over towards off stump.
Colin Cowdrey once took off stump in the West Indies in 1959–60 against Wes Hall & Co., simply to get himself in line, and it worked for him. This sort of willingness to adjust to change again proves the value of a batsman working things out for himself, rather than automatically accepting the word of the coach who is only going by the book.
Knowing where your stumps are is very important. Shots like this become easier when you can quickly judge the line of the ball.
THE GUARD
Off side opened up more – fewer shots need to be played to leg. Leg stump
Middle or middle-and-leg Need to play more shots ‘round the corner’ which may increase risk of being out lbw.
1 Make your mark clearly.
2 Fix in your mind where your stumps are.
Sometimes, the ‘book’ needs re-writing, and nobody should be afraid of making up his or her own mind, no matter what the so-called experts say.
Another thing to remember, is that just because two batsmen take the same guard, does not mean that they stand in the same place. I always ground my bat behind my right foot, which means I am virtually standing on the line of leg stump. As I have explained, that gives me extra width to play to my off side strength, but other players toe their bat in some way from their foot. I don’t like that because they have to move more and that is not a good thing. The whole point of a guard is to help you know where your off stump is, so that you do not play unnecessary defensive strokes at wide balls.
After all, if a ball is not going to hit the stumps, what are you defending? And of course, the wider the ball, the less of the face of the bat you are able to put to it, so either go for an attacking stroke, or leave it.
The other common fault which springs from grounding the bat away from the back foot, is that it actively encourages a crooked back-lift.
Until I started to explain the basics of preparing to face the music, I never realized how much there is to get right, and I suppose I have been lucky to find so much of what I have advised came to me naturally, without me having to think too much about it. Now I am as anxious as anyone to get the innings under way, so here we go.
PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS
A guard should enable a batsman to play to his strengths, and just how well this works for me can best be seen by looking at a few run charts of my big and best innings.
‘The one that reveals all is of my 118 at Old Trafford against the Australians in 1981. That innings was immeasurably a better knock than the earlier 149 at Headingley, because that was a death or glory slog in an apparently lost cause, but the Manchester innings was one I built so carefully that I only managed five singles in my first 33 deliveries.
‘I then cut loose against the second new ball with 47 out of 52 off 26 deliveries, and did not take much longer to get to three figures.
‘It seemed, even to me, that I had smacked the Aussies all over Old Trafford, but in fact only 18 out of my 118 came in front of the wicket on the leg side. There were two sixes, a four and two singles in that one 90-degree area.
Run charts can be valuable, but never let them affect your natural style.’
2 THE START OF AN INNINGS AND HOW TO BUILD IT
MORE NORMAL APPROACHES
So let me concentrate on more normal innings, and whether you play like me or Geoff Boycott, there are certain common factors to be taken into account.
Let me deal firstly with my own approach. It never bothers me how long I stay on nought after I have come in to bat. Some batsmen are looking to get off the mark straight away with a mid-wicket push for a single. I would rather concentrate for a few deliveries at least, to play ‘in the V’ as we call it – that is the area between mid on and mid off.
Viv Richards is one who loves to slide his foot forward and push a run or two through his favourite mid-wicket area, but you cannot take him as an example of too much because he is a genius. I could not do what he does and he won’t try too much of what I do. We both play to our respective strengths, and that is what coaches should encourage.
When I start batting, the bowler is in between me and what I want to do, so I try to work out the best way of dominating him. Some bowlers cannot take this. They worry, try to change their natural method, and the argument is settled after a few deliveries.
Other more resilient cricketers are tougher nuts to crack. John Emburey is as good an example of this as I can quote, because he has such an unshakable faith in his own ability and method of bowling that he never gets rattled if he gets smashed around. Not that that happens too often, which is why his captains pay him the supreme compliment of entrusting the closing overs of a one-day match to him.
Somehow, I want to introduce my natural aggression into proceedings as soon possible. I keep coming back to aggression, because it is such an integral part of my game and approach, but I recognize that it takes different forms with different players. For instance, many people regarded Geoff Boycott as a run machine who ground his runs out, rather than give rein to a lot of the flair I know he had. Flair which only occasionally in one-day cricket used to be unwrapped, but I knew was always there, having travelled the world with him.
I have watched him in the nets countless times, where he has played all the shots, only to go in and revert to type. I used to think that was illogical, but he would argue it was done to get rid of his aggression before he started his innings, because he was then more likely to produce the sort of big innings needed in Test cricket.
I thought that a wrong approach, but it made him such a great run scorer, who can argue?
Whatever I have been accused of, when on the surface I have got out to a silly, irresponsible shot, nobody can ever say that I have been short of self-belief. I know that on my day I can destroy an attack, and turn a match right round in a short space of time. I think I am helped by batting at five or six, because the match situation has started to develop by then, and much of what I do can be viewed in that context, compared with those top order players who try to shape events.
They shape, and sometimes I try to change – there is the big difference. But I can only change things because I believe in myself, whereas there are quite a few cricketers who sell themselves short, because they do not fully believe in themselves.
