Taking Guard

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colinmiller

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Taking Guard

I bat 11, and I didn't play junior cricket so i have little technique however my eye is good enough that i can get bat on ball most of the time. my problem is i cant hit a shot on the offside, the footwork isnt there so i score nearly all of my runs on the leg side. If the bowler is bowling just outside off i can never score so i was wondering why people take guard where they do, and if I should just take guard on off stump so i can pull everything to the leg side to get off strike.

cheers
 
Re: Taking Guard

can you hit the ball straight? if you can't then if you move your guard across, you're going to be very vulnerable to LBW or being bowled...

My advice would be to make your first foot movement, as the ball is being bowled toward the offside. That's how I bat, I'm not that strong on the legside, but my offside is pretty good... If you move forward and toward the offside in your initial movement as the bowler releases the ball, you can drive it if it's full, or rock back on the back foot and punch it if it's short. You can still block if it is straight... However you may find this may limit your legside shots, but if you're already hitting them okay it maybe worth a try.
 
Re: Taking Guard

alrite i am an opener an i generally take guard on middle because if you have to leave the ball you will know where your off stump is, and i make a mark bout 2 metres away from the stumps on off stump, this improves my eye for certain shots i play. i wouldnt advide taking guard on off unless you are a master of your pads otherwise bowlers will drill you leg stump untill they bowl you out.
 
Re: Taking Guard

I've just been searching the internet trying to find something about idiosyncratic approaches to taking guard. I know Jonathan Trott has recently wound up the South African and the Aussies (I think) with his ritual that he goes through. But it's Sanath Jayasuriya's ritiual I was looking for particularly how he marks the pitch. I've heard that instead of scraping a gaping great gash in the pitch he takes one of the bails off and uses his bat to make a nice little indentation where his mark is - is this true and are there any laws about this?
 
Re: Taking Guard

no there isn't but it isn't jayasuria that does it, its chanderpaul and sarwan of the west indies.
 
Re: Taking Guard

A fair few players do it - as mentioned Chanderpaul is probably the most notorious for it (think he evens has a specific bail that he has to use).

Not much to see though, they just remove the bail and bang it into the pitch with the bat handle. Makes a little round mark.

Picture of Sarwan taking guard -

sarwan_guard.png
 
I am a opener and i take my guard on leg stump because my coach tells me i have a so called "shuffle" to the off stump. It is probably because i have a feeling that i have to cover my stumps.
 
I tend to have the same problem of only having a legside, although I usually bat at 8.

I tend to stand dead-in-front of off-stump, to force the bowler to bowl wide or dead on the stumps.
If it's wide, I'm not good at cutting, but if it's on stumps or short I can pull or hockey shot it away.
It's taken me a lot of trial-and-error to get something that works, as the traditional guard had me getting bowled all the time, but lately I've been doing well standing all the way over like that.
Try whatevers and see what works for you.
 
Because you are an 11 batsman when the ball is pitched outside off stump just show your bat to the ball. Start like this and one day you will be able to play the cover drive. :D
 
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