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Originally Posted by Rachael There's too much **** talked about batting: it ain't difficult! Go and ask Mark Richardson about it: you don't have to have the timing, touch and grace of Gower to be a Test batsman... you just need to work at it. Occupy the crease and you'll do a job for the team. Stay there long enough and the runs will follow. The key thing is just to play within your limitations: most batsmen are only found wanting when they start looking to play shots they don't have - and at no 7 you don't need to do that.
If he wasn't able to bowl eight months I suspect Lee could become a useful Test opener. He'd never play like Barry Richards... but he's already got one thing going for him in that he recognises that the bat isn't a means of self-defense. Pietersen would do well to learn that lesson... and Lara for that matter: they both fend balls off their body with the bat. Lee knows that's a way of getting out and doesn't do it - I know which approach impresses me more.
If you're a big guy, you play with a straight bat, you get forward to anything pitched on the stumps, you drop your hands to anything short of a length and you have the discipline (note: no talent needed, just discipline) to not go chasing wide deliveries.... you'll do fine. Lee has the right head on his shoulders and with a good coach I'm sure the rest can follow. |
Sometimes you do write some things I find hilarious.
As someone who was an allrounder and faced bowlers and batsmen in my earlier days who went on to a FC and Test level, I find it strange that you would say batting is not difficult.
It is. Unequivocably so.
Though Mark Richardson might have made something of a career whilst not having the finer qualities of Gower, as you say, does not mean any Tom, Dick or Harry can just work on it and become some lower middle order genius.
Those who are ale to do so already had that ability and just enhanced it. Richardson had lesser talent than most and made better use of it, but he had a slice of talent none the less.
You state occupying your crease as if that in itself is something that does not require a degree of skill.
I played against guys who probably bowled 80mph and a couple who probably broke 90mph at times.
Discipline alone does not allow you to judge what to play and what to leave. Batsmen are found wanting the most when they improperly execute or choose a shot to a ball.
Now considering the time needed to judge what ball you are receiving (even for a slow bowler it is short in reailty) and to get in the proper place etc... that is understandable.
That is why those with the TALENT are the ones feted and the ones with lesser or none are mentioned in "What happened to him?" articles.
Now I could go on and elaborate that the reason history had found so few players who have excelled at both disciplines is because the skill or talent sets needed are rarely present in one body.
You can be as disciplined as you like, if you ain't got it, you ain't got it.
Now Brett Lee, is a better batsman than most bowlers but the idea he could become a useful Test opener makes me chuckle.
Never going to happen.
Let's not go crazy.
And the idea that Brett Lee's approach suits you more than say, Lara's approach says nothing about batting just something about yourself.
And don't take that in a negative way. One man or woman's meat....and all that.
Secondly, as someone who is 2m tall (the very definition of a big guy) and one who apparently has it so easy at bowling too, your description of how to bat is so simplistic as if to not say anything at all.