He doesn't move his feet!

There goes the cry!

All is doomed. Who let him put on those whites? Why is he in the team? Every time I look at a batsman I look only at the feet. It's all about footwork. And that is all I care. And just look - look at those feet of clay!

Who cares if he caresses it all over the park! He has to fail. His time will come! Sooner rather than later, and then I shall pontificate again.

You call Sehwag, Gayle, Laxman, Tendulkar, Trescothick, Gower, Majid and Sobers batsmen? Did you see those gentlemen move their feet? Why, Sobers used to sit on the crease and just swing his arms? You call that batting?

It cannot be, because I, the batting expert, know its all about footwork!

Give me footwork any day. Look at Slater and the way he moves his feet. What a man - so what he has had a poor series? His footwork is now even more pronounced! Better form is just round the corner...

Umm, I, the perceived leaden-foot, beg to differ, if only a tad:

I grant that footwork is important, but umm...natural footwork please. And you need footwork only to put the body in a good position to play the needed stroke. Some may move their feet right, but their body is at an awkward angle, back bent, unable to release leverage and power. Have you seen the Youhanna imbalance?

Ok, ok, let it out! It’s all about body positioning dammit, not just footwork. Footwork is just part of it! There are people who put their body in a decent position with minimal footwork, and others who are less than optimal despite foot movement. Body positioning it is, with footwork an element of it. Comprende?

Oh, and what about a still head? What if all your emphasised movement puts the head at an angle? I say keep your head level and still at all times - don’t play shots on the move.

Oh, and what about playing late? What if all this footwork makes you commit too early? I say wait and trust your eye and hands and dig it out late. Better wait than lunge.

Oh, and what about actually combining all these elements sensibly? I say try to get the overall essence right without too much emphasis on just the one point, even if it’s your beloved footwork.

I say get the overall combination right - according to your natural inclination. You may emphasize one aspect more than the other, but truly there is a spectrum of possible methods just as there is a range of human physiology. A Michael Slater may have needed to dance around the crease but a Sehwag doesn’t.

Of course, Sehwag would be an even better player (good Lord!) with better footwork but would he lose other aspects of his game?

I say tread softly when it comes to footwork. Tread softly lest you trample on it all.

I think Miandad was another one who used to position him in an awkward way - I am no expert in this field but could someone like Shoaib Malik be the kind of batsman that you refer to FP - one whose footwork is not exemplary, yet has a good eye for the ball ( or am I talking nonsense as usual )

Regards

MIG

I havent seen enough of Shoaib Malik.

The little I have seen of him sometimes showed that his body position was not great at times. But he makes runs, and he may have good hands and eye - if his hands can take the bat to the ball that's all that matters.

You never talk nonsense MIG

Thanks....Warna banda kiss laiq hai...

Kiss Laiq he.

Yaar, to earn a packet in bahrain tax free!

Btw, the above is meant to be an article - an afterthought!

added to the articles section FP and also to the home page.

Valid point and a good read.

Fantastic post FP. I believe conventionality in this and other definite aspects of cricket (in fact also in other aspects of life) are falsely over-inflated, sometimes even to canonisation. It's enough to recall, not to say highly ironic, that arguably the world's greatest batsman had a batting technique you will not learn from the cricketing manuals.

DM did you get married to a dictionary recently? I have noticed this recent usage of some high class vocab from you brother

FP, its an excellent read. AS always you have articulated ur POV very, very well. Just like bazid's batting, its flawless.

Actually i wanted to but trust me it was a deflating experience when i discovered that islam doesn't recognise marriage with inanimate objects. I suppose a woman will do

Have you become so desperate or was it that no woman will come near you...do tell us the details

No footwork is better than incorrect footwork.. thas what I have learnt.. If I could only have a penny for each time a batsman moved on front foot too soon while playing me and ended up gettin hit somewhere, I would be a rich man.

A brilliant article - really enjoyed reading it

Me thinks it has something to do with Bazid Bashers FP - am i correct?

Footwork isnt the be all and end all of a batsmen technic. Aslong as a batsmen :-

• retains balance

• keeps his head still

• good awarness of where his off stick is

• Good hand eye co-ordination

Then you can compensate the lack of footmovement. The likes of gayle-sehwag even thou they dont move there feet much they still retain there balance and have good hand eye-cordination.

MIG, as fas as s malik goes he just lunges forward ala ijaz ahmed and looses all balance more often than not and thats when he doesnt know where his off-stick is....

Not really - it might have made me think about it sub consciously perhaps.

If Bazid can add good footwork to his technique he would be pretty useful to say the least! But then so would most players..

Of more importance is the fact that despite languishing in Pakistan domestic cricket for so long, he has not fallen into poor technique. It looks like he is a thoughtful young man, who will learn from is experiences.

Keeping him out for the last 4-5 years is thus seen as folly. I suspect he may have been an even more complete batsman if he had been given the chance to play against international calibre attacks in competitve matches abroad.

And glad you liked the article - nothing new there, I have been saying it for long as I have been on this board.

at the end of the day i cudnt care less about technique, footwork, balance etc etc ASLONG as they get runs - based on technique you wudnt think Ijaz would have had a decent international career or what about Chanderpaul, has a horrid technique but scores the runs


AJ malik can lunge for all i care - he is getting runs for Pak and thats what matters

ijaz and chanderpaul can actually play the short ball and play on batsmen friendly wickets... sumat tinpot malik cant!

Whilst I agree with FP's assessment that footwork is not the be all and end all of successful batting, it is still an essential ingredient within a top quality batsman's makeup.

I think it's worth throwing the name Yasir Hameed into the pot here. Yasir as we all know has all the shots, lovely straight drives, elegant cover drives, good of his legs, can play the pull shot too. However he would be so much more the complete batsman if he cut out those shots on the walk which regularly get him into trouble and those stationery shots where feet are in cement on the leg stump and the bat is chasing a delivery wide of off stick.

Actually, I think footwork is an important element of batsmanship, but as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I do think as well that it is body position that matters the most - good footwork can help here.

But people mistake extravagant footwork for good footwork.

Actually I think Yasir's problem is that he moves too quickly.

He should sit and wait and then make one decisive movement rather than the walkabout. Yasir is playing the ball too early in my view - committed far too early.

Here's the complete text from cricket conversations (with some pointers on footwork).

Majid Khan

Great is a word bandied around in sport like a shuttle, but
in reality there are very few cricketers who deserve the label. One I
would suggest is Majid Jehangir Khan, former Glamorgan, Cambridge and
now the leading Pakistan Test batsman. If in sporting terms greatness
can be defined as the ability to outplay all around you, then cricket
must surely provide one of the most searching tests. Yet recognition of
an individual's brilliance need not necessarily always shine in the
spotlight of open competition.

At the windswept, icy county ground in Derby in 1969, Majid put
on the most memorable exhibition of batting skills it has been my good
fortune personally to witness. It took place in the Derbyshire nets
during one of those seemingly endless breaks waiting for the heavy
overnight rain to drain through a waterlogged outfield. Huddled around
the medieval dressing-room brazier thoughtfully provided by the Derby
committee to combat the spine-chilling draughts that used to waft
through the racecourse ground pavilion, the former headquarters of the
county, the Glamorgan team's conversation turned to the art of batting.
We had just come from a game against Sussex where Jim Parks Jnr had made
a hundred against us on an unpredictable wicket. We agreed that it was
the speed and precision of his footwork that had kept us, and Don
Shepard in particular, at bay. At that time, Shepard was one of the
country's most feared bowlers, a man of immaculate length and direction
who bowled off-breaks at a brisk medium pace. On a turning wicket he was
virtually unplayable, and touring teams in this country had gone away
from games against Glamorgan at Swansea with a sigh of relief that the
mypoic England selectors did not include him in any of the Test sides.
While the discussion continued to and fro across the brazier,
Majid, never at any stage of hs career a talkative man, sat silent,
orientally impassive. It was only when we had appeared to have exhausted
all line of debate that he spoke : "You don't need any footwork in
batting, just hands and eye". In terms of length, this amounted to a
major speech from Majid, then in his second seasong with Glamorgan,
having joined on a special registration in 1968, the year after he had
toured the UK with Pakistan. The Welsh county committee had no doubt
been influenced in their signing of him, by his innings of 147 in
eighty-nine minutes against Glamorgan at Swansea and the fact that his
father, the distinguished Indian cricketer Dr Jehangir Khan, had been
the pre-war Cambridge contemporary of Wilfred Wooller, the Glamorgan
secretary. These factors quickly helped to forge a bond which was to
last until 1976.

At Derby on that bleak day in June 1969, Glamorgan were on the
crest of a winning streak which lasted throughout the season,
culminating in them taking the Championship for the second time in their
first-class history with an unbeaten record to boot, the first time this
had been achieved since Lancashire in 1934. Success is a heady brew and
there were many challengers to Majid's claim that footwork counted for
nothing.

Within fifteen minutes, three of our front-line bowlers,
including Don Sheperd, lined up in a net outside with Majid padded up at
the other end about to have his theory demolished. For twenty minutes,
on a rough, unprepared, and quite-impossible-to-bat-on wicket where the
ball flew, shot, seamed and turned, Majid Khan stood absolutely
motionless, parrying the ball as it lifted, cutting or hooking
unerringly if it were wide, driving with frightening power if
overpitched and swaying out of harm's way when it lifted unexpectedly.
Unless he allowed it, not a single ball passed his bat, not a chance was
given, not a false stroke made. The bowlers were at full throttle, yet
by our own reckoning afterwards that twenty-minute session must have
yielded the young Pakistani around 75 runs ! He had just defied every
known textbook instruction, improvised strokes that just did not exist
and, without uttering a word, had emphatically made his point. In the
presence of genius, no rules apply.

From Cricket Conversations ( 1978 )

to my untrained eye, Yasir seems to play 2 shots for every ball ! Same for Taufeeq Umar as well.... I See a lot of movement from these people around the time the ball is being bowled. Now I know that JM used to do that as well but he was a genius at this...

Thanks Marooned.

I think the time has come to reveal the story behind this famous incident at Derby in 1969.

Of course, this question has been asked of MJK, and his answer was most revealing, though it took a while before he was bothered to answer it.

He said he was tired of endless talk of technique in the dressing room by those who talked better than they played. He said that most players on the county scene would go on about "Do this, dont do this, play him like this, dont play like that etc" implying he found these dressing room theoreticians tiresome and pointless.

"Yeh goron ke aadat he, khel kam, baatain zyada. I wanted to prove a point!"

So footwork isn't important then?

"No, no, footwork is very important. I just wanted to prove a point." Added Mrs Majid at that point "He keeps telling Bazid of the importance of footwork!"

That may surprise some - as much as when I say MJK also had the most perfect footwork most of the time. He could bat without footwork as well, if need be.

That's all there was to it.

Good article Fair Play.
I think its the outcome that matters the most.

Spot on.