Switch hit, Dilscoop are part of evolving technique

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Oscar Wilde, Irish writer and poet, was utterly disdainful of cricket. “It requires one to adopt such indecent postures,” he is reported to have said. Remember, Wilde never saw the more frenetic limited overs formats. What would he say of the ‘Dilscoop’?

The lobby of traditionalists wakes up every now and then to look askance at the erosion in cricket’s pristine values. Wilde’s acerbic observation notwithstanding, orthodox cricket technique – more particularly in batting – bespoke a certain finesse that seems to be fast vanishing, according to them.
Indeed, in some cases, the very legitimacy of new’ strokes is being questioned. Ian Chappell, for instance, raised issue about the switch hit deployed so tellingly by young David Warner in the Champions League in which he smashed two superb hundreds, alas still not good enough to take New South Wales into the final.
Having taken guard in a particular position for which the fielding captain has set a field, should the batsman be allowed to make this switch, asks Chappell pertinently? I suspect the game’s minders have a task ahead of them and more grist to the debate can only make future legislations more robust and meaningful.
The clash between orthodox and unorthodox technique is of course wider in its sweep, often dictated by prevailing skills and mindsets in different eras. But after all the pros and cons have been considered, there is still no conclusive evidence favouring one or the other. For that matter, a ‘renegade” stroke can get absorbed in conventional technique over a period of time.
For instance, Ranjitsinhji’s leg glance at the turn of the 19th century first caused bewilderment in its breach of batting canons, then awe because of the slender margin of error for the batsman and finally admiration for the sheer felicity. The leg glance is now a commonplace in orthodox cricket technique.
Rohan Kanhai’s falling hook shot in the late 1950s and 60s matured from grotesque risk-taking to becoming one of the more breathtaking in the business precisely because of the derring-do involved. Will the ‘Dilscoop’ and the switch hit find regular expression in other formats too?

I write this column with the final of the Champions League a few hours away. It’s been a riveting tournament, with some extraordinary individual performances and heart-stopping finishes and the fact that it has not captured the imagination of the public as much as expected has obviously nothing to do with the quality of play and competitiveness. The fact that this year was choc-a-bloc with major tournaments being played in India is perhaps the big dampener.
This should alert administrators and Boards to the need for a balanced calendar. True, the World Cup this year created a logjam of sorts in the itinerary, but some rationalisation would go a long way in keeping all stakeholders happy.
Meanwhile, the England team is here for the ODI series. It promises to be one helluva contest. But retribution is only one part of the drama of cricket. Another is humour which the sport is losing so rapidly. In the hope that some of this is restored in the series, I am reminded of a line from the inimitable radio commentator Brian Johnston: “Neil Harvey's at slip, with his legs wide apart, waiting for a tickle.”
Yeh dil maange more!