Demise of the Sweep Shot
Pakistan has had some great sweepers in the past.
Zainab Abbas - For a bowler to be swept away is anxiety in making. Imagine how craftily a spinner like Murlitharan pitches his flighted ball on the off stump channel hoping that it will curl away enough to either take the edge or hit the stumps; but instead, sees Younis Khan put his leg across outside the off stump and sweep it away with impunity past the square leg boundary much to the bowlers frustration.
In recent years Pakistan cricket has lost out on a lot of things. Among the bigger issues like international cricket, consistent performance, star players, one almost invisible but baffling loss has been the extinction of the sweep shot. Considering the fragility of our batting line up and the nagging weakness of our batsmen against spin, it is quite an enigma that why this tested and tried weapon has not been coached into our batting skills manual.
Pakistan has had some great sweepers in the past from Hanif Mohammad to Javed Miandad and Inzamam. In fact there was a time when most of the Pakistan players were able to play the sweep shot. That is, until recent years. The last good sweeper was Younis Khan. Very few in our current line-up know how to sweep consistently. Ironically, without knowing and learning the power of the orthodox sweep, every batsman wants try the reverse sweep, which has more gallery value than scoring value, considering its success ratio.
Great batsmen of past and present were/are all great sweepers. Jacque Kallis, Brian Lara, AB De Villiersall use the sweep shot to disarm bowlers and turn a good length ball into a run scoring one. Nothing will make the bowler lose his flight and length, and the captain change his field desperately, than two hefty sweeps crashing into the boundary rope.
However Pakistani batsmen seem to have lost this art and this loss has made them particularly vulnerable against left arm spinners. Consider these facts: Herath, Panesar, Giles and the latest one Arafat Sunny from Bangladesh – all slow left arm spinners, have found success against Pakistan. The success of Herath against Pakistan is alarming considering that Pakistan is currently playing Sri Lanka. In 2014 series against Sri Lanka at Galle, Herath took 6 for 48 as Pakistan crumbled to 180 all out in their second innings, leaving Sri Lanka to chase 99 for victory in 21 overs. Herath now has 88 wickets in 17 tests against Pakistan. Misbah ul Haq has been dismissed 9 times by Herath in13 matches. Azhar Ali 7 out of 10 times and Asad Shafiq 7 times in 5 test matches played against SL since 2011- 2015.Even Monty Panesar loves this left arm vulnerability of Pakistani batsmen and has taken 31 wickets in 6 test matches against Pakistan.
Cricket and cricket rules have changed significantly. About 25 years ago batsmen used to play spinners with their pads. However modern day cricket entails new laws such as DRS to protect the sanctity of the umpires. The chances of getting out on lbw are more than ever before with the fielding team having the advantage of reviewing a particular decision. Hence batsmen are forced to play with the bat and not offer pads to counter spinners to reduce the likelihood of getting dismissed on lbw. An unsure batsman is a sitting duck. With so much stacked against batsmen, instead of prodding and groping like Ahmad Shahzad, rediscovering the art of sweep would prove much more beneficial than just being stuck in the crease and trying to cut and slog with a bottom handed technique.
From recent history if anyone wants to see (or coach) the sweep shot, there is no better sight than Brian Lara’s imperious dismissal of spinners by sweeping on the onside ball after ball till the bowler was praying for the over to finish. His batting against Muralitharan in Sri Lanka is a master-class of batting against the world s best spinner on spinning wickets. In the present batting line up Sarfraz Ahmed is a case in point. Take for instance his innings against Sri Lanka in the recent test played in Galle. Sarfraz Ahmed walked in at 96/5 with Pakistan in deep trouble suffering from a typical Pak-esque batting collapse. The third ball he faced was an over pitched delivery by Pradeep and he managed to flick it behind square for a boundary. The next day, Sarfraz started from where he left, by sweeping the first ball of Rangana Herath’s second over with a massive forward stride for a boundary in front of square. As a result short leg was removed and it forced Angelo Matthews to push the fielders back. Not the first time Sarfraz played Herath well. Just in the Colombo test 2014, Rangana Herath took 14 wickets against Pakistan in that test match with Sarfraz Ahmad scoring 103 and 55 respectively. Was Sarfraz playing on a different pitch? No, then what was different in his batting that enabled him to counter the spin and guile of Herath and others? There were two things that differentiated his innings from the rest of the batsmen. Firstly he was willing to use his feet and go down the pitch to the spinners demonstrating his positive intent. Secondly, he was most productive in sweeping the ball from the off stump to square leg and fine leg area. His unorthodox footwork disrupted line and length of Herath and released the pressure that was created earlier on by some really tentative batting.
In parts of the world where wickets are true and cricket is coached at a young age the sweep shot is discouraged. It is, after all, a cross batted shot and it is risky. A case in point would be Mike Gattings infamous reverse sweep in the 1987 WC final in Calcutta. However the regular sweep shot would have been a better choice then as it involves less risk than a reverse sweep.
With the Sri Lankan tour midway, time for the coach and the team management to give the sweep shot more than just sweeping attention. Why has this shot which used to be a natural cross bat for sub continent bred batsmen gone out of the array of our batsmen ?Is it too much bottom handed slogging? Is it too much early cricket with taped tennis balls? Is it a general lack of basic batting technique? This is something that needs to be addressed at a domestic level. Although there is no short term solution but Pakistan has an army of coaches with our team–Waqar, Mushtaq and Grant Flower that can add to the preparedness of our batsmen.
Talent not honed is talent destroyed. Pakistan has seen many examples of that. Coming from perhaps the most incompetent domestic structure in the world, playing for the national team is also their first opportunity to learn the basics of cricket. Talent without technique and temperament is going to keep on producing one match wonders. What is imperative is an individual player profile analysis and a training plan customized to their requirement of fitness, skill gaps and potential. Without this plan if not Herath, there will always be another spinner around the corner running through Pakistan’s batting line up leaving us wondering yet again why our neighbours play spin so well. Perhaps its time to go back to the basics and rediscover the art of playing the sweep shot.
Zainab Abbas is a sports analyst/anchor at Cricket Dewangi/Dunya TV and can be reached at zainaba88@gmail.com
Twitter Handle: ZAbbasOfficial
