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Different strokes

Cricket is a game whose myths and stories have always favoured batsmen. It is batsmen who make the headlines, batsmen who get to be captain, batsmen the spectators flock to see.

The dominance of batsmen is cricket's one universal law. No English sportsman is better known than W.G. Grace. Don Bradman is the greatest living Australian. Indian cricket's first superstar was Sunil Gavaskar. All, of course ,were batsmen.

Changes in the game these past twenty years have only consolidated the hegemony of those who wield the willow. The covering of wickets has helped them enormously -- no longer have they to contend with pitches made more difficult by dust or rain.

The bats themselves have become better and stronger -- even mishits nowadays go for six.

The coming of one day cricket has further tilted the scales in their favour. A batsman can play for fifty overs, but the bowler can bowl only for ten. At least in Test cricket, there was no such restriction.

History, culture, technology, all have chosen thus to favour batsmen. What have they given it in return? What have been the notable innovations in batsmanship over the past twenty years?

In my view there have been a few major ones. Let us consider each in turn. Possibly the most original batting development is the shot known as the 'inside-out' drive. In the old days, if a ball was pitched on leg-stump, one played it towards the leg-side. But now, one might just as easily stroke it through cover, making room by moving towards the leg side and playing 'inside out'.

For sucessful execution, this stoke requires quick feet, a quicker eye, and a precise mental map of the field. A master of the inside-out drive was the West Indian Vivian Richards. He might even have been the first batsman to play the stroke, at least in international cricket. Indian batsmen who have played the shot include Mohinder Amarnath, Ravi Shastri and, above all, Sachin Tendulkar. When played well, it is breathtaking to watch -- unless you are the bowler, that is, for no other stroke can make such a mess of the fielding arrangement.

The other innovation is the reverse sweep. This is not an altogether pleasant sight, even if it goes for four. It is also more risky than the inside-out drive. In the final of the 1987 World Cup, played at the Eden Gardens, England captain Mike Gatting lost his side the match when he played the shot into the hands of short third man.

Possibly the best 'reverse-sweeper' of all times was the Pakistani terrier, Javed Miandad. His pupil Salim Malik deploys it effectively too. The great England all-rounder Ian Botham also played it. As did Krishnamachari Srikkanth, the least risk-averse of Indian cricketers.

The reverse-sweep is reckoned to be a new thing, but a case can be made that it was in fact exhibited a long time ago. In 1928, the Hindus were playing the Parsis in the semi-finals of the Bombay Quadrangular. At the wicket was K.S. Duleepsinhji, nephew of the immortal Ranji. The Hindus needed runs quickly, but the Parsis had set a defensive field. Then Duleep played a shot which the non-striker, L.P Jai, described as follows: 'Without changing the grip of the bat, he tried to turn the wide ball backwards towards the third-man with his bat turned and facing the wicket-keeper'.

This sounds exactly like the reverse-sweep. It took seventy years for the shot to be re-invented, by Miandad and the like. The contemporary Indian batsmen who plays the shot best is Ajay Jadeja who is, as it happens, a grand-nephew of Dulpeepsinhji.

Among the other things that Jadeja does well is convert ones into twos. The perfection of the art of runnung between wickets is the third batting innovation of recent times. The only batsman who still walks his singles is Arjuna Ranatunga. But he made his Test debut in 1982, when all cricketers did likewise. The business of batsmanship then did not include the running of sharp twos and threes. Speed of foot was not a highly regarded attribute, at least in the sub-continent.

One day cricket has changed all that. Michael Bevan and Jonty Rhodes have shown that one does not have to hit fours to score at a run a ball.

A feature of cricket today is that everyone can bat, upto a fashion. Number ten can hit a six to win a one-day match in the last over, as Rajesh Chauhan did earlier in the year at Lahore. Number eleven can thwart the fastest bowler in the world to save a Test, as Angus Fraser did the other day in old Trafford.

The basics of batsmanship used once to be the preserve of the first six in the order. Now, tail- enders are emboldened by the quality of bats and the protection they enjoy -- helmet, chest-protector, thigh-pad, arm-guard and all.

The history of modern batsmanship is a history of the disappearance of the 'rabbit'. Years ago, at the turn of the century in fact, there used to be a Lancashire fast bowler named Walter Brearley who would invariably be bowled first ball. It is said that when Brearley went out to bat, the horse who pulled the roller at Old Trafford would begin to neigh, altering the groundsman to the imminent end of the innings.

A later variant of this tale has the wife og the Indian googly bowler, B S Chandrasekar, ring up the Chinnaswamy Stadium to speak to her husband. 'Will you call later, madam?' she is told, 'Chandra has just gone in to bat'. Her answer: 'No, that's okay then, I'll hang on.'

The loss of the real rabbit is a loss to entertainment, but not necessarily to cricket. It is just as well that tail-enders have learnt to bat too.

Aside from these specific innovations, modern batsmen differ from their predecessors in their desire to score faster and hit harder. There is a greater willingness to play cross-batted shots, and to hit the ball in the air.

The difference in style is best captured in a story featuring the two most accomplished Indian batsmen. When Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut, he was gifted a pair of pads by Sunil Gavaskar. These pads, specially cut off at the knees, were meant to aid a small man who would make his runs chiefly in ones and twos. Sachin, thought Sunil, would need, like him, to conserve energy.

The boy obligingly wore the master's pads for his first few matches, but then reverted to the conventional ones. As Gavaskar remarked, 'When I gifted him those pads I did not realize he would score mostly in fours and sixes.'

The changes itemized here have all contributed to cricket becoming more of a batsman's game. As a sometime bowler myself, I do feel it is time to redress the balance. Why not go back to uncovered wickets? Another change, suggested by the English writer Richard Hill, is to reward the taking of wickets in one day cricket. Hill recommends that for each wicket taken, the bowler be allowed an extra over.

Thus, Mutthaiah Muralitharan claimed firve wickets in the ten overs he got to bowl in the final of the Emirates Cup, played at Lord's in mid-August. By Hill's proposed rule, he would have got an additional five overs for his efforts, more if he got more wickets during that extra spell.

As it happened, he had to claim his sweater after ten overs. His figures of 5 for 34 were put in the shade when his team-mate Marvan Attapattu was allowed to bat forty-five overs and score 132 not out.

I think it is a splendid idea to allow an extra over for each wicket taken. This would bring bowlers back more centrally into one-day cricket.

Matches would become more exciting, for the fall of wickets is always guaranteed to get the crowd going. The time is ripe for the bowlers of the world to cast off their chains and unite, to form a trans-national trade union to represent their interests.

This union can then take up Richard Hill's suggestion and table it a future meeting of the International Cricket Council.

Ramachandra Guha