How to avoid his bouncer
MARK RAMPRAKASH
WHEN playing the short ball at extreme pace you need to be very clear in your game plan and i was quite surprised by some of the Australians’ pre-delivery movements. they were looking to come forward quite a lot and were then shocked when the ball was on them so quickly. the other surprise was that when they ducked, they turned their heads, so the back of the head was facing the ball, which is a massive no-no. When you are ducking or swaying, you want to keep your eyes on the ball so that if it doesn’t bounce as high as you think it will, you can still adjust. steve smith and Marnus labuschagne were hit, while Matthew Wade and usman Khawaja turned their heads away. so, what to do? Well, if you’ve got a couple of people for company at short leg and leg slip, you don’t really want to be getting your hands up too high when defending the short ball, because if it hits high on the bat it brings those fielders into play. the Australians could try not getting so far forward, allowing more time and flexibility to get out of the way of the short ones. it was a slightly different angle, but i remember AB de Villiers doing that to Mitchell Johnson when he was bowling very quickly. De Villiers camped a little bit on the back foot and almost said: ‘if you pitch up, that’s OK, i’ll keep it out.’ He wasn’t looking to hit down the ground for four. there are two ways of going with Jofra. Because he gets quite close to the stumps, his arm is very straight, and he is very similar to shaun Pollock in that the short ball is not only very quick but on the money. so you can get across in the line of the ball, and then when it’s short try to duck to allow it to go over your left shoulder. the only problem with that is the ball does angle into the right-hander’s body and that can cramp you for room. Conversely, you could stay on leg stump. this way you would have the ball more outside your eyeline. that’s the way robin smith and Allan lamb batted against West indies. it allows you to cut whenever there is width outside off stump. those two were very strong at that, even upper-cutting over the slips.