Recently, batsmen in various cricketing nations have started improvising shots such as the switch hit and reverse scoop. It is obvious that in order to claim wickets, bowlers are becoming more creative as well.
There is a lot of effort from the bowlers who are always looking out to out cunning or baffle the batsmen using combinations of a few balls which are changed from pace to swing to spin and even others. They often use these within the dots cases. To disrupt the batsman’s concentration and make him commit blunders.
However, how Josh Hazlewood gets the better of Liam Livingstone in the first T20 international between England and Australia at the Rose Bowl, Southampton on Wednesday is something interesting.
In the 14th over, first bowled by Josh Hazlewood himself livingstone could easily see the beginning rehearsed for an off cutter when the palm of Hazlewood was turned in and the back of the palm was held with an off cutter grip but later it was not used as a tecnique for a bowled fast moving on-pitched hitstawalk instead fluently bowled slidders
The ball was short and wide and it was on a hard length. Livingstone went to play the ball as he was determined to get it but edged the ball in. There did not seem to be much movement from Hazlewood’s side of the bowl but it was no better that Livingstone committed all the weight forward attempting stretcher size shot and the ball slammed right into the stumps.
In what was a meager chase of 180 runs, Sam Curran was dismissed, and Livingstone was needed to stick around further, but his wicket fell for 37, leaving the host at 108/6.
28 runs was England’s margin of loss in the match.
While bowling, patenting a change in pace or bringing in an extra faster delivery after a few slow ones, are simply meant to make the batsman miss time the ball. Other types of bowlers may induce swing or seam the ball slightly offside.
These methods have to be applied with the requisite skill and intelligence as well as knowledge of how the batsman is thinking at that time.
Hazlewood was able to do all that in one ball in Southampton on Wednesday.
