility I would like to submit that my knowledge of the game, its technique and its finer points does not depend on the next article I read.
Having said that both of these great batsman have excellent techniues, I am of the opinion that defects have cropped into Tendulkar's game which have become persistent enough to be termed as 'weaknesses in techniue'. I can discuss a couple of them which are prominent and for both of which Lara appears far better. Let me add before that , that being one of the greatest batsmen in the history of the game, these defects havent been disastrous and these weaknesses stand out in what are otherwise impeccable techniques.
I have mentioned earlier about Lara's footwork. Let me first state that the really great players stand out from the rest for the strength of their backfoot play. Both Lara and Tendulkar play very well off both feet but Tendulkar, for the last couple of years(probably more) has started not moving well enough when playing off the backfoot.
He first started by not moving fully back, even though he was moving across enough. This meant that for the really short pitched delivery he was okay with the transfer of weight onto the right foot and playing the forcing shots off the backfoot. But his backfoot drives with the straight bat became less frequent and most of his backfoot shots on the offside became his powerful square cuts. To drive off the backfoot with a straightbat, you ned more room , unless, of course the bal is very short, in which case a square cut is preferred unless the ball is uncomfortably close to the body.
I do not know if you can look back in your minds eye and recall Tendulkar being bowled off the backfoot and then bending down from the knees to give the impression as if the ball kept to low. In many of these case, the ball actually hit the top of the stumps and Tendulkar gets the feeling as if the ball kept low because he hasnt moved back enough.
Now it has become worse. He is not even moving across enough. This makes itself manifest in many ways and if one has not noticed any of the folowing, I would say, one is better of picking up those cards with fours and sixes written on them and swing them acros merily while swigging a beer
a) Very often now, Tendulkar is found chasing a wide off side short pitched ball moving away. He has not moved enough to weither connect the ball or to see that he needs to leave it alone. huis is not just when he is going hel and leather after the bowlers but even in his more sedate moods.
b) Very often now, Tendulkar gets bowled off the inside edge when playing off the backfoot to a bal wide of the off stump. This problem exists with Dravid also. When a batsman does not move across and behiind the ball and wants to drive it of the backfoot (drive mind you not cut) and the ball is moving away, the bat tends to follow the movement of the ball. In otherwords, the bat is in the right place but the feet are not. However often in such a case, the bats angle does not remais perpendicular or 90 degrees with the ground. The toe of the bat moves further away while the top stays closer to the body being held by the hands. This often results in not being able to offer the full face of the bat and geting an inside edge.
Now look at Lara. There is no one in world cricket with a better idea of where his stumps are when playing off the backfoot than Lara. And this is because he moves so decisively back and across. Lara repeatedly leaves deliveries going over his stumps. These are not errors of judgement but the superb judgement of a man who has gone back enough to have sen the ball travel suficient distance and gain sufficient height for him to decide this is going over.
Also, Lara will repeatedly go back and across, outside the off stump to deliveries pitched wide of the stumps, BUT OVERPITCHED, and drive these balls off the half voley off the backfot to cover and extra cover. These are beautiful strokes played by very few batsmen with regularity. But you cant do it without moving back and across. This can be done profitably and without risk to deliveries bowled outside the off stump and moving further away and the risk is mionimal as long as you are right behind the line of the bal because you can see it coming right onto the bat.
This is a shot which when you play it correctly appears so easy to the batsman, far easier than driving a half voley of the front foot because you lose sight of the bal momentarily when driving off the frontfoot. BUT it is easy ONLY if you have great movement of the feet, right back and right across.
We can discuss more on technique but it will cost you money.
Excuse the many typos which must be in this very long post but I dont fel like going back and correcting please.
