Custom Bats Cricket Forum
General Cricket => Cricket Training, Fitness and Injuries => Topic started by: brokenbat on January 05, 2015, 05:53:39 PM
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How I broke my game and then fixed it again
In this day and age of batting coaches and mentors, there is much to be said for driving self-improvement oneself
Ed Cowan..January 5, 2015
When your feet and hands talk to each other, the runs start to flow © Getty Images
I recently stumbled upon a short but wonderful five-minute video on a camouflaging octopus. Its climax featured it changing its colour and texture to make it look like the surrounding coral.
It provoked thoughts about my own evolution and the impact our environment has on our behaviours. Slowly I started to piece the narrative of my cricket growth together. More specifically, how my own batting had changed and shifted, sometimes subconsciously, other times deliberately, to adapt to various conditions around the country and the world. I realised that what I occasionally thought was right was, in fact, inhibiting my game. Imagine the octopus camouflaged as coral in the middle of the Sahara.
Growing up, I had always tapped my bat in a relaxed and rhythmic manner at the crease. My batting was natural and flowing, and though I had no knowledge of its benefits, my "technique" allowed me to score freely around the ground. Of course I still had deficiencies - some days it felt like I had magnets in my front pad and the ball was made of iron - but I was learning about the game. I enjoyed the feeling of being able to hit the ball where I wanted by simply picking up my bat, moving my foot to where I thought it was going to bounce and swinging. If I wanted to hit the ball a fraction later, on top of the bounce, my hands would allow for a change in bat speed, as they were moving as required and in sync with my feet.
I enjoyed being an aggressive opening batsman with a good defence. I got caught at long-on too often off the spinners in the exuberance of youth, but it always felt like my risk-taking was calculated. My batting lacked consistency, but when it was on, it was on. I thought I understood my game, my limitations, but in hindsight I understood the feeling of rhythmical batting and that the hunger to score runs relied on a clear mind and the reliance on a manageable routine. That was about it. I played the game generally with a smile - scoring runs is fun after all. Writing about it now makes it sound like it was too good to be true.
The first significant evolution came when I entered professional cricket at 21. I had always played the pull shot, but I quickly realised playing the short ball at 140kph was a different proposition. Ducking and weaving became my modus operandi. In the modern era, no one escapes trial by video, and word spread to not let the kid drive. "Push him back, he won't hurt you unless you feed the cut." Run-scoring slowed and my ribs were generally bruised.
I loved the challenge of opening the batting, but my enjoyment of my own batting started to wane. I found it hard to appreciate the days I did score runs. I always felt like the handbrake was on
The following pre-season, I vowed to stay one step ahead of the opposition by finding my pull shot afresh: if played efficiently and selectively, it would force the bowlers to pitch it up and allow me to play my favoured drives. For months I practised facing tennis balls out of a bowling machine at abnormally fast speeds. I found by holding my bat off the ground, as high as the top of my pad, I got a little head start. Time I thought, was what I needed.
The second ball of the season was a bouncer from Andy Bichel, and out of pure instinct I pulled it over square leg. I could see a look of bemusement in his eye as he growled an expletive. With this slight camouflage I had adapted to my new professional environment. Not to say it was perfect. Some days my hands would drift from my back hip and I would slice across the ball, but I told myself you have to give something to get something, and it generally felt like the trade-off had been a fair one.
The second major adaptation in my technique came after spending 12 months in Tasmania. Our home wicket was a seaming monster and driving on it a very risky proposition. Fielders would be loaded behind the wicket, licking their lips, ready to lap up any half-mistake. Batting was hard work but I loved it. You had to grind, play the ball late and cautiously, and be prepared to be in at tea to get a big first-innings score.
With a big red cross against the drive, I started to hold my bat up higher off the ground, like a baseballer at the mound in what proved a highly effective position to cut and pull. It was also a great position to just drop the bat into the line of the ball for a forward defence. The bat would generally come down at one pace. It was certainly repeatable and it felt little could go wrong. It took the variation out of batting. Risk-free almost, but with no risk comes little reward. Ironically, due to the plane of the swing, it also helped my one-day cricket "slog" over cow corner, and with the emergence of the BBL, it felt like a decent technique to apply across formats.
I would hide the deficiency of not being able to drive with any power by practising with a sawed-off bat, ensuring I got low into my drives to compensate for not having a swing at the ball, as well as having an overly wide stance. My footwork relied on a heavy forward commitment that was the only way to create any power down the ground. If in sync it still felt good, but flowing batting was rarely the order of the day. I was hard to get out but rarely dominant. Batting had become mechanical and success relied on the mental strength of resistance: defend, don't get out for long enough and you will walk off with some well-grafted runs. I had found a method that generally worked in my environment and I was going to stick to it.
The first person who alerted me to the dangers of my new technique was Greg Chappell - a natural maestro and modern great of the game. You would think he had decent credentials for me to value his opinion and perhaps heed his advice. I politely declined. I had just scored my first hundred for Australia A and was feeling pretty good about my game. I would prove him wrong, I thought. Despite my bubble being limited, it was comfortably consistent. I kept telling myself, "It's not how but how many." Looking back, I was being stubborn, as though it was just another hurdle to overcome, another challenge to rise to.
The height of my bat admittedly fluctuated depending on whom I was playing and where and how I was feeling, but slowly and surely I started to resemble a caricature of myself. My stance got wider, my hands slowly slipping further ahead of my back hip. As a job, I loved the challenge of opening the batting, but my enjoyment of my own batting started to wane. I found it hard to appreciate the days I did score runs. I always felt like the handbrake was on. I struggled to watch footage of myself. I wanted to change, but it is either a courageous or incredibly stupid man who would do this in the middle of a series or season. The stakes had become too high.
By this stage, I was acting it all out on the brightly lit stage of international cricket. The game at this level felt largely mental. I knew my limitations and I was prepared to not swim outside the flags, so to speak. I found myself exhausted by the time I had ground my way to 30 or so, and would eventually get out having put little pressure on the bowler. My opening partnership success with David Warner was forged on his innate ability to smack it around and my ability to not get out too cheaply more often than not. I was a ball de-shiner. Or so it felt. His tank was full of premium unleaded to my diesel. Some days we got there just the same, but he would often roar like an F1 to my farm tractor.
An Australian legend of a different kind was the next to try and help, offering the advice that I would find freedom if I narrowed my stance and tapped my bat. This time it was coming from a friend. Justin Langer's words, unlike Chappell's, felt fatherly. He had spent hours with me honing my game and was invested. I went out and batted for him every time I crossed the rope. He mentioned it once in the West Indies during a rain break, but he also knew of the difficulties of changing the recipe on demand. He mentioned it again last season as it became more and more clear that my camouflage had worn off and I was a sitting duck to the predatory bowlers around the country.
And so to the present and the latest adaptation: the winter of 2014 saw my first "off season" in three years. Finally an opportunity to not just fine-tune but rebuild the car from scratch. The game as a travelling professional is now a 12-month gig, which in itself has its drawbacks when you're trying to make improvements to your game. It only feels like you are picking up little gains, and directing more attention towards competing week in, week out. There is little time to step back, take stock and go about putting the parts backs together.
I set about finding my 20-year-old self who had made the game so simple. I started to tap the bat and pick it up only when it was required. Within ten minutes I felt like a bird released from its cage. The ball started to fly purely off the face of the willow as it is meant to - with little effort and an ease that only comes when your feet and hands are talking to each other like loving siblings. That is not to say this guarantees more runs, but I feel like at least I am giving myself the best chance.
I set about finding my 20-year-old self who had made the game so simple. I started to tap the bat and pick it up only when it was required. Within ten minutes I felt like a bird released from a cage
Having made the change, and enjoying the freedom it is providing, it seems that history is also on my side - a shot of the top 15 Australian run scorers in Test and first-class cricket recently appeared on our change-room wall. The photos were taken as the bowler was in his delivery stride. All but one batsman has his bat touching the ground. Admittedly most then move their bat upwards as the ball is leaving the hand, ready to pounce.
Imitation, they say, is the greatest form of flattery. For years Australians would mock English batting techniques as structured and complicated, and yet we have a generation of Australian cricketers replicating their styles. Cricket on television is an important medium for skill development, but also turns the players into imitators. Trying to bat like your favourite player is akin to a teenage girl wanting to dress like Kim Kardashian. Perhaps in their formative years of the mid-2000s - years that saw such English dominance (think Cook, Pietersen and Bell at their best) - youngsters jumped ship on the "Australian way" and imitated those succeeding at the time.
Finding your way as a young professional brings you up against the ultimate paradox. You may try to find consistency to ensure a lengthy career in a tough but financially rewarding environment by minimising risk and simply "surviving", but this will no doubt diminish your ability to put pressure on the bowlers. The more pressure the bowler feels, the more likely they are going to serve up more run-scoring balls and fewer wicket-taking ones. Even in this day and age of travelling batting coaches, analysts, mentors and batting gurus, the journey to find improvement and how you want to play is self-driven. Effective coaching is as much about leading the horse to the trough and allowing self-discovery, as arousing its interest in a drink.
The tide, though, it seems, is turning. I have seen Adam Voges in recent seasons - perhaps at the suggestion of Langer - go back to his natural best, George Bailey and Tim Paine, both fine players and as naturally gifted as they come, too have returned to tapping their bats in recent weeks and months.
Writing about my own batting seems a little self-indulgent, but the motive is simply to illuminate my journey and self-discovery in what has been a ten-year batting evolution. Perhaps if just one young cricketer retains his naturalness then the self-indulgence will be worthwhile.
Ed Cowan is a top-order batsman with Tasmania and Australia, and the author of In the Firing Line
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That could be the most important pre season advice ever and nets have not started yet!!
Having made some adjustments to my game last year-and not doing very well-this is an excellent way of looking at batting
Food for thought :)
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What an interesting read that shows the even the top players continually review their game and have to make changes to their technique.
Thanks for posting
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Probably should have just got more bats from his sponsor if the current ones weren't working very well.......
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What an interesting read that shows the even the top players continually review their game and have to make changes to their technique.
Thanks for posting
I didn't quite get how tapping the bat leads to more power...but I think it's vecause it makes the bat go up at the *right* time (when ball about to be released) as opposed to raising your bat too early, which presumably can hurt timing.
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Probably should have just got more bats from his sponsor if the current ones weren't working very well.......
If you didn't know much about cricket and read this forum your think that was the way to improve your game!
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huge fan of this article, thanks for posting
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Excellent article and certainly food for thought. Over the preseason, i have thought and tried out all sorts of little changes. Like Cowan says, it's about a mindset as well as technique.
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What a refreshing article. Gives you the feeling there's hope for us all.
Copied, pasted and filed.
Thanks for posting, brokenbat.
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Great article,all young cricketers should read it.
I followed the same path, started off batting naturally, hitting boundaries then got coached the Essex graham gooch raised bat way, before spending the next 10 years trying every different technique to enjoy my batting again and not make it such hard work. I came across a mark waugh clip on you tube, he made batting look so simple i tried to copy....tap the bat! Batting felt fun and natural again, a few seasons of tinkering and finding my natural game again and watching ponting bat has led me to a happy place and more runs. Beware of coaches over coaching!
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What a refreshing article. Gives you the feeling there's hope for us all.
Copied, pasted and filed.
Thanks for posting, brokenbat.
always happy to share other people's pearls of wisdom.. not sure how tapping the bat helps one be more fluent though.. any insight on this? is just a function of better timing and being more "in sync" with the bowler?
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Most modern players tap the bat, but still raise the bat before the bowler hits the crease - not 'naturally', so to speak. Two notable exceptions I can think of: Gilchrist and Flintoff.
Any recent footage of Cowan batting, anywhere?
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always happy to share other people's pearls of wisdom.. not sure how tapping the bat helps one be more fluent though.. any insight on this? is just a function of better timing and being more "in sync" with the bowler?
purely based on my experience, nothing scientific i feel more relaxed in a more orthodox stance i.e. Bat down, naturally picking up on anticipation of the bowlers release and able to focus on the ball rather than thinking about where my bat is. Being more upright makes me feel more static and rigid. Having gone back to the more orthodox stance over the last 5 years my batting feels more fluid and results in better timing. I guess its a bit like a golfers swing, if you were to start only at the top of the swing you may get a tad more accuracy but lose timing and momentum in the shot. Having said that some pros have had great success with an upright stance, Gooch, Trescothick, but if you look at the best bats they generally have an orthodox stance, Lara, tendulka, ponting, sangakarra.
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always happy to share other people's pearls of wisdom.. not sure how tapping the bat helps one be more fluent though.. any insight on this? is just a function of better timing and being more "in sync" with the bowler?
I dont think its about the bat tapping, i think what he is saying is that thats what is naturaql for him and even though he has been all round the houses trying to sort his technique and perfect it, he has come back to what came naturally in the first place.
Isn't that what the article is about? Having a balance between good technique and feeling natural/comfortable?
thats what ive taken from it anyway
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purely based on my experience, nothing scientific i feel more relaxed in a more orthodox stance i.e. Bat down, naturally picking up on anticipation of the bowlers release and able to focus on the ball rather than thinking about where my bat is. Being more upright makes me feel more static and rigid. Having gone back to the more orthodox stance over the last 5 years my batting feels more fluid and results in better timing. I guess its a bit like a golfers swing, if you were to start only at the top of the swing you may get a tad more accuracy but lose timing and momentum in the shot. Having said that some pros have had great success with an upright stance, Gooch, Trescothick, but if you look at the best bats they generally have an orthodox stance, Lara, tendulka, ponting, sangakarra.
Yh exactly last season I played with an upright stance but didn't have much success with it. I was always worrying was my bat in the right place or should I lift it higher or move it more towards the slips. I like the orthodox stance because I'm not distracted by my bat position. I can play with better timing and lot later which I couldn't really do with an upright stance but saying that Mohammad Yousuf was really gd at playing late and had impeccable timing
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I dont think its about the bat tapping, i think what he is saying is that thats what is naturaql for him and even though he has been all round the houses trying to sort his technique and perfect it, he has come back to what came naturally in the first place.
Isn't that what the article is about? Having a balance between good technique and feeling natural/comfortable?
thats what ive taken from it anyway
exactly as I read the article,less about technique,more about what is natural.As far as having the bat down rather than 'up' maybe it's just me but I found it impossible last night to have the bat down without bending right over so you head is facing cover-which is no good at all
if you are upright-eyes level and both eyes looking down the pitch the bat has to come up around the hip. I do suffer from a bad back thou...
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playing with an upright stance can create tension through the body which isn't helpful - tapping at the crease isn't the solution but it is a go way of getting relaxed at the crease, which is good and works for some people. I have seen batsmen creating tension from tapping the bat so hard against the the ground.
The message in the article is to find a comfortable way to bat that is as close to your "natural" method as possible and to be comfortable and relaxed at the crease.
this is very similar to the use of a trigger movement - the idea is that it frees you up to move more naturally - but what works for one person wont work for another, you need to find what works for you.
having a double tap on the ground and standing still at the crease works for me - but that isn't the same for everyone...
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play against some under 13 kids in the nets for a little ......... film it
then paly against your 1st team bowlers .... film it
just look at the difference in your stance
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I always try and remember how I bat when I am going well at the crease ie. I have my eye in with runs on the board . It's surprising how natural and instinctive your movements become, but it's so difficult to replicate when you first go in to bat.
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I quite like this one too... The anecdote about the axe is an interesting one.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/792155.html (http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/792155.html)
Why the perfect technique is the one that disappears
The various acts that are involved in playing cricket well happen best intuitively, when we aren't consciously perfection in them
Ed Smith
October 27, 2014
Last weekend I was chopping firewood with an axe in my garden. The trick, obviously, is to land the blade of the axe in roughly the same part of the trunk every time. Each accurately aimed blow widens a V-shaped wedge, until, eventually, you cut through the whole tree. If you're inaccurate, you end up stabbing the trunk and messily scarring the firewood.
I was surprised by what I noticed. When I concentrated intently on the spot I was aiming for, when I tried to be precise and particular, I was in fact quite clumsy. But when I merely casually noted the target and focused more on the rhythm of the swing and the naturalness of the motion, I found that the axe landed in exactly the right spot. In fact, every single "good swing" - by which I mean something lazy, fluid, languid, with the weight of the blade being first unweighted then dropping almost casually - ended in hitting the target.
Accuracy was best served not by trying to be accurate, but by a sense of rhythm. Precision was achieved not by seeking it but by absorption in free, uninhibited (but not wild or uncontrolled) movement. When I tried to force the axe to go exactly where I wanted, it rarely did. When I allowed myself to work with the axe, it cooperated.
Eventually I realised this is exactly like batting.
We talk too much about "watching the ball", as though straining to identify the target is always the answer. (This is my second article challenging central tenets of the coaching manual - the first took issue with the "head still" theory.) In fact, a batsman can watch the ball too anxiously, to the point that the process inhibits his response to the ball. Instead, we have to be alert to the ball, to get in sync with it, to match the rhythm of the shot with the arrival of the ball. And these things happen best intuitively, when we aren't consciously pursuing them.
This is not a new idea. It was articulated by the golfer James Baird in 1914. He criticised players who fixate with desperate intensity on the point of impact. Instead, in a good swing, "The dispatching of the ball from the tee by the driver in the downward swing is merely an incident of the whole business [my italics]." A few years ago, I chatted about golf with Colin Montgomerie at Gleneagles. He took a few swings exactly as Baird suggested: the ball was almost incidental, a momentary obstacle in the natural movement of the club. The swing happened, the ball just got in the way.
That is not always easy, especially in cricket, when the ball is moving. I've never liked the cliché that cricket is "a simple game". All taken together, the art of batsmanship is very complex - the tension between attack and defence; the balance between protecting against lbws and yet not opening up the edge to the slips; the ability to transfer weight decisively forward and back; sustaining concentration, switching on and off.
And yet most batsmen would agree that when they're doing it well, batting feels simple and natural, sometimes even easy. Bowling is the same. Every fast bowler I've known, when asked why he was able to bowl so fast and well on a particular day, tends to answer, "Because I had good rhythm." I've not heard one bowler yet reply, "Because I tried harder and thought more intently."
The best coach I worked with would sometimes stand behind the nets with his eyes closed. He'd listen to the bowler's steps arriving at the crease, the noise of the batsman's footwork, the thud of the ball on the turf, and finally the crack of leather on willow. "That was good," he'd say, "you had rhythm." Or sometimes, "No, you had no touch, no finesse." All with his eyes closed, or with his body turned away from the net. And he'd be right, every time. The coach was able to distinguish between the right process (an open and uninhibited mindset, a lack of predetermination, a natural swing of the bat) and the outcome of the shot in narrow terms. He knew that if you play a high enough proportion of good shots, the runs will inevitably follow.
Because the important things are hard to coach, it is tempting to take refuge in the small, irrelevant things because they are easy
There is a mystical element here. By crudely reducing things in the hope of "explaining them", we often simply distort them. Batting is not like rummaging around in a bag of machinery, looking for a pre-moulded tool. Instead, it is the ability to answer a question posed by a particular ball - batting as a form of conversation. As every ball is slightly different, so is every good shot. As Roger Federer put it brilliantly, "I need a different point every time."
In elite sport we overstate the importance of trying hard. After all, players are highly incentivised to do well (money, glory, fame - need we go on?). Conversely we hugely underestimate the value of achieving that sense of lightness and freedom - the feeling I had swinging the axe, and, sometimes, when I was swinging a cricket bat. There is truth in the cliché: "You learn about batting when you've already scored a hundred." What you learn is how good you could be if you learned always to trust yourself, to play free from restraints and anxiety, without the suffocating influence of what Arsene Wenger calls "handbrake-age".
The question follows, obvious but very rarely addressed: how can we make batting and bowling feel easy more often, given that is the feeling we get when we are doing them well?
First, we misunderstand technique. Technique is not a thing, an object that can be owned. It is a means. The goal is not technique but to hit the ball sweetly. Technique allows us to do it better, to achieve that goal more often and completely. For that reason, the perfect technique is the technique that disappears: it is no longer in the way. We are not conscious of it at all. We track the ball, swing the bat in rhythm, and everything else organises itself intuitively.
Secondly, we overstate the value of rational intelligence and analysis. I am not sure that the subject of this article can be "coached" in the conventional sense of the word. Coaches can help you to understand the process, perhaps even help you get there more quickly. But, at best, the coach can only support and enable a journey that the player must undertake on his own.
Because the important things are hard to coach, it is tempting to take refuge in the small, irrelevant things because they are easy. Too much bottom hand, getting squared up, playing too early, closing the face of the bat? All symptoms, but unlikely to be the ultimate cause. That is probably much simpler and yet harder to put right: the bat isn't working as part of your body but in opposition to it.
As the literary critic Steven Connor wrote about tennis: "If I wish the racket to become me, I must first become it, or become the kind of me that it requires and will most readily respond to."