The products of Evolution

Written by holdingwilley

Thursday, 27 September 2007

A tournament consisting of a new format being tested for the first time on a global platform provides the perfect environment for new patterns, ideas, shots, deliveries to evolve and present themselves on the International stage.

The Twenty20 World Cup had its share of new findings which will probably stay on for some time to come. Here are five interesting trends that came through during the T20 World Championship, which made for interesting viewing.

1) The scoop-over-Short-Third-Man

Also known as 'The Ashraful', thanks to the Bangladeshi's extraordinary proficiency in playing the stroke, the scoop represents on of the biggest ironies of the tournament, and adds that little bit of poetry to an already dramatic and exhilarating tournament.

Although seen making sporadic apperances in several ODI games before the T20 World Cup, it hadn't taken centrestage and accepted as a regular, conventional run-scoring tool until this tournament. While it has its share of risks - there are many ways you can get out playing that shot, none of which you should mention when in the company of Misbah-Ul-haq. It saw it's finest execution when Ashraful scooped Pollock over the 'keeper, over third man, and over the fence to pull off one of the finest sixes of the tournament.

It was the shot that had given many batsmen many runs in the tournament, and had won many games, but it will always go down as the shot that cost Misbah-Ul-Haq and Pakistan the tournament.

2) Dropped catches

It was almost like an epidemic, to the extent that towards the end of the tournament when the ball lobbed up into the sky and out of an outfield fielder's hands, it would cease to annoy you, and would be met with resignation more than anger or frustration.

When the West Indians spilled three vital sitters in their opening game against South Africa, everyone had a good time laying it on the Windies and shaking our heads at the general incompetence in the outfield. This manner of reaction needed to be checked if a sprained neck by the end of the tournament had to be avoided, because dropping catches was turning out to be a regular feature. Like a good Government policy, the epidemic abstained from discrimination of any sort and afflicted players from all countries, all backgrounds, traditionally good fielders, notoriously bad fielders all alike.

While the number of misses have been too many to try and figure out the impact they could have had on the eventual flow of the tournament, a notable miss that forms the most recent memory is Hafeez dropping Rohit Sharma at long on, with the ball bouncing of his haplessly vacant palms and landing beyond the ropes.

The extra runs it gave India? Six. The margin by which Pakistan lost to India? Five. That is probably a very exaggerated and dramatic way to portray the drop, but, well, there it is.

3) The late release

With plenty of innovation shown by the batsmen, who did everything from charging (or sometimes, walking) down the pitch, walking across the stumps, jumping up and about to create space for shots, the bowlers now needed to read batsmen's mind. The percentages in doing this became higher since many of the new-fangled shots were premeditated.

Bowlers like Pathan and Pollock brought back a good, old but very rarely used trick - that of leaving the grip over the bowl a little longer, and releasing the ball a little later than they would normally do. This would give them the time to read the batsman's position and put the bowl in the right areas, in addition to putting doubts in the batsmen's mind.

The trick had some dodgy areas to sort out before it could be used. Firstly it required great control by the bowler as a mistake would mean that either the bowl would go for a wide or a beamer (two of those and you are out of the attack). Secondly, the trick reduced the speed of the ball, which had both, positive and negative implications. Positive because the batsmen could now not use the pace of the bowlers. Negative because it did actually give some time to the batsman and a good batsman could well utilise the time to impart significant damage. Lastly, a badly executed late release would result in a slow, short pitch delivery which is the sort of thing batsmen around the world ask the lord to provide alongside their daily bread.

But all said and done, it is a weapon that has given bowlers a fair amount of success already. A look at the variety a fast bowler now has when bowling in the dying overs of the fifty over game gives us some indication how lethal they are going to be.

4) The front-foot-shift-heave

Gayle got the tournament off with an invention (not an entirely original one, though) which is likely to stay back and make itself comfortable in Twenty20 cricket for some time to come, and possibly pay ODI cricket some regular visits as well.

The mechanics are simple. Move your front leg away towards mid-wicket to give yourself room opening your stance up, with the back leg rooted to anchor the body, and now set, bring your power into play and choose from anywhere on the arc between Third-man and Long on to smash the ball for a big hit. That's the easy way to put it. To execute it, of course, you need to be Gayle, Gibbs or someone from that zone of big-hitting prowess.

This shot, incidentally, made a brief appearance in International cricket in mid-2001, when Saurav Ganguly introduced it to good effect against the South African pace attack in a tri-nation ODI series (also featuring Kenya, who got duly whacked). The reason it hasn't come into centrestage the way it has now was that it was used infrequently, and sporadically, and thus camouflaged as any other general slog shot.

5) Slower, smarter, stronger.

Before the tournament, laying a wager on Afridi winning the Man of the Series award would have been considered a fair bet. But picking Afridi to win the player of the tournament on merit of his bowling alone would have been a far stretch.

A surprisingly consistent trend seen through the World Championship was the respect given to the bowlers - primarily by the viewers, the media, the commentators and observers of the game, and besides that, to a certain, also by the batsmen. Innings which wound up between 100 and 130 outnumbered those which stretched beyond 200.

Bowlers came in cleverer and with more variety than ever before, ready to face the onslaught, which, on many occasions, they managed to successfully quell. The body of Twenty20 games we have now seen has proved fairly conclusively that there is enough that T20 offers bowlers if they have a big heart. Bowlers now have more tricks and experience to bowl under such tough conditions, and will have a cool nerve when faced with an assault. The heat is now on the batsmen.

(Click here for more on the Twenty20 World Championship)

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