Cricket’s big hits go baseball style

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David Hussey. PHOTO: AFP

May 3: Is cricket going more and more the baseball way? Evidently so, especially after the advent of the T-20 format. The exciting game is all about the blazing big hits, the length of each being measured by missile tracking systems and put up on television for the enjoyment of viewers.

If you believe all such big hitting comes naturally, please think again. Cricketers, like most pro sportsmen, go by the dictum that practice makes perfect. Today’s net sessions are all about the big hits. Some batsmen tend to take it even further. For instance, Matthew Hayden with his peculiar Mongoose bat, which is virtually a half blade when it comes to the business end of the willow.
Others are adapting to the demands of the big bash in their own way.
While most batsmen prefer simply to go on playing the big hits repeatedly in the nets with their regular bats, some teams are said to be taking their practice the golf way by setting up the strokes as if in a driving range. The ball is to be tossed gently at the batsman who then despatches it as hard as possible to deposit it in various parts of the empty stands at practice sessions.
The claim for the new ‘range’ technique of getting virtual free hits is that confidence and fluency become second nature when the same sort of scoring opportunity presents itself in the match. Fans who may not be aware of the techniques that cricketers use to perfect their swing into the big lofted hits that clear the ropes are lapping up the big hits quite happily. The game may be resembling baseball but cricket fans love it all the more for it.
“Sixer, sixer” is the battle cry of the new generation of cricket watchers.