one shot, one player

[hang on]

nope, not something out of the red book for when they've contrived to lose from ridiculously strong positions.

it's about the main batting strokes, and the men who play them best:

forward defense
backfoot defense
cut
latecut
squarecut
uppercut
squaredrive
coverdrive (front foot)
coverdrive (back foot)
u get the jist......

feel free to choose whichever shots u prefer, but remember that u can only pick one name per shot. and u need to have seen the batsman.

[Spark]

One of them is easy.

[hang on]

to get things rolling....

straight drive - gavaskar
hook - richards
on drive - chappell
backfoot coverdrive - tendulkar
cover drive - martyn
square drive to the spinners - lara
uppercut - tendulkar
lofted flick - richards
all shots with little foot movement - sobers (mostly seen on tape, not live)

more to follow...

[Spark]

Late cut would have surely have to be Martyn.
Cover drive is stupidly hard. Do I go for technical perfection, or aesthetic quality?

[hang on]

that is upto u, spark.

or u could break it up into backfoot, frontfoot, off a spinner, off a fastbowler, even left handed, right handed.

[vcs]

Straight drive and little flick off the pads (to fast bowlers) - Tendulkar
Pull - Ponting
Ondrive (and general flicks to the legside) against spinners - VVS Laxman
Backfoot defense - Dravid
Frontfoot defense - Kallis
Coverdrive - Kallis/Sangakkara
Square cut - Steve Waugh
Lofted shots down the ground to spinners - Brian Lara

[Spark]

Well, off the fast bowlers is what I meant.

Technical perfection is Tendulkar without a doubt. Balance, timing and the rest. Aesthetic quality - Clarke. 09 Ashes.
Tendulkar also claims the on-drive and leg-glance too, through timing.

EDIT: This obviously is only who I've seen, which doesn't include for obvious reasons the greats of the early 90s and 80s.

[hang on]

off the top of my head, the great cover drivers (front foot) i have seen are:

richards
kallis
gavaskar
martyn
laxman
tendulkar
vaughan
abbas
hussey
jayawardene
sangakkara

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by vcs

Straight drive and little flick off the pads (to fast bowlers) - Tendulkar
Pull - Ponting
Ondrive (and general flicks to the legside) against spinners - VVS Laxman
Backfoot defense - Dravid
Frontfoot defense - Kallis
Coverdrive - Kallis/Sangakkara
Square cut - Steve Waugh
Lofted shots down the ground to spinners - Brian Lara

Steve Waugh's more a back foot drive IMO. /hairsplitting.

Mark Waugh's clip off the pads was a thing of beauty too.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by hang on

off the top of my head, the great cover drivers (front foot) i have seen are:

richards
kallis
gavaskar
martyn
laxman
tendulkar
vaughan
abbas
hussey
jayawardene
sangakkara

Greg Chappell too.

Edit: good thread btw.

[Spark]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Steve Waugh's more a back foot drive IMO. /hairsplitting.

Mark Waugh's clip off the pads was a thing of beauty too.

Good shout, forgotten about him somehow.

Front foot square drive on the up - Ponting. In fact most drives on the up - Ponting. Between that and his pull shot, he was a true joy to watch.

[vcs]

Laxman doesn't have a great front foot cover-drive against pace bowlers, he's a bit slow to get forward.

Vaughan is a great shout, very good batsman to watch from an aesthetic and technical point of view.

[hang on]

chappell's on drives were his speciality, burgey. the best ondriver i have ever seen.

[Spark]

Originally Posted by vcs

Laxman doesn't have a great front foot cover-drive against pace bowlers, he's a bit slow to get forward.

Vaughan is a great shout, very good batsman to watch from an aesthetic and technical point of view.

Stunning player to watch in the 02/03 Ashes. Thought he would be destined for much bigger and better things (and he was, just not in the way I thought )

[hang on]

02 - 03 ashes.

can't help myself! sorry.