Freeing up the free hit

Back in 2006, when we were messing about with Merlyn, I remember a conversation with a coach about the need for a shot that got the ball past the wicketkeeper, as it was the one bit of the park that was guaranteed not to have a fielder on it. Then came Dilshan.

The new-tech game was here, and it continues to dazzle with the breadth of its invention: relay fielding, slower-ball bouncers, switch-hitting - all were in their infancy then. It goes on: Jade Dernbach, just called into the England squad, has different three slower balls. Fifty from the last five overs is considered a simple chase. The idea of the specialist four-over quick bowler has arrived.

Not everything has been thought of yet, though, the free hit being the most glaring example. While it always creates a stir in the crowd, it very rarely produces a major penalty for the fielding side. Bowlers know how to bowl it, but batters have yet to work out how to do it best.

Yet the batsman has one piece of knowledge that should be exploited: he knows, beyond doubt, that he is going to try and hit the ball. That knowledge needs to feed down into technique, just as the knowledge that there was no fielder behind the wicketkeeper did.

So if he knows for sure he's going to hit the ball, why take a normal stance which has been designed for all eventualities? In baseball, for example, the slugger must swing hard, and stands with the bat already drawn back. His feet are set to move less, but to give a huge striking arc. There might be a lesson there, because the bowlers are ahead of the batsmen on this one, and we can't have that, can we...

Unbelievable tekkers

A nice piece with Allan Lamb in the new Wisden Cricketer. Asked 'what made you so successful against quick bowling?' he replied: 'I had a technique that worked. On quick wickets against quick bowling, you don't get in behind the ball because, if it lifts a bit off a length, how are you going to get out of the way? You stayed inside the ball so you could cut, or outside so then you could pull. You had to duck or play, there was no fending on bouncy wickets.

'Against the really quick bowlers I would watch the wrist. Sometimes you could see the seam, and the quicker the wrist came down, the shorter the ball was going to be. That was vital. I didn't love playing against them but it was always a challenge'.

There is a huge amount of truth and insight here [yes, from Allan Lamb...], perhaps most of all his thoughts at the beginning and the end of his answer. The measure of a technique is its effectiveness; the reality of quick bowling is that no-one likes facing it [and speed is relative to ability, so the feelings it invokes are universal].

The detail of Lamb's technique, as described, is not textbook. It sounds more like Phil Hughes than Geoffrey Boycott. That's why technique cannot be applied or evaluated equally to all. Boycott, for example, or Atherton, were rather good at fending. It's an individual thing.

It's also why Peter Roebuck's otherwise well-wrought argument over the 'nonsensical' changes in technique for T20 cricket is not quite convincing. Technique, to me, is like language. It is not a static thing. Rather, it's alive and vital, always being added to and adapted as well as used classically. To draw a rather gallumphing allusion, we no longer speak like Shakespeare, but the beauty and rhythm of his language retains all of its power.

No-one bats like Grace any more, and perhaps only Dravid leaves the ball like Boycott, yet technique is as alive and as mutable as it has ever been. No single player will encompass it all. The key will be the same as always: to the fit the relevant parts to what you're trying to achieve.

MP Vaughan b McGrath, Lee, Naved, O'Brien, Oram, Steyn, Collymore...

Men used to go to sea for freedom. Now they go freelance... Jeremy Kyle and his feuding proles, spot of lunch with the crossword, re-runs of vintage Grand Designs, all on in the background of course, just so things don't get too quiet... 

Yesterday the Batsman took a break from the wordface just as Sky decided to fill some broadcast hours with a two-hour round-up of the Ashes 2005. You really can't watch it often enough, can you?

You find something new with every encounter. This time it was Michael Vaughan getting bowled. For someone who maintains he doesn't get bowled a lot, he seems to get bowled a lot. He was bowled in both innings at Lord's by McGrath, bowled by Lee in the second innings at Edgbaston, and then again by Lee in Manchester, albeit from a no-ball during his 166.

Subsequently, he's been bowled by Rana Naved in Faisalabad at the end of '05, and then, after his year off with fetlock damage, by Corey Collymore in Manchester, by RP Singh at Lord's, by Zaheer Khan at Trent Bridge, by Jacob Oram in Wellington, by Iain O'Brien at Trent Bridge and by Dale Steyn at Lord's. 

In his Test career, he has been bowled 22 times in 147 innings; however 10 of those have come in his last 46 digs. And don't even talk about Lord's.

A quick, unscientific random sample by way of comparison:

Ricky Ponting bowled 24 times in 206 innings

Matthew Hayden 19 times in 175 innings

Jacques Kallis 40 times in 209 innings

Sachin Tendulkar 40 times in 256 innins

Kevin Pietersen 9 times in 80 innings

Mike Hussey 11 times in 49 innings

This rather more comprehensive survey concludes that the modern, post-1990 batsman with an average of over 35 is bowled in around 15 per cent of his innings. Vaughan falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. 

So statistically, Michael Vaughan doesn't get bowled a lot. But for someone who doesn't get bowled a lot, Michael Vaughan gets bowled. A lot. Or at least he appears to. Several reasons ruffle the Batsman's cap...

i) When he gets bowled, he gets bowled badly: off stump or off and middle, playing defensively and simply missing it. It's somehow more vivid that way.

ii) He gets bowled by a lot of fast-medium bowlers. McGrath is of the highest class, but consider Rana Naved, Corey Collymore, RP Singh, Iain O'Brien and big Jake Oram. 

iii) He has an idiotic look on his face when it happens. 

iv) Finally, and here's where the Batsman thinks the stats may be slightly behind the curve, the trend in modern batting is to get yourself right across the stumps and have the head on a line outside off stump. Thus aggressive players who come at the bowler looking to hit straight or leg side - Pietersen, Hayden, Ponting - tend to remove bowled from the equation. All have been out LBW more often than they have been castled (Pietersen 12, Hayden 26, Ponting 36).

Compare them to an old-time classicist like:

Geoff Boycott, bowled 30 times in 193 innings, leg before only 27. 

Or even Mike Hussey (stats above), another natural offside player. As is Vaughan of course.

Being bowled is the most devastating way to get out psychologically, I think. It's a product of the most basic failure of purpose: missing the ball. A decent batsman playing at his natural level should not be bowled often. It hurts too much. 

The Old Batsman himself bears several scars, the most livid from a jaffa of a slower ball at Basingstoke that I played about three shots to, none of which came close to connecting. I remember it still, with all of those years gone by... 

It's a subject too raw to leave without some comfort. Jacques Kallis has been bowled 40 times in his Test career. He has faced 22,232 deliveries. 22,192 of them have not hit the stumps. Way to go, big man.