This isn’t one on the fine art of fencing – what I know of fencing is limited to the pickets and verbal jousting. But if fencing can help me to meet Madonna and Rosamund Pike, I might yet fall for it.
:-)
BTP, the competition between the (cricket) bat and ball was explained to me by an old timer as:
One late evening mid-September entering my home, came across a neighbor's son admiring the cousin’s cricket bat and was hailed ‘Yo, big guy, take a look at this bat. Such big edges – perhaps they’re making bats to make the batsmen edge out’.
A closer look at the heavy bat made me remark ‘use of heavy bats in such young age will spoil the batting ability – no finesse of a cut, late cut, glance or flick – which allow a batsman to score square off the wicket’.
The 12 year old astonished me, ‘Unc! The coach doesn’t listen. He insists on heavy bats!’
Last Sunday I was at the Sunday cricket practice and saw that what the kid said was true. The coach (and all the cricket coaches in Chennai & in India, I believe) think that heavy bats would do the job.
The problem with the heavy bat is that it is heavy at the bottom. It does not allow the batsman to use his wrists – being too heavy. When a batsman does not use his wrists, he tends to play in a broad ‘V’, relying on his heavy bat to loft the balls over the fielders, instead of placing the ball between the fielders to score runs.
When such a batsman attempts to play square, he does not have the ability to roll the bat (because wrist work is absent) and cannot keep the ball down. In slow, low Indian wickets, it does not matter much. But in bouncy, fast conditions like Australia or South Africa or in seaming conditions like England, the inability to score square off the wicket or keep the ball down while attempting to do so effectively makes them play in a ‘V’.
No wonder then, that we lost in England so badly in Tests and ODI series.
:-)
BTP, the competition between the (cricket) bat and ball was explained to me by an old timer as:
- a batsman aims to score by freeing his arms and square off the wicket (baseball terms: ‘roughly’ in the ‘foul areas’ which are fair areas in Cricket)
- a bowler aims to make the batsman play in a ‘V’, restricting him, and to try and chisel or deflect the ‘V’ towards his best fielders to induce an error.(baseball terms: roughly the ‘fair area’).
- old timer also said, though cricket and baseball are alike in some respects, baseball makes the batter to bat in a ‘V’ and one of the reasons why baseball scores are low).
One late evening mid-September entering my home, came across a neighbor's son admiring the cousin’s cricket bat and was hailed ‘Yo, big guy, take a look at this bat. Such big edges – perhaps they’re making bats to make the batsmen edge out’.
A closer look at the heavy bat made me remark ‘use of heavy bats in such young age will spoil the batting ability – no finesse of a cut, late cut, glance or flick – which allow a batsman to score square off the wicket’.
The 12 year old astonished me, ‘Unc! The coach doesn’t listen. He insists on heavy bats!’
Last Sunday I was at the Sunday cricket practice and saw that what the kid said was true. The coach (and all the cricket coaches in Chennai & in India, I believe) think that heavy bats would do the job.
The problem with the heavy bat is that it is heavy at the bottom. It does not allow the batsman to use his wrists – being too heavy. When a batsman does not use his wrists, he tends to play in a broad ‘V’, relying on his heavy bat to loft the balls over the fielders, instead of placing the ball between the fielders to score runs.
When such a batsman attempts to play square, he does not have the ability to roll the bat (because wrist work is absent) and cannot keep the ball down. In slow, low Indian wickets, it does not matter much. But in bouncy, fast conditions like Australia or South Africa or in seaming conditions like England, the inability to score square off the wicket or keep the ball down while attempting to do so effectively makes them play in a ‘V’.
No wonder then, that we lost in England so badly in Tests and ODI series.
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