As Shakib has a rubber strap, Gilchrist has a squash ball

As Shakib has a rubber strap, Gilchrist has a squash ball

Shakib Al Hasan was seen biting a black strap while batting in the first Test of the series against India in Chennai. He wore that strap around his neck while batting. Some screenshots of the scene taken from the television spread on social media. Then the 'research' started with it. Later it is known that he is doing this to keep his head in position while batting. However, this is not the first time that cricketers have resorted to something out of tradition. Earlier, former Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist used a squash ball inside the glove. Lasith Malinga made a batsman's fake leg in the net. The details can be known from a feature of the cricket website Cricinfo -

Shakib's problem

In this series against India, Shakib is not batting after biting the rubber strap. Initially he used to do this while batting in the nets. Later, he bit the black strap of the rubber and batted in last year's T20 World Cup in India and later in the T20 World Cup in USA and Global T20 in Canada. Shakib's head position problem while batting mainly stems from an eye problem. Experts have opined that if Shakib is under too much stress, a kind of fluid accumulates under the retina of Shakib's eyes, which blurs his vision. In this case, he can see the ball properly during batting, so that rubber strap therapy to keep the head position right.

Gilchrist was working on his grip while batting. As part of that, he played with a squash ball inside his glove under the bat handle while batting against Sri Lanka in the 2007 World Cup final. The result, one of the best innings in World Cup final history—149 off 104 balls. Gilchrist's reason for using the squash ball was to avoid holding the bat with too much force on the last two or three fingers of the hand below the bat handle.

This advice was given to Gilchrist by his batting coach Bob Meuleman. This forced Gilchrist to rely on the thumb and forefinger of the hand on the underside of the bat handle. The role of the upper hand also increases a lot in the shot game.

Lasith Malinga's philosophy when bowling in limited-overs cricket was very simple—do more yorkers. As a child, he grew up watching Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis bowl yorker after yorker. Seeing these two, Malinga felt—this is the best ball (of the yorker). Then when he started playing with leather balls, he met bowling coach Champka Ramanayake. Champka advised him to bowl straight and hard.

With this simple philosophy, another simple exercise was added to Malinga's yorker bowling training in the nets. At the batting crease, he used to keep two shoes in such a way that it looked like a batsman was standing with a guard. As a result, even if there was no batsman at the net, Malinga could practice hitting the ball on the leg of the batsman.

Bailey's facing stance

In December 2016, George Bailey took out an unconventional batting stance for the first time. He took a stance with his back to the bowler. Later he told Cricket Australia, "It was actually a crazy thing. That's why I don't even want to see it.' But why did he do that?

Bailey realized that the traditional batting stance was putting him across the ball. Especially in swinging conditions. That's why his hands are moving away from the body. Bailey decided to stand in that fancy stance to fix it. Left foot in front of right foot, both feet facing deep third man.

Petersen's practice without pads

In 181 innings in Test cricket, Kevin Pietersen has been dismissed by left-arm spin 29 times. It wasn't a concern though. Because, despite this, he averages 52.86 against left-arm spinners. But he was also getting out to erratic or new left-arm spinners at times. He found a solution from Rahul Dravid's letter to him. Began playing without pads in the nets against Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. The idea was that this would make his front legs come forward a little later. As a result, don't hit the turning ball too hard. Which is bound to happen if the foot comes first.