An analysis of how India benefited from this unglamorous shot and why Australia was unable to use it successfully .
Virat Kohli, like many of his teammates in the Delhi Test, flicked one away.
Five of the final six deliveries of the Delhi Test match were faced by Cheteshwar Pujara. He first evened the score by running out to Travis Head and flicking a single to deep square leg. He then played two more slips off Todd Murphy, one to square leg and one to short midwicket, after regaining the strike at the start of the subsequent over.
After receiving yet another dot delivery without a flick, Pujara got the winning runs with a firm whip over midwicket for four.
With five balls, there are four distinct leg-side flip variations. Therein lies a story, possibly the Border-Gavaskar Cup story for 2022–2023.
Even though the movie isn’t always spectacular, watching it can be fun. For instance, in the “Build Your 360 Batter” video series on ESPNcricinfo, players are asked to select their eight finest 360-degree circle shots, including the straight drive, cover drive, cut, reverse sweep, scoop, sweep, pull, and lofted hit down the ground. It’s possible that you’ve noticed that The Flick isn’t one of them.
The batter’s sustenance, on the other hand, is the flick. The cover drive came in second with 12,979 test runs, far behind the flick’s 17,697 total, according to statistics from ESPNcricinfo.
“Jadeja has a huge amount of faith in his abilities,” says Rohit.
Stats: Rohit equals Dhoni’s exceptional achievement
“Australia’s heart is cut to pieces by death by a thousand wounds.”
According to Cummins, Australia’s batters “abandoned their tactics” after the collapse.
During that time, batters have used the flick a whopping 22,373 times. Of course, it’s third behind guarded (62,637) and left alone (25,277), but those aren’t goals.
The flick’s significance in Test cricket is due to a single factor. At the Test level, bowlers frequently aim for the top of the off stump, and they typically only miss it by a small margin when their lines and angles are off. The ball that is slightly less straight than optimal, slightly fuller, or slightly shorter is more common than the dreadful long-hop and the wide half-volley. A back-of-a-length ball from a fourth-stump line can be worked to a deep backward square leg by test batters with the proper angle and range of lines and lengths.
Spinners are especially prone to being flicked, and not just during the turn. The best hitters can go deep into their crease to buy themselves time, use their feet to get to the ball’s pitch, and twirl their wrists to play the shot against the turn. Spinners bowl at a faster speed, which reduces their margin for error. The ball turning into the batter is more likely to end up on the batter’s pads, and the ball turning away is more likely to start from a line closer to the leg stump.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy’s first two Test matches were contested on pitches that offered plenty of assistance to the spinners, making the margins for error relatively small.
India’s batters have been able to perform the flick much more frequently against spinners during these two Test matches in Nagpur and Delhi than Australia’s batters. Additionally, they’ve had to stop a lot fewer projectiles.
These figures can be viewed in a variety of ways. One could argue that Indian batters have naturally strong wrists and a penchant for performing the flick. You could say that they go deeper into the crease to create chances to play the flick or that they use their feet better to move down the field. You could say that the two teams’ batting game plans differed, with Australia’s focusing on the sweep and India’s emphasizing good footwork and shots through the offside or down the ground.
Australia in Delhi Test Final Moments
If you watched the final moments of the Delhi Test and read the post-mortems, this last point is particularly compelling. India hardly ever played sweeps and reverse sweeps, yet Australia in Delhi test dropped many wickets as a result. When you took these shots on this third-day surface, where the ball was regularly shooting through low, the experts shook their heads and told you how foolish they were.
The Australian team’s administration and players are aware of this, though. They are aware of how risky cross-bat shots can be on such surfaces. R. Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, on the other hand, have bowled with such finesse that their scoring choices are limited. They aren’t receiving many flip balls, drive balls, cut balls, or any other types of balls at all.
In the two tests of this series, they have selected two distinct answers to this challenge. Australia played for their lives in Nagpur’s second session before being dismissed after 32.3 overs. They swept at everything during the second session in Delhi and were dismissed in 31.1 overs. In Nagpur, their batters underplayed their hands, while in Delhi, they overplayed them, according to their skipper, Pat Cummins.
When facing spinners Ashwin and Jadeja under control and facing pitches with both turn and natural variation, visiting batters may have few options. Neither is the best option, but there is also no true middle ground, barring a bad bowling day.
The crossover shot was dangerous under the circumstances, but Australia had no other option.
And Australia in Delhi, the victory allowed Australia to fight against India on an equal footing for the first two days. Usman Khawaja’s score of 81 on day one and Marnus Labuschagne’s batting were both distinguished by Australia’s quick start in the third period of day two.
Therefore, the sweep was a sign rather than the root of Australia in Delhi Test issues.
Additionally, the issue hasn’t been that they make a poor squad. The issue is that, under Indian conditions, they simply aren’t as effective as India. In the annals of the game, you could only have defeated a small number of opponents to defeat this Indian team under Indian conditions.
One of the best spin attacks to visit this nation in the past ten years is Australia’s on this tour. World-class offspinner Nathan Lyon has taken more than 450 Test wickets, and visiting spinners Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann, who are on this tour, have both made their Test starts and bowled with excellent control. They have bowled with more control than many foreign spinners, who have more Test experience and have rarely used lengthy hops or true half-volleys.
On Indian surfaces, however, it is only normal for Australia’s spinners to lack the razor-sharp control of Jadeja and Ashwin. There is very little room for error. Even the smallest length and line mistakes don’t immediately jump out at you, but they all add up over the span of a series, one flick at a time. Read more cricket news here at Indibet VIP.
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