Your Cricket My batting

[Koulkoudakis]

This is me facing my father on asphalt with a plastic ball from about 15 yards. There's a bit of a slope towards the offside as well.

It's my first time picking up a bat in a few months so bear with me . It's also the first proper video I've seen of me batting so, what do you think I'm doing or not doing? I'm not following through much for obvious reasons but I think my bat is always coming across me making it a bit awkward playing through the offside. People tell me that I'm on the front foot before the ball is bowled so that might be contributing to my backfoot shots going nowhere unless it's a leg glance or late cut. I don't usually walk out of the crease after a drive during a match either.

22/05/12 1800hrs - YouTube

 

[Shaquille]

A half step forward towards the ball just before release. Hold your body shape and balance. Get onto the front foot as the ball is about to be released, to push forward or back depending on flight and length. Stay light on your feet.

 

[puddleduck]

Try a higher and straighter front elbow. Your bat comes down at an angle because of that.

You could consider a slight trigger movement to get yourself onto the front foot. It's always easier to go back than forward. You don't really come forward at any point. You kind of play from your initial position and then walk after.

Even the only straight drives you play (second shot I think) you twist around after playing it.

 

[thedon5]

That's scary, you bat just like I used to bat.

Great technique few things you definitely need to change, though. Extremely important you fix these as you won't be able to develop as a batsman and you may end up giving up if you keep this style of play as it isn't the best for matches tbh.

Firstly, the front foot thing is a good way of learning drives, and your drives look OK, but you need to fix it. What you are doing is taking a few paces forward after you hit the ball each time, and that is a problem. The front foot movement is an automatic reflex really as you've learnt to play like that. I was never able to fix this in my game, I still play like that if I go and hit a ball around, but make sure you fix it. VERY important. It affects your timing too really. Just take your time, remember, you aren't facing a 160 km/h ball, you don't need to move that quickly, you have time, so make sure you just relax. It'll improve your timing on every shot and add the back foot to your game.

Secondly, to get rid of the chop, improve your backlift. Make sure you take your bat straight back, not from third slip. This'll perfect your drive, it'll be real hard to bowl you out and you will rarely get inside edges, I imagine you get a lot of inside edges now. A way is to try and get your dad or whoever's bowling to you to tell you after each ball how your backlift is, as they are the best judge of where it's coming from.

Can't think of much else really. If your technique is still bothering you after all this, don't hesitate to ask as I've heard a lot from coaches about all this stuff. Really the only way to improve is to practice and focus on these parts of your game, as they are essential. Ask a coach too, and good luck.