Batsmen that have a good eye but not a good technique

[silentstriker]

To actual coaches: how important do you rate the stillness of the head? All of the good players, regardless of their MCC style technique, seem to have that one thing in common. People were amused when Tendulkar said the player that was most like him in the Indian team was Sehwag, but he was referring to the head position, which Tendulkar rates as the biggest and most important part of his technique.

 

[Burgey]

To actual coaches: how important do you rate the stillness of the head? All of the good players, regardless of their MCC style technique, seem to have that one thing in common. People were amused when Tendulkar said the player that was most like him in the Indian team was Sehwag, but he was referring to the head position, which Tendulkar rates as the biggest and most important part of his technique.

I think it's very important really, as stillness of the head implies (not conclusively means) you're pretty well balanced. Certainly from my own batting, if my head's not kept still I find myself falling over to the off side a bit, making me more prone to an lbw or flicking one in the air on the leg side.

Then again, that's probably just because I'm not very good .

 

[aussie]

Bradman wasn't textbook, didn't stop him scoring mountains of runs.

Based on what i've read of the done he was textbook, his technical woes when playing on sticky wickets though - generally he was very textbook i think. SJS to confirm..

I once saw on a video Bradman say that Tendulkar reminded him of himself technically.

"Technique" is over-rated. What matters is output.

It depends on the standard bowling & difficulty of pitches that the batsman would have to encounter. When we look at the just concluded FTB 2000s era, you dont/didn't need much of technique as an opener or middle-order to have a excellent output as a batsman.

While in past difficult batting eras the batsman with the least technical flaws had more success/output, than batsmen with more technical flaws.

 

[S.P. Fleming]

David Hussey

 

[Goughy]

Based on what i've read of the done he was textbook, his technical woes when playing on sticky wickets though - generally he was very textbook i think. SJS to confirm..

Not at all. He had a unique grip, a non-typical backlift and played the balls in different areas to others.

Not textbook at all.

The question has always been, if Bradman was so different then why dont we coach Bradmans technique? The usually answer is maybe you need to be as good as Bradman to make it work.

 

[Furball]

Based on what i've read of the done he was textbook, his technical woes when playing on sticky wickets though - generally he was very textbook i think. SJS to confirm..

No.

Cricket Web - Features: Bradman to Sehwag : Redefining Great Batsmanship by Defying Tradition (Part 1)

 

[aussie]

Good good..

 

[Goughy]

Technique is like grammar and vocab. You need it to make yourself understood but too much an it starts to get in the way of way is being said and makes it hard to be clearly understood.

Talent, ability and co-ords can be the content of what is being said. Ie how interesting, unique etc what is being said.

No point being grammatially perfect and have an expansive vocab if you have nothing to say and no point being interesting and insightful if noone can understand you.

It is a balance and each audience (read pitch/track) is suited to a different style. Some audiences favor a more relaxed apporach (eg Gayle averaging over 70 on flat tracks) and some require indepth knowledge and detail rather than being exciting.

Feel free to disagree. Just thought of this off the top of my head and not thought it through.

 

[Uppercut]

Technique is a tool for maximising your natural ability, and since everyone has different natural abilities, everyone has a different optimum technique.

A good technique is whatever works.

 

[Goughy]

A good technique is whatever works.

Ah, but could it work better?

 

[OnDrive]

Agree about Gayle having decent technique but not Sehwag. Players like Sehwag and Dilshan purely rely on exceptional hand eye coordination. If you notice their feet, they hardly ever move much.

These days technique doesn't count for much anyway possibly due to the excess of short formats. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether you're successful or not.

Movement is feet is just one of the aspects of 'technique'. The position and steadiness of the batsman's head, how his shoulders open, weight distribution and balance et al are also significant, and Sehwag comes off as adequate.

 

[SJS]

Bradman wasn't textbook, didn't stop him scoring mountains of runs.

"Technique" is over-rated. What matters is output.

This is a misnomer. Bradman had a bloody good technique, better than ninety percent of the batsmen in world cricket today. It wasn't "text book" in a couple of respects which has been true for many players over the entire history of the game.

BTW, who do you think has a better technique India's Sehwag or England's Cook ?

 

[Debris]

This is a misnomer. Bradman had a bloody good technique, better than ninety percent of the batsmen in world cricket today. It wasn't "text book" in a couple of respects which has been true for many players over the entire history of the game.

BTW, who do you think has a better technique India's Sehwag or England's Cook ?

Exactly. The modern player who most reminded Bradman and others of himself was Tendulkar so unless you think Tendulkar's technique is poor...

 

[SJS]

This is a misnomer. Bradman had a bloody good technique, better than ninety percent of the batsmen in world cricket today. It wasn't "text book" in a couple of respects which has been true for many players over the entire history of the game.

BTW, who do you think has a better technique India's Sehwag or England's Cook ?

Before anyone starts an argument on this let me furnish evidence. Here are a series of photographs from actual film that was shot of Bradman demonstrating different strokes in the nets. There is also, at leat one film series from a match situation. Look at these and then see if you can count the number of batsman in world cricket today with a better technique.

BACKFOOT DEFENSE​

LATE CUT

BACK CUT

SQUARE CUT

SQUARE CUT OFF FRONT FOOT

SQUARE CUTS LEG SPINNER IN MATCH

PULLING BALL OUTSIDE LEG STUMP

PULLS BALL ON THE STUMPS

HOOK

DRIVES OFF THE BACKFOOT STRAIGHT

 

[SJS]

And now off the front foot

DEFENSE

COVER DRIVE

OFF DRIVE

STRAIGHT DRIVE

ON DRIVE

JUMPING OUT TO DRIVE

FRONT FOOT LEG GLANCE

BACKFOOT LEG GLANCE

SWEEP

What's wrong with his technique ??

 

[Prince EWS]

Exactly - someone define "good technique" for me, please

Well for me, technique is what's left when you take out everything natural or temperamental. Standardise every batsman's power, eye, judgement, temperament, shot selection, reaction time, natural timing and strength and what you'll have left is a batsman's technique. Essentially that'd be transfer of weight, general body position, the angle of the bat for each stroke and the general execution of it. "Reflexes" as a whole are a bit tricky because I think the time it takes for them to kick in is separate to one's technique but what the reflexes actually are define it almost completely.

This is why I disagree with those who assert that any good batsman has a good technique. It's quite feasible to suggest that technique is the weak part of a particular batsman's game and that the other factors of his game make up for it. Some of the aspects I mentioned before overlap a bit but it's easy to see that technique is just one part of many when it comes to batting - there's no more reason to suggest that a better batsman automatically has a better technique than a worse one than there is to suggest that a better batsman automatically has more power than a worse one - they're both parts of batting that add together with all the other parts to form the whole.

I think Paul Collingwood and Chris Gayle are great examples of batsmen who succeed despite their technique and not because of them. I have little doubt in my mind that they'd both be more successful if they had better techniques and the fact that they both have very good eyes, good judgement, power, mental strength etc allows them to overcome their technical flaws. Sehwag's been mentioned and he's tricky. While I'm tempted to agree with those who have suggested he does not have a particularly good technique - if you gave him all of Daren Ganga's non-technical abilities I believe he'd be a significantly worse batsman than him - I'd probably have to lean towards the side of his technique being good, for him at least. While his technique is not textbook, it's probably more suited to his non-technical abilities than Dravid's technique would be, for example. This is in contrast to Gayle for example who I genuinely believe would be much more effective if he batted completely differently.

This stuff is all personal opinion though, of course.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Are you serious about that Goughy, because I'm interested in this? I'm coaching under 10s and I'm trying as hard as I can to teach the kids a decent technique built around forward and back defence. Do you think I ought to be letting them have a go more? It's not that I'm a technique Nazi, and every kid's different of course, but I've been working on them getting the basics right so far.

Learning to defend first often leads to the backlift being typically shortened
If kids learn to defend first then they pass on a lot of scoring oportunities.
It leads to a more open mind
It allows kids to see the positive results of their efforts
It takes the emphasis off failure (getting out) and places it on success (scoring runs).

To actual coaches: how important do you rate the stillness of the head? All of the good players, regardless of their MCC style technique, seem to have that one thing in common. People were amused when Tendulkar said the player that was most like him in the Indian team was Sehwag, but he was referring to the head position, which Tendulkar rates as the biggest and most important part of his technique.

I'm enjoying the way this thread is going. I had been tempted to start one along these lines on the coaches' forum but it wouldn't likely have got anything like as much attention. As I've mentioned in other threads, I've been working with the County U10 squad for a couple of years now, and it's a great experience from a personal perspective as it challenges your understanding as to what works and what doesn't at a really fundamental level: you cannot over complicate things because you lose the players.

My focus over the last week or so (and, if I'm honest, my focus over the rest of the winter) will be on the effectiveness of the kids' batting. We (as a County) have lost far, far too many matches through falling in a heap for me to ignore this any longer: particularly as so many of the dismissals are bowled. My current modus operandi is to centre everything I say around the ideas of straight lines and balance - "getting your whole body working together". This goes right back to the stance and set up - still head (must have said this 40 times over the weekend), level eyes, looking down the wicket, grip such that both hands can create a straight bat path unaided, and then the first shots practised being the straight/off drives - head and shoulder dip, striding forwards, full swing of the bat.

The next step is to approach this in many, many different ways so that their brains are trained to get the weight transfer coming forward - drills without the bat, without the ball, from the top of the backswing, overload hitting, reaction drills, so batsmen get everything working together, and hence in balance. I try to combine attacking & defensive play by suggesting they start off simply ensuring they hit it, then once they're comfortable, encouraging them to hit it hard: and when they do this, to do as hard as they can (it won't go up if they're balanced).

The subsequent stages are those which I'm less sure about. The front foot pull seems, to be the logical progression of this to give a leg side scoring option as it can be described as both a modification of the straight hit (weight still forward) and a halfway house to the sweep shot. I suppose this only really leaves the cut as a missing scoring area, and this can again be 'tacked on' to an initial forward movement as long as the front foot isn't rigidily planted: once more it's all about weight transference.

 

[Uppercut]

Ah, but could it work better?

That's the key question. We don't really know until they change it. Kevin Pietersen reigning himself in appeared to affect his game adversely- particularly in ODIs- he seemed to lack the ability to concentrate for long periods required for orthodox shot selection. On the other hand, Chris Gayle improved after making similar changes.

I do think most international batsmen are close to maximising their ability with the technique that they use though. At schoolboy level they'll try a lot of new things and changes to their game, but by the time they're playing for their country, more often than not they've figured their game out. I always find it strange when someone like Jonathan Trott comes onto the scene and everyone says he should change his technique because he's too open to lbws- fact is, as soon as someone makes that movement across the stumps the opposition attack immediately bowl straight, and Trott's been successfully taking attacks apart at every level he's ever played. The guy knows his game better than some spectators do after watching him for one over.

If you've read Ed Smith's On and Off the Field, he talks about how he got out lbw twice in five innings for England- one of which was a shocker- and in his first game back in county cricket the opposition were shouting, "let's hit those massive pads!" at him. He just thought, what's going on? That's been my best scoring area ever since I was about ten and after two lbw decisions everyone thinks I'm hopeless there? He promptly scored a double century.

I've gone off on a bit of a rant here, but the point is that technique can't really be judged from the outside. In coaching it's good to explore different methods and help a player find their game, but by the time a player reaches international level he usually knows what works best for him. I think it's very rare that you can reasonably say just from watching him bat on TV that a particular batsman should play with a different technique.

 

[Jono]

To actual coaches: how important do you rate the stillness of the head? All of the good players, regardless of their MCC style technique, seem to have that one thing in common. People were amused when Tendulkar said the player that was most like him in the Indian team was Sehwag, but he was referring to the head position, which Tendulkar rates as the biggest and most important part of his technique.

Does anyone remember in 2002 when Sehwag was called the Tendulkar clone?

They used to have split screens of them and they had similar leg glances. Can't remember what else is similar it was so long ago.

**** me have things changed.

 

[Uppercut]

I think Paul Collingwood and Chris Gayle are great examples of batsmen who succeed despite their technique and not because of them. I have little doubt in my mind that they'd both be more successful if they had better techniques and the fact that they both have very good eyes, good judgement, power, mental strength etc allows them to overcome their technical flaws. Sehwag's been mentioned and he's tricky. While I'm tempted to agree with those who have suggested he does not have a particularly good technique - if you gave him all of Daren Ganga's non-technical abilities I believe he'd be a significantly worse batsman than him - I'd probably have to lean towards the side of his technique being good, for him at least. While his technique is not textbook, it's probably more suited to his non-technical abilities than Dravid's technique would be, for example. This is in contrast to Gayle for example who I genuinely believe would be much more effective if he batted completely differently.

This stuff is all personal opinion though, of course.

I don't really know how you can tell. Gayle looks and acts like batting has always come naturally to him and he's never done a day's work in his life, but is this really the case? I think it's quite likely that Gayle has, at some stage, attempted to adapt a more orthodox technique and it hasn't worked for him. If he was English he would have been forced to (and probably grown disillusioned with cricket as a result) because getting out to an attacking stroke is much worse than getting out to a defensive one over here. Surely at some stage, some coach somewhere will have tried to get him playing the MCC way?

Collingwood's an interesting one. It's the subject of endless scrutiny from Nasser Hussain that in one innings he'll be playing straight and scoring runs but in the next he'll be closing the bat face every shot he plays with his bottom hand taking over. I don't know whether it's mental, whether he hasn't worked on his technique hard enough, whether he should completely overhaul his method of batting... I don't think I'm positioned to comment on that.