When Suryakumar Yadav completed his concussion control after being hit flush on his helmet by a knuckle ball from Jofra Archer, commentators were discussing how he would deal with the next ball. In the air, Brian Lara was confident that Yadav will be wise.
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Archer aimed for a full delivery just off the stump; By the time the ball had left Archer’s hand, Yadav had already moved his front leg out of the way and ducked into a deep, wide squat, eyes wide open, his next move was to shove the bat under the ball and make it fly backwards. for a six.
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“I have no words for that. I’ve never seen a hitter take a hit and take this kind of shot … it was fantastic, ”said Hardik Pandya, who watched from the other side.
This is how Yadav likes to play: bold hoicks executed with furiously fast hand-eye coordination and a calm mind (he also has a nice late cut). In that game against the Rajasthan Royals, the Mumbai Indians hitter scored more runs behind the stumps than in front of him. If classic hitting is defined by mastery of a player’s “V”, think of this as the exact opposite; an inverted “V”. Yadav scored 33 of his 59 runs against the pace in this ‘V’ behind the gate.
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In the previous one, he had swept a low full pitch from Tom Curran on a square leg for six. When the thin leg was brought in, he anticipated a short ball out and accelerated one by six. In the middle, he had taught newcomer Kartik Tyagi a lesson, hitting one to the right of the third man, another on bent knees to the left of the same fielder.
Using all his fondness for scoring behind stumps, Yadav was playing with the field.
“I think some of today’s throws from him, the sweep from about the seventh stump on a low throw that was 80 meters. I don’t know what that shot is called, it was amazing, “said bowling coach Shane Bond in his post-game talk.
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Yadav is part of the clan of hitters who like to score behind stumps – scoopers, sweepers, ramp shot hitters – this season, Ravindra Jadeja is the leader of the group so far, scoring nearly 22% of their runs in reverse. “V”, with Yadav in second place. Four shots define the hitting game for hitters like these. The first is the scoop, often called “Dilscoop” after Tillakaratne Dilshan, who used it with abandon.
To play it, the batter must line up with the ball at lightning speed, crouch down, often on one knee, and use the rhythm of the ball to throw it over the goalkeeper’s head. There are variations on the theme; Joss Buttler says he made his own version in 2005 inspired by something he saw at a local hockey game. In that match, a long ball was hit at high speed from midfield towards the forward, who was standing with his back to the goal, and who simply planted his feet and put his stick in the path of the ball to tip it over and over. over. him towards the goal. Buttler, a former hockey player, absorbed the movement and began practicing it on a cricket field. It’s also what Yadav did to Archer. Then there’s the ramp, basically any hit where the batter clears the legs, steps away, and falls to one knee, before using the rhythm of the ball to guide it at unusual angles to the side of the leg, a combination, or something in between. . , a sweep, a look and a hook. In other words, it’s hard to categorize – you know it when you see it, and you see it when AB deVilliers is in the fold.
The other two shots you need to play a lot to score behind the wickets, the sweep and the reverse sweep, are more canonical and less risky. Yadav knows these issues well too; As of 2018, he has a 200 strike rate against spinners when employing the sweep. Previous IPL numbers (2018-20) suggest that Kings X1 Punjab’s Sarfaraz Khan is the biggest scorer of scoops and ramps behind wickets, accounting for 29.5 percent of his runs. But Sarfaraz plays with his head down, relying on his instincts, a method he has mastered practicing thousands of balls under the tutelage of his father and coach Naushad Khan. Yadav, like De Villiers and Buttler, deliberately walks away on either side of the stumps, keeps his head still and drills the field.
“He (Yadav) has done it many times before in club cricket, in Mumbai national cricket. If you can do it with the bowlers who are at 150 km / h, doing it when the ball goes into 135 is much easier, ”says Vinayak Samant, Mumbai coach last season. England’s Jonny Bairstow, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma are some of the others who have been scoring heavily behind the stumps.
“These are safe shots, as there is no outfielder there,” Sarfaraz had told KL Rahul in an interview after a whirlwind of tickets for RCB. When Rahul asked, ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ Sarfaraz replied, “darr ko hotel chod ke aata hu (I leave my fears at the hotel).”
That’s the key ingredient to hitting these shots: bravery.
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