Here are my thoughts on this – I would have replied sooner, but I have been out of range of the forum (some people may be grateful of that!)
Firstly – I have seen a load of people in the past say just go a play your shots – if one has you name on so be it. This is nonsense. You just need a plan. From above, I can see that niceonechoppy made a plan and it worked... this makes the point nicely, I also think his is a really good plan for playing away swing bowlers. Playing the ball late is a good move, but what I believe is that is isn’t so much playing it late, as playing the ball under your eyes that matters.
This will help negate the problem many people (myself included) have in planting their front leg and getting pinned.
Remember swing when it happens regardless of what type of swing it is will either be early swing (from the bowlers hand) or the more dangerous late swing. With early swing it is usually easier to play the ball behind square and hit the short or over pitched ball.
Regardless the most important thing is to try and upset the bowlers rhythm – the easiest way of doing this is by running singles and rotating the strike. Bowlers love bowling six balls at the same batsman and trying to set them up – Martin Bicknell was the absolute master at this.
Out swing
Facing good consistent away swing is difficult, when bowled at pace you can find yourself fencing for the ball, which is not a good situation to be in. My view is, early on, to play down the line of the off stump and, especially early on to let the ball go through to the keeper (see comments I have written on this elsewhere on this site
http://custombats.co.uk/cbforum/index.php?topic=4576.0) – the idea is to try to force the bowler to bowl straighter at me which will hopefully give me a freebee to hit through the on side – whilst still rotating the strike and following the comments above. If this isn’t working – the next option is the Matty Hayden option of coming down the track at the bowler to intimidate him. I try to do this a lot especially against a medium bowler and look to hit him through the line before it swings. Or looking for the “late cut” to use the pace of the ball.
The key to this is to not over commit and over attack too early. The ball will only swing for a bit and you need to weather the storm in the short term until the bowler tires.
In swing
This is a different challenge – here I try to open my stance slightly and work hard to get outside the line of off stump - either with a strong stride (different from a big stride which can cause you to lose your balance) or a slight trigger across the crease. This will open up the leg side for me to hit with the swing of the ball. The danger of this is that you move to far and lose your leg stump – so work hard on the nets on playing the ball aiming through Mid On and watching the ball fly through mid wicket for runs!
A bit of both
Occasionally, although fortunately not too frequently, you get a bowler who swings it both ways at will (or worse at pace!) if this is the case work out which one is going to be the most dangerous for you. For me it is in swing – so I play the bowling as if every ball is an in swinger and if it moves away from me I either let it go, or drop it a gap to get to the other end. If you are better a playing in swing and struggle against the ball moving away from you, wait for in ducker and knock it in a gap, whilst concentrating on protecting your off stump.
The crucial thing is to have decisive foot work, but not to over commit and to try not to plant your front foot.
Going back to the original question: Find myself committing to the line very early, especially early in the innings when im trying to get my eye in..
I open and most of the time I stand outside by a few inches, wondering if going back on the backfoot would work..
Over committing early on is an easy mistake – i suspect you may be trying to play the ball before it is bowled, rather than waiting and trusting your instincts. In this case following Bulldog’s advice and clearing you mind and just concentrating on watching the ball and doing nothing else will really help.
I think looking to coming forward to be positive to the bowling is important – if you play back, you may be vulnerable to the in swinger. Remember all swing requires the bowler to pitch the ball up to you, so you wont get to play back much and it may not help you. On the plus side, because of this you will get balls to hit and work through for singles.
I hope this helps...
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Topic: How to play swing??? (Read 8116 times)