Aakash Chopra looks at the technical changes the batsmen needed to make to score runs to tackle the variables of the Bengaluru pitch on the third day
Aakash Chopra06-Mar-20175:01
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If you want to make it tough for the batsmen, just take out the pace and bounce off the pitch. Add a few widening cracks and bowlers’ footmarks to it and you will have the pitch prepared for the second Test in Bengaluru. The first three days of play have highlighted that this is not an unplayable pitch, if anything it’s specifically designed for attritional cricket. While everyone who has got runs in this game has batted quite differently from the others, there’s a common thread that is still holding them together.Decisive feet movementA pitch where there is an obvious trust-deficit with regards to bounce and lateral movement both for spinners and pacers alike, it becomes imperative to be positive. In most cases, positivity is just another word used for being aggressive. But in this case, being positive at the crease means playing with an uncluttered mind, which in turn would lead to making decisive judgments. An odd ball staying low or taking off must not lead to you staying rooted at the crease. Matt Renshaw used his height to good advantage and went closer to the ball. KL Rahul was equally lucid in both front-foot and back-foot play. Going fully forward with intent or deep inside the crease with purpose leads to most other things about batting falling in place. In fact, you would find that batsmen with decisive feet movement would invariably get fewer balls that misbehave. Just that it has nothing to do with the pitch but the positioning of the body.Play with a straight batThe variable bounce on this Bengaluru pitch is more evident on the lower side and therefore it is imperative to bring the bat down straight every single time. Ideally, it is better to slightly commit on the front foot but often, that leads to front foot falling across and the moment that happens, the bat gets compelled to go around the front pad. Greg Chappell used to say that one must always plant the front foot in a line that allows the ball to finish inside the leg, for that would automatically clear the path of the bat on its way down. Rahul’s positioning of the front foot was exemplary with the front toe pointing towards mid-off instead of covers and that allowed him to stay inside the line of the ball. The moment the front toe points towards the covers, the bending of the front knee blocks the path of the bat’s downswing.Resist the temptation of angular or horizontal batOn a pitch where the ball is keeping alarmingly low, one must resist the temptation of playing with the horizontal or angular bat. While this sounds very simple in theory, it requires enormous mental control to ensure that you don’t see the short ball as an opportunity to collect easy runs. Just to make it a little trickier, this theory applies only to balls that are finishing within the stumps and not the ones that offer width, for those can still be viewed and treated as run-scoring options. They say you bat at your best when you allow your instincts to take over, which means allowing years of practice to take over your response to a ball thrown in your direction but this pitch has demanded otherwise. Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh bowled the straight, tight lines tempting Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara to flick but both made sure to play with the straight bat and break the wrist only after or at the point of impact.Ajinkya Rahane took an off-stump guard against Nathan Lyon on the third day•AFPPress the ‘delete’ button’Forget what happened on the previous ball and only focus on the next ball’ is a slightly misleading statement. Every ball that you face gives you vital information about the pitch and the bowler, and it is obvious that the information you gather helps you to prepare for the deliveries to follow. On a pitch like the one is prepared for this Test, from time to time, it is indeed imperative to forget what happened on the previous ball and if that is a little too tough because the ball had either found the toe of your bat or hit your rib cage, make sure it doesn’t alter your response to the following ball. This was more applicable while negotiating the extra bounce Nathan Lyon extracted from time to time. Pujara was hit on the gloves multiple times but made sure that he treated the next ball as a new event.Flick hard off the back footYou might be wondering that how come Lyon was almost unplayable on the first day but did not leave any impact on the third day? While the pitch has indeed slowed down a little bit and therefore is not offering the same bite, Indian batsmen’s response in the second innings had a huge role to play too. Pujara, Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane have started standing on the off-stump guard, which in turn brought them closer to Lyon’s outside-off line, and that allowed them to play through the vacant covers region. In the first innings, India managed only 10 runs off seven balls through that region as opposed to gathering 21 off 11 balls in the second innings. The intent to not just getting closer to the pitch but also playing an aggressive shot paid off.The other change we witnessed on the third day was the reluctance to ride the bounce to balls finishing within the body. Rahul flicked them hard, and both Pujara and Rahane employed the pull to such deliveries. Since Lyon operated with a short leg and leg gully throughout, guiding the ball to long leg with soft hands is not a viable option, for lack of pace would bring the close-in fielders into play.
