The bowler, an off-spinner, has the leg-side field packed. There is a mid-wicket, both conventional and short, a square-leg and a short fine-leg.
The bowler believes he has all the angles covered for a flick or sweep. In the times gone by, he would have been confident of blocking shots in that direction.
The delivery is on the leg- and middle-stump. The batsman nonchalantly pulls out the switch hit, clubbing the ball over cover, against the spin. The field is beaten and the bowlers’ line altered.
The risks associated with the switch-hit are rather high. Only the truly talented can execute it. But the rewards can be immense. The stroke not only fetches the batsman runs, but also enables him to disrupt the rhythm of the bowler.
Serious difficulties
And the captain runs into serious difficulties setting the field. You have fielders on the on-side, the bowler bowls the right line yet the ball is dismissed past vacant spots on the off-side.
On other occasions, the batsman opts to play the reverse sweep; this is an easier option where the batsman does not have to change his grip.
Former England captain John Emburey, an outstanding thinker of the game, conceded, “The reverse sweep completely changed the way we went about our bowling. It became difficult to put fielders in the right positions.”
Another shot — this time from the Twenty20 internationals — is the cheeky stroke over the wicket-keeper's head. The ‘Dil Scoop,’ here the batsman directs the ball over the ‘keeper’s head, hurts the length of the bowlers. Captains struggle to get the field right for this audacious stroke.
The stroke was made famous by intrepid Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan. Subsequently, several batsmen have successfully pulled it off.
If the Switch Hit and Dil Scoop are strokes of skill that have made their way from Twenty20 internationals, the heavier, bigger bats enable the batsman to clear the fence with ease. Even mis-hits land beyond the boundary.
The bowler’s ego takes a pounding. And his figures go for a toss. There are days where, unless there is something in the pitches for either pace bowlers or spinners, a total of around 350 is considered gettable.
Compare it with days in the '80s and '90s when a score in the region of 250 would be challenging.
Super Bats
The willows now are big and strong — in fact, they can be called Super Bats — the boundaries are shrinking and rules favour batsmen. A free hit for a foot fault no-ball is cruel on the bowler. Then there are the restrictions in field and the Power Plays.
It goes without saying that the concept of six-hitting has been diluted.
The crowd wants to see more sixes, and the administrators appear to have stretched every sinew to accomplish that. The game is the loser since if an element as critical as bowling is weakened then cricket will eventually suffer.
Given all these advantages, the batsmen have become emboldened. Many of them are no more than ‘flat-wicket bullies.’
In the rather compressed world of ODI cricket where it can be hard to assess someone’s true worth — look at the difference between a Suresh Raina in the ODIs and in Test cricket — the slew of factors favouring batsmen have made it an uneven contest.
Curators are discouraged from leaving grass on the surface for the ODIs. Yet, thankfully, there can be some life in the tracks in South Africa and Australia because of the hardness of the pitches. And when the wicket has bounce and the ball deviates, many ‘flat-track bullies’ are exposed even in the shorter format.
Mercifully, the use of two new white balls in the forthcoming World Cup might restore some of the balance between the bat and the ball in the ODIs.
Even if reverse swing becomes a casualty, bowlers can strike with conventional swing for longer periods. And the harder ball will bounce more.
