Why Are All Opening Batsmen Left Handed

[Helpman]

Except me. I have some of the slowest reflexes known to man.

As do I, big sigh.

 

[Will_NA]

Lara was the most stylish batsman I've ever seen. Even more stylish than Tendulkar and I'm sure a lot of members would agree.

 

[Pak_cricketer]

Its easier to play in the square region for left handers, and usually they are more wristy. Some right handers find it easy to bat left handed..

 

[satishmania]

Lara was the most stylish batsman I've ever seen. Even more stylish than Tendulkar and I'm sure a lot of members would agree.

i agree too.

 

[SciD]

Lara was the most stylish batsman I've ever seen. Even more stylish than Tendulkar and I'm sure a lot of members would agree.

Lara and Yuvraj with their high backlift make batting look awesome. Yuvi cover drives are as sweat as it gets.

 

[Left_Hander]

Regarding the opening batsmen question. I am an opening batsmen for my team and I am left-handed. We only have 9 players in our team (but we borrow players from a younger age group) and I am the only one that is left-handed. So, yes opening batsmen maybe left-handed (a fairly high percentage according to how many there actually are) but doesn't mean that left-handed batsmen are coming from everywhere.

 

[King Pietersen]

Nice, clean and unbiased posting there, Sohum

I always thought that Tres looked good driving. Lara was jaw dropping.

Tres' driving looks decent from a distance, but technically he's not brilliant. His head and feet are never close to the ball when cover driving, which results in him playing majorly away from his body, and it's only because of his amazing hand-eye co-ordination that allows him to get away with it.

Lara's a very, very stylish batsman though, and as with every rule there's always exceptions. I do consider Yuvraj a pinch-hitter though, in the fact that he's very aggressive, he's not a slogger, there's a difference between slogging and pinch-hitting. Mustard slogs, Gilchrist is a pinch-hitter. Yuvraj is definetly in the Gilly mould from what i've seen, he does have grace and style, but relies more on his power hitting.

Alastair Cook's another stylish leftie, plays very well on the leg-side, and looks quality when driving, is one of the better drivers in the England side. I do feel that Vaughan, Bell, Tendulkar and Clarke are ahead of any lefties when it comes to stylish batting though; Michael Vaughan especially, he's one of the best batsmen in the world to watch when he's playing well, one of the most technically excellent batsmen of all time as far as i'm concerned.

 

[Leicester Fox]

Lewis Hamilton is the best driver in England. :cool:

 

[Will_NA]

He's good but I reckon Lewis Hamilton is better.

 

[Leicester Fox]

thats what I said

 

[sohum]

I do consider Yuvraj a pinch-hitter though, in the fact that he's very aggressive, he's not a slogger, there's a difference between slogging and pinch-hitting. Mustard slogs, Gilchrist is a pinch-hitter. Yuvraj is definetly in the Gilly mould from what i've seen, he does have grace and style, but relies more on his power hitting.

I disagree. Yuvraj is not really in the Gilly mould. He doesn't try to smack more or less every delivery for four and when Gilly gets going that's what he tries to do. Yuvi turns it on during the slog overs but otherwise he's a very stylish and flamboyant batsman. Not a pinch-hitter. A pinch-hitter is someone who is sent up the order to get quick runs. Just the fact that Yuvi has won India games while chasing, down the order, is enough to prove that he is not a pinch hitter.

 

[morson93]

To get one enigma out of the way, you don't actually have to be the slightest bit left handed to bat LHB. If you do a little research you soon notice that the vast majority of LHB batsmen are in fact right handed people. Actually, handedness is a bit more grey than left or right (take the Edinburgh Inventory to see where you are on the scale), for example, Sachin Tendulkar is known to write left handed, meaning he is probably highly ambidextrous (it is likely that the reason we see fewer left handed Indians is because it was discouraged by their teachers and coaches, a practice that was once commonplace all over the world well into the last century), but generally the numbers work out that for batsmen there is usually an overall natural proportion of right handedness to left handedness.

Suppose a third of all right hand dominant people bat LHB and the same proportion of left hand dominant people bat RHB. Being that about 90% of the population are right handed, there would be about 37% of the population batting LHB.

It is really not difficult to swap stances. Typically it is not something a batsman considers much, but players such as Mike Hussey have admitted that they changed to emulate a particular player.

Like I said in a similar thread, I question the logic of coaching batsmen to be 'top-handed' while we consider putting our dominant hand at the bottom to be the norm. It only stands to reason that the most technically proficient batsmen have a relatively strong top hand and the hand you use the most often is always going to have the benefit of that additional motor skill training.

I Strongly Agree With This As I Can Bat LH But I Am Better Right Handed, Im Sure If I Was To Work On My LH Batting I Could Be As Good As With Right Hand. But This Lad At My Club Is Left Handed And I Have To Bowl Right Side Of The Wicket To Him Or Else He'll Just Hit Me Again And Again. But When I Do Bowl On The Right (Around The Wicket I Think? Im Right Handed Bowling) I Always Get Alot More Wides. Really A Strugle But I Have Improved On Bowling To Lefties.

 

[prarara]

Haven't seen too many comment on Kumar Sangakkara. What a brilliant batsmen. Probably one of my favourite along with Hayden and Yuvraj for left handed batsmen of the modern era.

 

[Karachi Xpress]

I am a right handed batsman and sometimes when I am just playing for fun, I do try playing left handed and I must say that it is really easy to play left handed. A lot of the strokes that I play left handed are strokes that I have never played right handed and haven't been able to play them even if I wanted to.

 

[aussie_ben91]

I've always opened the batting and I'm right-handed with success from an early age, playing against bowlers up to 4 years older then me at a time since I was 9 years old.

And if you think left-handed batsman are harder to bowl to then right-handed batsman then really, you aren't much of a bowler.