Custom Bats Cricket Forum
General Cricket => Cricket Training, Fitness and Injuries => Topic started by: jamferg on May 22, 2018, 12:43:13 PM
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I'm Really struggling with balls down my legs, both short and full length. I'm a left handed bat and I've always been fairly decent off my legs. The last few innings though I've missed everything bar the odd desperate, frustrated sweep..
I bat on middle /leg guard and I've open up my stance.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Jim
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I am not expert but maybe you moving towards off paying full length hence missing and playing too early or late on short delivery resulting same.
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More info might be helpful - usually missing out on your legs is a result of either falling over to the offside, playing across the ball trying to hit it to fine leg or planting your front foot forward and then missing the ball playing around it. Given you say you've usually been good off your pads, maybe you've started falling over for some reason? What seems the likely problem if any.
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@jamferg
It is hard to diagnose such problems with such little information but there are a few possibilities:
A. If you wear glasses or contacts or have stigmatism in your eyes, I suggest getting your prescription checked. I had my eyes examined recently and I found that prescription in one Eye had changed pretty drastically.
B. Head position and alignment. Check how your head is positioned for those kinds of deliveries and whether anything is getting in the way like a helmet grill or just rotation of your head of movement that is too early or too late.
C. Do you trigger? Try without triggering
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Try opening up your front foot Jim. Not your stance but just have front foot pointing to mid off rather than cover point. If that makes sense. Worked for me.
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I'm with @edge on this one. I had a coaching session a couple of years back and the coach got me to stand up taller as my head was making me fall over to the offside, therefore being too far away from anything on leg. Also planting your front foot early means you can't play around it. I had/have all of these faults too, the amount of runs i've missed down leg in my career is criminal!
Good luck with it.
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The two usual culprits are the head falling away to the offside so your momentum is taking you away from where you are trying to hit the ball or planting the front foot early then having to play round your front pad making it difficult to access the ball.
If you have access to the facilities, I would suggest getting someone to.film you whilst batting against a bowling machine set up to deliver balls on your legs so you can watch it back and see what is going wrong
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I'm Really struggling with balls down my legs,
Narf!!! How can I pass that up!!!
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Cheers guys ( and Mr Cat 🙄🤣) I Bat without helmet and consciously try to keep eyes level. I suspect I do plant foot too straight and play round pad. Like idea of point foot straighter and I need to wait for these ball. Standard not high so I really have to wait for ball.
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I have this issue, last year a took a much more positive trigger movement in an attempt to get my head over the ball but it has hurt my balance when it comes to leg side shots... in the nets i have tried a back foot trigger and found it enabled me to stay up right for longer and pick up the middle and leg line better and subsequently play leg side shots with way more success... i have relied on my front foot driving for so long that i just pick up that line and lengh a lot soon and as such have more time to still get forward even if my trigger is more “backward” i think staying tall is the key... it gives better wight distribution and makes it way easier to get the bat around your pads.... i do find i’m Getting squared up a bit more than i used too but at my standard those deliveries are few and far between and so the runs out way the risk in my view.
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Ricky Ponting tip I picked up last week for anyone falling over - line yourself up and watch the ball with your right eye (for a RH bat). Simple as that, your left eye is closer to the bowler so it can be natural to line up on that which leads to falling over, right eye lines you up nicely.
I tried it as hadn't been lining my leg side shots up as well as I'd like, immediately belted everything anywhere near my pads, highly recommend.
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Ricky Ponting tip I picked up last week for anyone falling over - line yourself up and watch the ball with your right eye (for a RH bat). Simple as that, your left eye is closer to the bowler so it can be natural to line up on that which leads to falling over, right eye lines you up nicely.
I tried it as hadn't been lining my leg side shots up as well as I'd like, immediately belted everything anywhere near my pads, highly recommend.
Nice
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Have a bowling machine session with balls set on a good to full length on your pads. Even though it’s a machine the line will still vary slightly. Try and hit everything back past the machine in the V, ideally to mid on. Start easy just getting a bat on it and progress to full blooded shots. At some point in the session something will click and you will murder it through midwicket/square leg (depending on your personal way of going about such a shot)
It can take ten minutes or 2 good length sessions, but persist with it.
As you’ve always been fine I suspect it’s not a major technical problem. I’m saying that without the advantage of seeing you before and after this problem of course but I’d hope your mates would point out a major stance or technical change. The advice about having a look at your head alignment is good but to be honest everyone’s head moves to the offside to some degree or another, it’s inevitable. If you are really falling over badly then as mentioned your teammates should have pointed it out.
I think of the shot as quite an instinctive one rather than a set list of technical steps to follow. Some people have that impressive ‘pickup’ over square leg that looks effortless, others seem to be able to almost middle it to fine leg. When speaking to players who are strong on the legside their feedback seems to consistently be along the lines of ‘I don’t really know what I do, I just hit it’
I’ve done the above exercise dozens of times with customers and it works, it’s like a lightbulb moment, after farting around for a while, then hitting them nicely through mid on, they will nail some into their preferred legside area and then I see the look on their face. ‘Oh. I CAN hit it there’
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Try to shadow practice keeping a ball on the ground outside your legstump. And when you shadow practice move your right shoulder (you are left handed??) towards the ball. Practice this for a week or more To build muscle memory, you will automatically start moving your body towards the ball.
Note: shoulder towards the ball automatically forces head + feet and body weight towards the ball.
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Thanks all - really looking forward to trying these tips
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Make sure you are able yo wiggle your toes in your stance. That way you are nice and balanced znd head is not falling over
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Ricky Ponting tip I picked up last week for anyone falling over - line yourself up and watch the ball with your right eye (for a RH bat). Simple as that, your left eye is closer to the bowler so it can be natural to line up on that which leads to falling over, right eye lines you up nicely.
I tried it as hadn't been lining my leg side shots up as well as I'd like, immediately belted everything anywhere near my pads, highly recommend.
This felt good in nets last night!
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^ I am going to try that too.
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Ricky Ponting tip I picked up last week for anyone falling over - line yourself up and watch the ball with your right eye (for a RH bat). Simple as that, your left eye is closer to the bowler so it can be natural to line up on that which leads to falling over, right eye lines you up nicely.
I tried it as hadn't been lining my leg side shots up as well as I'd like, immediately belted everything anywhere near my pads, highly recommend.
I tried it with my left eye closed and using only my right eye. It didn't work. I edged balls I normally hit in the middle.
Both my eyes have a different prescription. In last year and a half, I am noticing that I need a lot of net time to see the ball well and predict its trajectory.
There must be some eye exercises people can do to improve picking up quicks.
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I tried it with my left eye closed and using only my right eye. It didn't work. I edged balls I normally hit in the middle.
Both my eyes have a different prescription. In last year and a half, I am noticing that I need a lot of net time to see the ball well and predict its trajectory.
There must be some eye exercises people can do to improve picking up quicks.
Batting with one eye closed didn't work well?! You surprise me.
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How do you line up with your "right eye" while keeping your left eye open? Is it even possible?
Ponting is full of crap as usual!
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Of course you won’t be able to bat with one eye closed as it’ll completely alter your depth perception!
He means focus using your right eye
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Of course you won’t be able to bat with one eye closed as it’ll completely alter your depth perception!
He means focus using your right eye
How do you do that? I am serious. I can't focus using my right eye only unless I cover my left eye.
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As a right handed, if you set up with an orthodox side-on stance, you’ll be looking over your left shoulder with your left eye dominating. Your natural field of vision probably centres at wide mid off and your left eye will be first to pick up the line and length of the ball.
Are you with me so far?
Now, supposing you open your shoulders slightly and allow yourself to look directly at the bowler as he runs in. Your field of vision is centred on the bowler and you’ll be seeing the ball with both eyes. This might help you judge both line and length better, as it’s well known that having two eyes working together is vital for depth perception.
Savvy?
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^ Gary Palmer school of thought, that is.
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As a right handed, if you set up with an orthodox side-on stance, you’ll be looking over your left shoulder with your left eye dominating. Your natural field of vision probably centres at wide mid off and your left eye will be first to pick up the line and length of the ball.
Are you with me so far?
Now, supposing you open your shoulders slightly and allow yourself to look directly at the bowler as he runs in. Your field of vision is centred on the bowler and you’ll be seeing the ball with both eyes. This might help you judge both line and length better, as it’s well known that having two eyes working together is vital for depth perception.
Savvy?
This sounds like exellent advice! Scoring off my legs was always my problem
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How do you do that? I am serious. I can't focus using my right eye only unless I cover my left eye.
It's not about closing one eye, it's just an easy shorthand of making sure you don't leave yourself closed off. It's like "get your head to the ball" doesn't mean get down on your hands and knees and take half volleys on your noggin ;)
When you're in your normal stance you'll probably find that your left eye (if you're right handed) is closer to the bowler/umpire. All Ponting means by watching the ball with your right eye is turn your head a little bit straighter so your right eye is closer to the bowler and your nose points at the umpire instead of mid-off.
You'll find this brings your right shoulder round a little bit and opens up your stance naturally without having to think about feet, hips, shoulders etc. Try and think about getting your right eye towards the umpire and it gets you moving straighter down the wicket instead of falling over.
He talks about it at 10:00 in this video
https://youtu.be/2wdT4zzNinI?t=10m2s
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@Big Mac , great explanation and video! Cleared it up for me. I love KP, "look to mid-on". :)