5 Easy Tips To Improve Your Batting Skills

Cricket is an unique game, and Batting is a vital part in the game,  a team can never win a match without good batsmen.  The batsmen are very important and vital in the game of cricket.  Some players make batting look very easy, and some think that batting is the easiest job in cricket, but batting is one of the toughest skills to master, but if mastered batting is the easiest job in cricket.  Young players have a lot of problems in their batting skills, some find it difficult to time the ball, some find it difficult to face specific balls such as yorkers, bouncers, Good length deliveries,  so I have come with general solutions to all of your batting problems, I hope all of you might gain some lessons here. . These tips are only for budding young cricketers

1. Good Foot Movement:

 

                       The Foot movement is the most important thing in Cricket.  The foot and bat sync is a very important factor in our timing.  The foot must always face the direction of our shot, if your foot faces straight into the pitch and if you try to hit a cover drive, you could edge the ball to the slips or the Wicket Keeper.  Timing a good length ball might be a problem to most of us,  because the good length balls bounce unevenly, so whenever trying to hit or defend a good length ball, you should go on to the pitch of the ball to avoid edges.  Some players even do not move their foot to any balls, but that is not appreciable, because foot movement is the best way to encounter spin and swing.  So foot movement is a very crucial part in your batting.  You can see some really good and legendary cricketers not moving their feet a lot, then how did they play well?

The Best Example For Stand And Deliver.

  All of them had their basics strong, such as defence, drive and pull.  Also they move to a position and then encounter the ball,  this only applies to encounter fast bowling.  But you will see no batsman scoring runs against a spinner without moving his feet.  A great example is Pakistani Cricketer Misbah-Ul-Haq.  Misbah is the only cricketer in the history of the game to score more than 5000 runs in ODI cricket without scoring a Century.  He is also a legend in test cricket. 

 

 

                       But Misbah, does not use his feet a lot against fast bowlers.  But instead of that he moves into an apt position and then uses his strong wrists to manouver the ball.  There are other great examples such as Steve Smith, Who gains success only because of his wrists.  He moves his feet into a position and then uses the wrists to place the ball.  His grip is also a reason that he is very successful without moving his feet a lot.

The Most Unorthodox Grip Currently

Look at the Picture Above you can see his grip is in such a way that his whole bat is perpendicular to his body.  So he can use his right hand to manouver the ball around giving less work to his legs.  When you use your legs a lot, you do not need a lot of work from your wrists, of course you have to use your wrists to glide the ball into various positions, but if you are a superb feet mover, then your feet and elbows will finish most part of the job, which reduces your wrist work.

2.  Take The Guard Based On Your Playing Style:

                         The Guard is a very important thing or component in your batting.  So firstly, what is a guard?  The Guard is the stump which you cover during your batting innings.  When you play test cricket or First class matches or matches that elongate to 3 or 4 days, you should always prepare yourself for a long innings.  And also you have to take a leg stump guard to prevent LBW's.  Because the most common form of dismissal in the Longest Form of Cricket is LBW.  Because Bowlers will always try to swing the ball in to trap the batsmen while he plays a shot.  But this can be prevented when you have a Leg stump guard.  Because when you have a leg stump guard, the chances of getting LBW are less.

                           That is because the bowler now has to trap you by pitching it in the middle stump and get the ball to come in to you.  He cannot swing it lot, because it has chances of going down the leg.

This Can Happen Frequently If You Have A Leg Stump Guard

  And he cannot come around the wicket to get you out, because he cannot pitch it on leg side to get you LBW.  If you have to attack the bowlers straight away, that is during a 20 over or a 10 over encounter, you would have situations in which you would need to attack the bowlers straight away, for those kind of situations, you should have a leg and middle stump guard.  Because having a leg and middle stump guard will make it easier for you to hit in the leg side of the ground, the part of the ground most batsmen favour.  The off stump guard is not taken frequently in the game of cricket, but it is being taken at times when the ball reverses a lot.  So whenever you walk into the 22 yards, you have to select the Guard based on the situation and your play style.

3.  Have A Basic Stance:

                            The Stance is very important.  Your Stance must be based on your inabilities or your weakness.  If you are a little weak on the offside of the field, you can just shift your right leg a little above than parallel position.

Different Types Of Stances Mostly Seen In Modern Day Cricket.

  But this is not appreciatable for rookies and beginners of the game.  Beginners have to keep their legs in such a position so that both legs have a equal amount of distance between them and they are parallel.  You should not select your stance based on your idol.  Some people do that.  But that practice is not appreciable.  The Stance must be based on your inabilities and your position and your play style.

                              This is because if you are a finisher coming in the last 5 overs, you do not have to follow a particular stance.  You need not to keep your legs parallel, because you have to score boundaries right from your first ball and you cannot rely on finding gaps, because nearly 5 or 4 of the fielders will be covering the boundary, so you need not to find the gap necessarily, you just want to place the ball in a non catchable position with a lot of power in it.  To give more power to the ball, basic stance will not help you.  Because basic stances focus and make you time the ball better.  But if you have to apply more power, the you have to have and unorthodox stance.  Take an example of Hardik Pandya.

This Stance is What That Enables Pandya To Generate The Amount Of Bat Swing And Power

  He follows a good and basic stance if he comes to bat earlier in the bat.  In the death overs he gradually changes his stance in an attacking manner.  So my tip here is to select your Stance based on the situation.

4.  Physical Fitness, Flexibility, No Premeditation:

                              The Physical fitness is a factor that affects batting.  Cricket fans will be thinking in stereotypical manner that fitness has nothing to do with batting.  But this type of thought is foolishness.  Fitness is very important during batting.  Only a player who has really good fitness levels, can bat for a long time without making mistakes.  If a player is really poor in his fitness, then he cannot bat over a 70 or a 75 balls.  Unfit players  only favour shorter formats.

This Afghanistani Wicket Keeper Really Faced Big Problems When It Came To The Longer Formats.

  If you see the top players in the longer formats of the game, all of them have really good fitness levels.  Because endurance is a very important factor in the game of cricket.  Only a player who has great fitness levels, can bat over 300 balls in a test match.  Also you cannot be a good batsman if you are not fit.  Because if your fitness level is poor then you will easily get tired.  Tireness brings with the issues of making mistakes.  Mistakes in the sense, poor shot selection, lack of awareness, sloppy shots, less powered shots, slow running in between the wickets, all of these has adverse effects in your performance.

                               So fitness is important, what is flexibility, flexibility is the ability to reach out for the ball.  Your flexibility helps you while you are facing spinners. 

Perfect Way To Defend A Spinner's Delivery

Because in really good turning tracks, you have to reach out to the pitch of the ball without lifting your backleg, because you can get beaten or even get bowled if you do not get to the pitch of the ball, you should not lift the back leg because in case if you get beaten, then you will defenitely get stumped.

                                You should never hit your shots with premeditation.  Premeditation in the sense, selecting a shot before the ball is bowled or selecting an area before the ball is bowled.  You can pick the gaps, but you should never select which gap to hit until the ball is bowled.  You have to select the shot and it's destination once after the ball pitches in the pitch.  Because premeditated shots lack timing.  In some situations, when you premeditate a shot, you hit it early, which gets you out in most of the occasions. So never premeditate a shot, select the shots based on the ball bowled.

5.  Never Take Your Eyes Of The Ball:

                                   This Problem is a very big problem that is even seen with matured international cricketer.  Batsmen taking eyes of the ball.  What is taking eyes of the ball?  When you are batting during a match, you should look at the ball untill you hit it, if you fail to look at it while hitting, you might not find the middle of the bat at some occasions.  Or you might never middle the ball until you look at it till you hit it.  Because middling the ball is the most important thing in batting and also the toughest thing if you take your eyes of the ball.

Every Coach's First Advise, "Never Take Your Eyes Of The Ball"  I Guess Viru's Coach Would Be Really Very Proud Of His Student.

  Most of us take our eyes of the ball while facing bouncers.  Whenever a batsman edges a short ball, he should have taken his eyes of the ball.  So the first and primary lesson that a batsman has to learn is not to take his eyes of the ball.  To develop this skill, you should practice more, you should face atleast a 200 balls in the nets.  In fact if you have to develop your overall batting skills, you have to face atleast a 200 balls in the nets daily or atleast a 100 balls in the nets.  So practice is the only thing that will make you a perfect cricketer.  Practice will also reduce your mistakes during the match and will improve your fitness. 

                                     I hope everyone one of you reading this blog, have got some motivation and confidence, and have learnt some lessons to improve your batting performance.  Do not fail to share this to your team mates so that they could improve their batting skills as well.  If need any tips or Guidelines about bowling, then please visit our other blog about 5 Easy Tips To Improve Your Speed While Bowling