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!
Actually you are VERY wrong about the backlift. There is no point giving kids out there BAD advice. Ask bob woolmer, people with high backlifts are generously gifted. He says gifted because you naturally have to have a high backlift, the people who naturally tend to have low backlifts and want higher ones are the ones that struggle. You should ALWAYS go with your natural instincts. If you naturally pick the bat up high, DO NOT GIVE UP. It can work wonders for you. The key to having a high backlift is to make sure your movements are not JERKY, as long as your movements are smooth, a high backlift is a blessing and will allow you to hit the balls to the boundary playing defensive forward and back pushes.
ReplyDeleteWhat the writer here failed to mention is that higher backlifts make it MUCH more easier to play short pitched deliveries. Look at ricky Ponting and lara, both of them with very high back lifts pulled the ball better than anyone else in the world and a lot more often than tendulkar.
Thirdly, what you mentioned about the yorker is DEAD WRONG, if anything the higher backlift allows you to come DOWN hard on the yorker crushing it DOWN. With a lower backlift, your natural tendency would be to drive your bat UP and the ball would easily sneak underneath your defense. Do not quote two examples of Lara falling to a yorker, there are COUNTLESS where he played the yorker better than anyone else. And that waraq delivery beat him for swing more than lenght.
So please get ur facts straight and do not give bad advice.
Kids should stick to what comes natural to them, HIGH OR LOW but get the other fundamentals of batting right which are way more important such as BALANCE, watching the ball out of the bowlers hand and keeping your head level.
Also I would like to add
ReplyDeleteYuvaraj has a high backlift yet I always see him digging out insanely quick deliveries, let alone that I have seen Yuvi blast yorkers for sixes, GOOD ones at that from Freddie Flintof. There is NOWAY a minimal backlift player would be able to do that.
Secondly to all kids out there with a naturally high backlift, please do not let this blog post deter you, its a thing a beauty to watch someone with such a high backlift, it is extremely pleasing on the eyes. If its natural to you, STICK TO IT, just work on getting the flow and movement right.
I would also like to talk about one more critical advantage. High back lifts allow u to hammer the ball into the ground, you are less likely to hit the ball in the air without wanting to. Look at Ponting and Lara, Lara in particular could cut and pull the ball right into the ground because the bat would come DOWN from a high angle allowing him to keep a lot of ferocious cuts in control and on the ground. Other players would always hit those cuts in the air trying to hit the ball hard.
Always ALWAYS ALWAYS, back your natural instincts. If you have a short back lift, stick with that, if its high, do not at any cost try to get rid of it. If you would ever get a chance to study kinesiology, you would reaize that the most natural swing and the best swing of anykind.. Golf, baseball or cricket, is with a high back lift.
From the author: Saw these comments late hence the delay in replying. If blatant criticism, as opposed to critiquing is deserved, then let it be BETTER WORDED by my knowledgeable friend instead of implicitly proclaiming that only he knows best. To some of Mohammad’s comments, I feel like saying “Lay off, this is my blog. Don’t preach. Discuss.”
ReplyDeleteThere were a few references in my blog which were loosely worded, such as the generic backlift. I understand that a knowledgeable but excitable entity like Mohammad may even feel angry at ‘wrong knowledge’ dished out to kids. But did he read the entire blog?
In his TONE, am not sure he respected:
1. Opinion
2. bat ‘PICKUP’ as opposed to back ‘LIFT’
The BAT PICKUP is the initial movement of the actual BACK LIFT, the former I suggested youngsters pay heed to and keep low and minimal. It is a preparatory movement and its exaggerated form, seen more and more in modern cricketers, was not a feature of early day cricketers.
A controlled BACK PICKUP is a precursor to reigning in a needlessly high or angled BACKLIFT.
A low BAT PICKUP therefore does NOT imply that the BACKLIFT which he/she will essay shortly, has to be LOW or MINIMAL. In fact, the BACKLIFT should be HIGH for an intended shot of power which decision of course is made later by the batsman. I’ve categorically mentioned that a high 'BACK SWING' is needed to hit balls falling in the ‘slot.’
Agreed that some coaches don't stress the 'bat PICKUP' per se as a COMPONENT of the 'back LIFT' because it complicates things. One has to respect those teachers that do because they want to ISOLATE components and TREAT a malaise where it exists.
SOME references to bat PICKUP in my write-up were bandied as ‘BACK LIFT.’ I wanted to appeal to the conscience of kids to pay heed to the PICKUP. After all, not all of them are receptive enough to the relatively complicated idea of its two ‘parts’ or ‘facets.’ But they do understand ‘backlift.’
I see Mohammad trying to reverse justify the high backlift by saying it’s then easier to hammer the ball into the ground. Seems amazing why those perishing batsmen who had high backlifts didn’t do that with consistency and save their wickets.
Mohammad’s again insisting it was purely the swing from the Yorkers that beat Lara from Waqar’s ball. Sure there was huge reverse swing but in another instance, Wasim crushed his toe with a Yorker in the ’92 World Cup where he had to return to the pavilion for treatment. Lara was a batsman with a PREMEDITATED high backlift and it made him vulnerable to the Yorker!
But it’s not the Yorker alone where a needlessly high BACK LIFT causes damage. A high backlift initiates the circular (angled) backlift which is the starting point of bad technique, the consequence of which are edges and uppish hits. Here’s a bit about natural human instincts in backlifts. 70% kids wrongly bring their bat from 2nd slip or wider. The correct lift ‘shape’ is not inherent in most and NEEDS TO BE COACHED as Alf Gover said.
While Ross Taylor completely NULLS his bat PICKUP to good effect, but is a model difficult to emulate, Tendulkar is a good practitioner and model of MINIMAL (bat PICKUP I reaffirm).
I’d read Bob Woolmer’s Art and Science of Cricket to which Mohammad makes such a strong reference in terms of high backlifts being good. To take that as gospel is unfair to the coaching fraternity. It’s almost like coaches before him were all mad.
Yes, there are cases where a youngster’s bat comes nice and straight naturally and he/she has a steady head, therefore you don’t do compulsory coaching to reduce his backlift. By the way, how come Ross Taylor is succeeding in T20 with his minimal bat pickup?
By the way, I won’t make any changes in my blog’s wording until it’s sufficiently reviewed again in the light of my explanation. Later perhaps..and I’ll indicate too at the time.