Dancing down the pitch

By Rajadhyax

There is probably nothing more spectacular and destructive in the batsman’s repertoire than dancing down the wicket and lifting a bowler – usually a spinner or slow bowler – over long on or mid-wicket for a towering six. It requires a tremendous amount of courage, skill, brute power and timing to do so. It also needs a good back lift and follow through that shows a neat swing of the bat. To all of this you need to add an excellent sense of flight and pitching of the ball. Lastly you must have a good enough idea of the line of the ball and the amount of turn it will take. So, we are talking about a whole lot of factors that have to come together to ensure that the ball will go sailing into the crowd.

An incredible amount of practice has to go into the shot before it is executed in a match. You need to take one of your slow bowlers or spinners to bowl you consistently in a particular way in the nets and you must then help yourselves to the shot over and over again. With the advent of T20 cricket this stroke is going to become all the more important and the more batsmen develop the stroke the better off they will be. Sad to say, there are very few batsmen in the present lot who can put the ball in the orbit this way on a consistent basis. More and more batsmen nowadays prefer to stay rooted in the crease and hence eliminate the chance to make the shot possible.

Yes, there is an element of risk in the shot, like most other shots in cricket that can be highly productive. If you miss the line or the spin of the ball, a stumping dismissal or even being clean bowled comes immediately into picture. Or an upper edge of the bat can put the ball high in the air for a catch at the covers or short third man fielder or the wicket keeper too.

As one goes down the memory lane, one reminisces of batsmen from the sub-continent who would dance down at will and punch the ball into the stadium. India’s Navjot Singh Siddhu was someone who had particular liking for the shot. His style was different from others. A full swing of the bat would be complimented by a twist of the hips as well to transfer more power into the shot. On the other hand, Ravi Shastri, now a famous TV commentator, would play it squarer using more the strength in his shoulders than the waist. He hit a hapless Tilak Raj for six sixes in an over in a Ranji match. Pakistan’s Javed Miandad was a class act with that shot. He used to go a little finer using the wrists more than most other batsmen. The stylish Roy Dias from Sri Lanka was never afraid of coming down the pitch to send one over long on.

Among the batsmen from elsewhere, Viv Richards tried it some times. Greg Chappell also did so off and on but not with consistency. I suppose batsmen from England and New Zealand hardly got to play against quality spin bowling in domestic cricket to try the stroke on a regular basis. So they felt the risk over-weighed the returns and avoided to get out of the crease against slow bowlers.

In the present lot of batsmen in the world Sachin Tendulkar is one who is willing to get to the pitch of the ball and take it over mid wicket. Gautam Gambhir shows the tendency quite often. Men like Yuvraj Singh, Tilakratne Dilshan, Virendra Sehwag, Jacob Oram, Chris Gayle and Shahid Afridi are hard hitters but they stay well within the crease normally when they lift the ball to the leg side. If we leave the sub-continent, Shirvnarain Chanderpaul of West Indies and Ricky Ponting of Australia do step out on some occasions to help themselves, but they do not go for it on a regular basis. On some rare occasions I have seen Kevin Petersen of England do so on flat pitches that do not offer a lot of turn to the spinners.

For any batsman who masters this stroke, there is a gigantic benefit to take. He will always dominate over the slow bowlers, especially the spinners. And once the stroke is mastered, even the risk element is drastically reduced. Probably the only place where such a batsman will still have to be extra watchful is on a square-turning wicket or a bouncy wicket, since on such pitches the ball can miss the bat or take an edge. But as the wise men say, higher the risk, higher the chances of big returns.