No.18 - Learn to Leave the Good Ball (With Video!)

Hello Everyone!

We all know the urge to hit every ball within striking distance while batting in cricket.

But, when a good length ball is swinging away from the batter, the shot we play to the ball we expect to land in the hitting zone may not be the shot we want to play to a ball that is swinging away late, thus enticing the batter to play a drive.

Batting against swing bowling needs a good judgement of where your wickets are, you also need to be quick to gauge whether to play the ball early or late or leave the ball completely. Depending on how much the ball is swinging and which way? Inswing or outswing ?

For instance in the case of an outswing ball, we also understand and accept that a ball swinging away from a batter is more lethal than a ball swinging into the batter. When a ball swings away, there is no second line of defence. While when a ball swings in, there is a second line of defence in terms of a bat and pad. As long as we have got the bat down on time and in line, an inside edge would at the most thud into our pads.But an outside edge will go into the keepers hands or to slips.

The Drill

To begin we mark our wickets with numbers 1 : Leg stump, 2 : Middle stump and 3 off stump. We also create a few extra stumps, either by planting them next to number 3 as number 4, 5, 6 and 7 . Or by simply marking them next to the off stump at a distance of 4.5 Inches each stump.

We have to gauge the distance behind us from stump 1 to stump 7, its around 22.5 Inches, approximately under 2 Feet. Out of which we have to protect a width of 9 inches, 3 Inches less than one foot, for a better perspective of distance, the stumps number 1 and 3 have a distance of 9 inches between them, which means every stump is planted at 4.5 Inches distance from each other, similarly the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th stumps, are located that far away from the 3rd stump, and when the ball is not heading towards your wickets, why play at it?

Let it go, that takes a certain breath out of the bowler to go back and bowl at the same spot again.

We now have 7 stumps.

When the feeder throws the ball, we have to predict which stump line the ball is coming in at and then decide whether to play it or leave it . When we leave a ball, we also tell the bowler or feeder what line we reckon the ball was coming in at – 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th.

With the presence of stumps, when we leave a ball, we have to guess what line before turning around at the stumps to see which one fell. We continue getting throw downs until we get a better judgement of the line of the ball, which one to defend or play at and which one to leave.