Since then, there have been some shots of terrific audacity, little scoops and shovels and flicks that dart from the bottom edge of the bat and travel fine. The idea we discussed was more radical: would it be possible to actually turn around in the direction of the ball and hit it as it goes past? If you could, it would probably be unstoppable.
I thought of it again on monday, when Eoin Morgan and Nick Compton put on 277 for Middlesex against Kent in the FP Trophy. Morgan's hurling shot has been much remarked on, but some of the others were equally, crazily good, and far more repeatable. It was the first time that the English game appeared to be slightly ahead of the curve again.
Morgan is steel-wristed and offbeat, a freak. England should play him. Compton was in his way more noteworthy - not because he's as good as Morgan, but because he's not. He's simply had the nous and the drive to analyse and reinvent his game. That takes a lack of ego. He's been flat-sharing with Phil Hughes, and perhaps that has spurred him on.
Gloriously, such hitting will eventually lead to the return of the long stop, too.
NB: There's nothing new under the sun of course. I have a copy of Ranjitsinji's Jubilee Book Of Cricket from 1897, in which he plays 'the underleg shot', where he cocks his left leg up and hits the ball underneath it. He looks like he's about to take cocktails in the racquet club as he does so.
Posts
