The principles of batting

The difficulties experienced by the Australian batting line up in Melbourne in the boxing day test match at one end of the spectrum, and helping a friend's son make a start with batting as a young child this week has caused me to reflect on batting in cricket, the technique fundamentals, the mental challenges and the synergy of personality with style to bring the component parts together. Having thought about this I thought I'd write an article from the ground up.

The stance

There have been stances as diverse as Chanderpaul from the WI with an extreme open stance to George Bailey with an extreme closed stance at times and everything in between. At it's most basic level, the batsman has to do something whilst they are waiting for the bowler to move from the top of their mark to the delivery stride to propel the ball. Ideally, the stance a batsman takes will be comfortable, will enable movement to wherever they want to go be that forward or back and will provide the batsman with stability of head to track the ball once it is let go. Traditionalists like the knees to be slightly bent, weight on the balls of the feet and the bat itself to either be cocked ready to go or a trigger movement to occur in order to bring the wrists to be cocked for maximum power and flexibility.

The grip

Again, the choice of how to physically hold the bat is subject to lots of nuance. One failsafe starting point is to put the bat on the ground face down. The batsman then picks up the bat with two hands on the handle. This will be your grip. Only very slight adjustment is required from this basic starting point. The most fundamental aim of the grip is to allow the bat to hit the ball square on giving the maximum width of the bat to the defensive shot.

The Backlift

The backlift is determined by the pressure applied by the top hand relative to the bottom hand. Where pressure is predominantly top hand, the backlift will be fairly straight meaning it will point more toward the wicketkeeper than to point. Where pressure is predominantly bottom hand, inevitably the backlift will be fairly square.

The main reason why this "matters" is that a square backlift will either come from offside to leg side and lead to predominantly leg side play or an "in/out" style will bring the bat around in a semi circle back toward the wicket keeper then through the ball causing the batsman to defend from the leg side back to the off side.

Style one is susceptible to LBW with the straight delivery as the bat comes across the line of the ball.

Style two is susceptible to nicks to the slips cordon with the usual delivery just outside off stump as the bat comes from the line of the stumps "out" to the line of the ball.

Ideally, a balance between these two extremes is found which aligns with the batsman's mindset with a happy medium of around second slip backlift preferred by the majority of top 6 batsman.

Skill acquisition

It is generally accepted that there are three phases of skill acquisition from the "What and How". Adam Smith said in his wealth of nations economic lecture that if you don't know where you are going, any road will do. The same goes for skill acquisition. If you don't know "what" you are trying to acquire, then a haphazhard result is likely.

The "How" flows from the what. Once you know what you are trying to do, then "the how" to achieve it becomes clear. Most tall batsman play in the Greg Chappell textbook of playing in the "V" between wide mid off and wide mid on. Pugnacious shorter batsman tend to play squarer of the wicket as the typical delivery faced bounces higher on them and they have shorter levers to feel more comfortable striking square.

The "How" is the biomechanical sequence from common stance through to foot movement to get into a position and "shape" to bring the bat through on a desired plane to achieve a desired result.

Stripping footwork back to bare bones, there are really only five places for feet to go to medium/fast bowling (batting to spin another topic entirely). The front foot can take a full stride to just outside off stump (position a), a full stride to middle stump (position b) or a half stride to leg stump (position c). On the back foot, there is a movement to middle/off stump (position d) or a movement to just outside off stump (position e).

If a batsman can simplify their movement to these five positions consistently, then they will give the impression of having "time" to play their shots.

Phase Two - Repetition

Drills and practice generally are about the repetition of a learned "How" to the point that muscle memory enables a batsman to execute near flawless technique under match pressure. Specific drills exist per shot contained within a batsman's game plan. These can be witnessed at any elite training session with side arm delivery at the advanced level, or under arm delivery at the learning level.

Phase Three - Automation and Adaptation

When repetition has occurred over many years, batsman get to the point where the technique is so well understood that it can be adapted to different situation and conditions and still stands up. This might be abridging backlift and movement when facing express bowling, exaggerating movement on a wet wicket, working through the gears quickly in a short form game to accelerate the game plan or in a run chase. Without a stable base and solid repetition background, the likelihood of success greatly diminishes.

To summarise

The cliche that you must conceive to achieve holds very true in batting. First comes the conception and visualisation of what you are trying to do, then the knowledge of exactly how it is that you can do whatever it is you are trying to do at a granular skill by skill level. Repetition follows noting that perfect practice makes perfect. Imperfect practice will reinforce a bad habit to the batsman's detriment. Finally alertness and mental aptitude to adapt enables the performer to adapt their portfolio of skills to a specific situation in the pursuit of success both individually and their team. These principles "work" both at the entry level and the elite level if the batting game plan is good enough and the skill set high enough.

I hope this has been beneficial reading. Please provide comment on areas that are unclear or require further explanation.