Where's the 'Momentum' guys?

Deccan Charges Vs Delhi Dardevils, 13 May 2009, IPL-2

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

Deccan Chargers throwing away their match against the Delhi Daredevils was pathos personified. No, it wasn't bad luck or nerves. Probably an outdated team strategy.

The issues this article will address are. 1) Is it necessary to narrow down the run-ball equation to a run a ball to give your team the best chance? 2) Is it pandemic of an Indian side, domestic or otherwise (with a minority of foreign professionals) to destroy effort of a top order batsman?

Labour lost

Adam Gilchrist's towering hitting was put to nought by his lower order. The same way that Chennai put to nought another Aussie, another left-hander and another opening bat's great starts earlier in the tournament. Fortunately Chennai have re-grouped and are looking better. But will the Deccan Chargers?

Are we all thinking?

To be fair, it was no individual's fault, nor I would imagine a team's. The blame if any would probably rest with the think tank and in no small way in the way everybody views 20-20 cricket. There is a mindset prevalent among all - cricketers, commentators, cricket gurus that if your team needs about 29 runs off 25 balls, you must strike from both ends to narrow that down to a run a ball. Quite rusty.

Where's the fulcrum?

Yesterday's Deccan Chargers - Delhi Daredevils match had exactly such an equation but instead of T Ravi assuming the fulcrum role to allow Andrew Symonds to attack, the lad chose to display heroics and pushed his luck too far with a backward glide. It points to a fundamental lack of thinking on the team's part, not to give him clearer or a different set of instructions - to stay put and get ones and twos where possible. The less said of his predecessor Suman the better. He too had departed 'heroically' trying to match Gilchrist's (of all the people!) pace.

'Momentum'

Hey, hasn't it been established that Twenty-Twenty is not a bang at both ends affair? We know that one partner, especially when the other is scoring, should play the anchor. The analysts have come up with the word 'momentum' as if exactly identifying the lacuna in batting during a 20-overs game. So, what's the confusion? Is it impetuous youth or a lack of good communication to these young guns, or their ability to understand the communication. Otherwise, it must be said team strategy is totally wrong.

The Equation

Let's address that run-ball equation. It is archaic thinking that with seven wickets in hand, you have to address a target of 29 more runs (25 balls) with suicidal hitting. Won't the odd boundary come within the next over and a half to narrow it down? Isn't Symonds capable of it? T Ravi started experimenting with strokes that take the ball over the wicket-keepers head or to some no-man's land, using the pace of the bowler. At least his judgement should have told him that he is not middling it today so better let senior partner Andrew do it. But he chose the gallant path to heaven. What was he thinking? "Now's my chance to show the world I'm as good as Symonds?" And seven overs earlier, Suman was probably thinking the same thing? And at a time that Gilly was launching balls to the moon. Guys, when there is no need, why err on the side of risk? Why not take a lesson from the Twenty-Twenty cricket that you've see so far?

It's not what, it's how

Deccan Chargers will be hugely upset, not for their loss, but to use that cliched expression, "from where they threw it away." Oh, how about another cliche since we love flogging dead horses - "Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

The architects

To be fair to Gilly and Symonds, they did not commit great errors in their own dismissals. Only those they were allowed after hoisting the team on their shoulders.

Chargers, now charge back and learn from those mistakes.

Minimal is best

Royal Challengers Vs Kolkata Knightriders, 12 May 2009, IPL-2

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

Ross Taylor may have played another 'cameo' like modernists say, to help beat KKR. Again, commentators and pundits are drawn to the run-ball comparison so they cough up his stats of 80 runs off 33 balls. Rameez Raja is obsessed with the run-rate and even with six runs required off five balls, felt it necessary to say "See, the dot ball automatically ups the scoring rate." Can't experts look beyond stats which were a 1980s thing?

Crowe's Clone

Anyway, veering away, few would have noticed that Ross Taylor is a clone of fellow countryman Martin Crowe. And like you give Saqlain and Ajanta and Waqar credit for the doosra, the flipper and the reverse swinger respectively, one must Crowe (and Ross) for the minimal backlift. Yes folks, welcome to another innovation of the Kiwis. Crowe invented it and Ross is adapting it completely while a global audience watches.

Long back swing yes, not pickup

Most feel that graceful and powerful batsman have long bat swings and therefore high backlifts. Much poetry has been written on Brian Lara's backlift. Agreed. But all mortals cannot emulate this. A high backlift is the bane of junior cricketers and has crushed talented young careers without their even realising it. When a junior cricketer graduates to even a slighter senior level, his high backlift causes his undoing. If it hasn't already at junior level. The correct backlift to coach therefore is a short or minimal backlift. Coming back to Lara, remember he showed vulnerability to the yorker. Wasim Akram's painful toe-crusher in the '92 world cup and an embarassing bowled dismissal by Waqar in '98 when Lara fell to the ground are clear examples.

Two parts to the Backlift

Let's get slightly technical and break up the "backlift' into two parts:

• bat pickup
• back swing

You could say these two put together constitute the 'backlift.' Now we're more specifically concerned with the bat pickup. This is the element that Ross Taylor and Martin Crowe underscore. With a minimal bat pickup, you don't commit yourself to any particular stroke nor expose yourself to the deadly yorker.

Don't commit

The back swing, yes, has to be long for an attacking short and short for a defensive one. If you control your pickup, then you give yourself the option of a long or short back swing, depending on the ball and therefore the shot to play. However, if your pickup is long to start with, you're committed to a long back swing (because your bat is too high already) and there start the problems for a yorker, or a ball that is not hittable.

So, now you know another reason Ross may have got a chanceless 80 off about 35 balls? He never committed to an attacking stroke early on. Only when the ball was there to be hit. Bravo Crowe and bravo Ross!

Why are they 'backlift' Gods?

Martin Crowe was by no means a defensive bat. Rather was a feared attacker. Yet he had a small, almost absent back pickup? It quashes the myth that attackers need large backlifts whereas defensive ones can afford to have small ones. Rather the opposite - that if you have a controlled bat pickup, you can choose which balls to fashion the long back swing. And end up scoring more whence all else were dismissed!

Sachin too a practitioneer

Our own God of batting, Sachin Tendulkar heeded this component in his batting from his formative days. Watch all videos of Sachin from 1989 and you'll see the close attention he paid to keeping his backlift, or bat pickup under control. There was just one instance on the 1989 tour of New Zealand when a commentator commented on the yet unknown prodigy's 'high backlift' but that was when the Bombay blaster was in an attacking mood. And we may be confusing the intent of his large back swing with his pickup.

Absent backlift

We'll use that metaphor 'backlift' again in putting Crowe and Ross a level above all other cricketers. They have almost 'absent' back lifts, that is, bat pickups. And yet they execute strokes with such elan. Well, again, it's difficult to expect other mortals to have an 'absent' bat pickup. But yes, if you'd have to raise the bar, then a young player will have to fashion an 'absent bat pickup.' That's probably asking for too much, besides it must suit your style also!

All you young ones, keep the backlift low at least!

When in doubt, swing the bat

12 May 2009, Kings XI Punjab Vs Mumbai Indians, IPL-2

By Vikram A

Is it really "Wow, Sohal," or "Heck , Sohal!" The Punjab opener Sunny Sohal sent a few balls into the galleries and had the commentators in raptures like "How do you do that," with his 20-odd ball 43, the top score. However, is he really convincing? The finger grips the bat in an innocent thumb and forefinger grip unlike the modern 'well round the handle.' Sunny somehow seems immobilized when the bowler delivers the ball as if unable to read all those bowling . Does he sniff the ball? Probably not. Aw, c'mon this is the 20-20 game. Not time for those Bradsmaneque traditions, a pyjama cricketer would say!

Fine, but my point is that unlike most batsman whose body language shows some indication of computing the ball's flight and tragectory, right or wrong, here's one who makes no calculations. He'd therefore rather just decide on a shuffle and a stroke with no background information. Using of course a somewhat two-dimensional view of the ball.

Hence, we saw him mostly shuffle away to off and glide away balls or when given width, dispatch sixes over the cover and extra cover area. It's a foregone conclusion that any batsman, given width will hit a six these days. So, the point here is, are all those backward-of-square glides, most pre-meditated, the sign of a batsman not sizing up to the ball, sniff or not? In other words guesswork.

The reason poor young Sunny is being made the villain of the piece here is, his getting Irfan Pathan run out and then himself too in a manner not deserving of professional cricketers. It points to a lack of cricketing sense. And that is perhaps just as absent in his strokemaking.

If your position is the opening batsman's, you'll find two advantages that simple spur the ball to the boundary or over it - the ball is hard and the field, even if not in powerplay is relatively attacking. So, it should come as no surprise that a batsman, even if he's nervous or unable to read the bowler's hand, will try to create width or play shots with positive results. Which is what Sunny did yesterday.

Not to discourage the youngster but maybe the lens with which we view a shot-maker is a little too wide. Maybe we label him as good without looking close enough and taking into account some factors.