GRIP, STANCE AND PICK-UP
How you hold a bat is vital, because it determines everything else
that you can do with the bat. The ideal is the orthodox grip. The hands
are close together near the top of the handle, with the V formed by
the thumb and forefinger facing down the bat with one directly beneath
the other. If the top hand holding the bat is rested on the front leg,
the knuckles rest on the leg – or pad – and the back of
the top hand faces roughly towards extra cover.
That is the ideal. As you can see from the illustration, I don’t
hold the bat quite like that. My top hand is further round than of old-time
players, who it seems used to hold the bat further round than is the
fashion now. Players like Glenn Turner, of Worcestershire and New Zealand,
and Clive Rice have their top hand almost behind the bat, the complete
opposite of me. Glenn scored over 34,000 runs in his career, at an average
of almost 50, so he was not too hampered by not having an orthodox grip.
In between us there’s my former Pakistan colleague, Zaheer Abbas,
whose record is almost identical to Glenn’s, except that Zaheer
averaged just over 50. He has the perfect grip.
Zaheer’s grip then is the best to copy, because it offers the
greatest scope for manipulating the bat. But every grip has its limitations,
and to an extent the best grip is the one you feel comfortable with.
I do find though that it helps to have a little space between the two
hands, because it helps you to control the bat with the bottom hand.
If the hands are too close together you just don’t have that much
is a bit more difficult. I think having the bottom hand a little further
away down the bat is especially important against genuine pace. The
orthodox grip is with hands close together, but I don’t find that
gives me enough control against real pace.
I have the top hand right at the very top of the bat though, because
I think it gives me more leverage. Timing the ball is easier the higher
you hold the bat, and straight driving is easier.
Stance
There are two key areas in your stance – the balance, which should
be even on both feet, and the head, which should be completely upright,
keeping the eyes steady, not falling down. The eyes have to be level
to give you the best sight of the ball, and your head has to be completely
still at the point of the bowler’s delivery so that you follow
the ball all the way.
The ideal stance is shown in the pictures – sideways-on, feet
a comfortable distance apart either side of the popping crease, the
bat tucked in behind the back foot with the blade slightly turned in.
that is the ideal orthodox stance. But Graham Gooch has pioneered the
stance with the bat held aloft, and several leading batsmen have adopted
a fairly square-on stance, particularly as they got older. The most
important things to me are to be well-balanced, to have your head still
and level, and to be relaxed and comfortable. Sunil Gavaskar and Viv
Richards both have excellent stances because they are so relaxed.
Balance is vital, because if you have more weight on one foot than the
other it restricts your movement. Your movements are slowed down. You
have to evenly balanced so that you can move either way with equal freedom.
Guard
Against pace my first movement is back and across. My back leg goes
from leg stump to cover middle stump, so I find that taking leg stump
is easiest for me. It helps me to know where my off stump is, but it
is a matter for personal preference.
Pick-up
In classical orthodoxy, the pick-up should be straight and high. At
the risk of infuriating classicists, I’m not sure that either
is important. I will sometimes pick the bat up high against real pace,
but otherwise I prefer a gentle pick-up to the stage where you start
to feel the bat and no further. I think my pick-up is quite straight,
but I’ve seen enough good-class batsmen who don’t pick up
straight to question how important it is. What is vital is that the
bat comes down straight! If it comes down at an angle, coming down so
that you are playing across the line of the ball rather than playing
down the line, then you have got a problem.
It is also said in theory that the pick-up and downswing into the stroke
is one movement. That is fine against slow bowling, when you pick up
once the ball is on the way towards you, but against quick bowling you
need to pick the bat up before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand
so there is bound to be a slight pause between the two movements.
