A couple of taps of the bat as the bowler starts running in.
Optimum backlift, negligible trigger motion, minimal feet movement and bang! No
exaggerated follow through or flourish. Rarely did this series of events skip
VVS Laxman’s batting regime and rarely did his knocks lack élan and flair. Laxman’s
legacy is unparalleled and we often walk down that rich memory lane; more often
it is the reverberating effect of his batting that clings onto our mind, this
piece tries to look through that mechanism!
What worked for Laxman so well - those waxy wrists? being
tall? hand-eye co-ordination? Probably a bit of all, but what stands out in his
batting is the timing. Often players with the gift of precise timing are
attributed with postures straight out of the coaching manuals, but with Laxman
rarely did you find the one-knee-bent cover drives or
quick-feet-using-depth-of-the-crease cross bat shots. Thus those wrists and prominent
back-foot play were principally based on the ability to trigger the bat in sync
with what his eyes saw off the bowler’s hand.
In recent history (of Indian cricket) we have had two test
openers who resemble a similar working principle - Sehwag & Murali Vijay. The
thought of having Sehwag & Laxman in the same bracket for any parameter
itself is outrageous; the intention here is only to study the initial progress
of the respective systems! In all the three cases, the knees aren’t bent too
much while taking stance, the transfer of weight is not obvious visually, the favoured
scoring options happen to be back-foot oriented and on-the-rise drives. Though
each of the three exudes a distinct mood among on-lookers, none of the three
makes for boring/cumbersome viewing whenever they bat for a longer duration.
Time is one another facet that knits the three in one
bracket. Television replays reiterate the length of time such batsmen have and
clearly that is an advantage over predominant front-foot batsmen, especially on
tracks that have true bounce and carry. A superficial observation would suggest
that along with flair comes inconsistency or lack of sustenance of momentum,
associated with certain other rhythm players. A match-winning/impact knock isn’t
necessarily followed by a couple of similar innings for quite some time. Likes
of Sehwag, Vijay and Laxman make batting look easy, lovely and enviable; at the
cost of sharp peaked contour plots rather than long plateau ones!
A possible reason could be the lack of modifications such
players need, courtesy the abundance of natural talent and freedom to flaunt
that. In a way their range of striking areas/shots are bounded, which is not a
bad thing to possess, for that reduces the possibilities of prospective chinks
that might crop up. It also eases the process of finding faults in case of a
poor run of form. Laxman’s batting didn’t change much over the years, neither
did Sehwag’s. If analysed from this perspective, you could probably find that
the 4 year cycle of either batsman doesn’t change much (excluding the age
factor) over the span of respective careers, in comparison to say a Tendulkar
or a Dravid. Vijay has started off on a similar trend - a couple of delightful
long knocks followed by some irritating patchy form. Laxman and Sehwag didn’t
do too badly by not falling to the pressure of maintaining consistency by altering
their style of play; these illustrations might provide a guideline for Vijay -
don’t tinker too much unless your game allows that!
Greater the expectations, greater is the magnitude of
scrutiny. The microscope will always find you if you happen to be a Sehwag or a
Laxman, but somehow an inconsistent opener is a greater problem than an
inconsistent number 5/6. This might prompt the possibility of Sehwag in the
middle-order for the final couple of laps in international cricket. Players who
are technically pivoted on hand eye coordination will always find the moving
ball a bit of a struggle but will enjoy bounce and back-foot play. Vijay is
shaping up beautifully but he needs to guard against these weaknesses if he
intends to have a long test career. Laxman illustrated that if you have good
defence attitude, you can manoeuvre your strengths to smudge your shortcomings.
Sehwag has exemplified that positive attitude coupled with power can allow you
to manipulate your weaknesses. Isn’t this fascinating that players with similar
basic working methodologies can have so distinct career profiles?!
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