In the evening, the harsh sun beat down on the stadium pitches in Ahmedabad. A dust storm suddenly blew across the area, turning the sky grey and prompting street dogs to howl. During the chaos, a teenager at a nearby bazaar was bitten by a mad dog, which felt like a scene from a retro movie poster. Indian batsmen need help to improve their performance, perhaps seeking inspiration from Sunil Gavaskar’s classic 96 from his last Test on a minefield in Bangalore against Pakistan. The performance analyst could grab hold of a VHS cassette or watch the decent one-hour version on YouTube to create a batting strategy.
BENDING A BIT WILL HELP: GAVASKAR
Gavaskar recently shared a suggestion with the newspaper about the Indian team’s errors in their batting technique. According to Gavaskar, Indian batsmen have 2 major problems.
Firstly, when under panic, the bat goes too square across the line after misreading the length, such as Rohit Sharma against Nathan Lyon.
Secondly, taking too long a forward stride has caused difficulty getting the bat around the pad in time, as seen with R Ashwin, Srikar Bharat, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, and even Virat Kohli. These errors have resulted in awkward angles and questions about their intent.
“The top hand guides the bat and the bottom hand decides the speed. So if you want to dead bat then the bottom hand has to have the slightest of holds on the handle. The top hand will bring the bat down as you want it, either straight or across the pads,”
Gavaskar said.
Another common way Indians are dismissed is by pressing too far ahead with a forward stride and failing to get the bat around the pad on time. Gavaskar suggests that an initial shorter forward stride could help, as seen in his classic 96 on VHS. He took a short stride forward on his toes before stretching further, avoiding a large gap between the pad and the hands and bat.
Follow us on Twitter for more!
