Champions Trophy: How Matt Henry removed Shubman Gill targeting his one batting weakness | Cricket News
It’s amazing really how Shubman Gill hasn’t managed to erase that one weakness in his batting for all these years: the slow weight transfer onto the front foot. Sunday afternoon provided yet another iteration of the deja-vu. New Zealand in particular have done it often before; Kyle Jamieson on at least two occasions, Tim Southee and this time it was Matt Henry. Other bowlers too have got him with the same ball — Kagiso Rabada, James Anderson and Mohammad Shami (in the IPL).The television coverage has saturated our minds’ now about what that good length is: say 6 to 8 metres from the batsman’s stumps. Matt Henry’s delivery landed on a length, say closer to the 8m and skidded in. Anything closer to him, Gill has no issues. Even closer to the 6m mark from his stumps, he has relatively less issues as he lets his wonderful hands do the jailbreak for him. Henry’s delivery skidded in a bit from that length and Gill was on the move, trying to work it around his front pad and was unsurprisingly trapped in front.
It primarily stems from his tiny stride out; calling it a stride is an overstatement, a short step out. And that primarily stems from his childhood days of developing his game on cement tracks. On cement, the backfoot becomes an instinctive play, and the front foot is something to be worked on. The muscle memory is deeply set; and hence his back-foot game is stellar, his stand-up and punch game is a sizzler, but the in-between length has always posed him problems.
Batting is about transferring weight and being still when playing a shot. At the top level one needs to be strong on the back foot but still have the balance and skill to play under the eyes, and be in a position to transfer the weight forward.
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Gill’s trigger is quite simple: he moves back a touch, opens his front foot a bit, and is loath to take a big stride out. As that one change can completely upset his entire set-up, his balance. It’s a tradeoff that batsmen like him accept when they change things. The things they do well might not be easy to achieve if they alter the way they move in the crease. Is it worth disrupting the technique built? Would this – let’s say leaning forward with a positive step or taking an initial movement out – disrupt the entire balance and affect all other areas of his game? Isn’t it better to manage this with the hands? And so he has ploughed on for years now.
It’s sort of a problem that once you see it as an observer, it becomes difficult to unsee. And we have seen it often with Gill. Even when the ball is relatively full, he doesn’t move forward that much. He can occasionally push his hands at the ball without actually transferring his weight forward, especially against pacers. It’s a potential area of weakness that good bowlers target on less bouncy surfaces. The key is to draw him forward as he likes to sit back on the back foot. Or around the crease. It helps him on pitches with bounce, as we saw in Australia in the past — though on the recent tour there he couldn’t convert his starts. However, that technique has created problems for him in England and elsewhere. New Zealand were one of the first to exploit that.
Not that he doesn’t know of course. “There are one or two important elements. Like your shoulder should be aligned towards the ball, you should be a little side-on while playing, you should be in a good position even if your feet are not moving that well. If you are positioned well in relation to the ball, you will manage… When we play in India, there isn’t that much bounce. Most deliveries stay low. That (reducing the shuffle) was one adjustment I made after talking to our batting coach. I felt I should restrict my initial movement a bit. The ball doesn’t swing much in India either, so the lesser the movement in your body, the better it will be for you,” Gill once told The Indian Express.
He “manages” with his hands, letting them go in front of the body to meet the ball. It works as it did when Shaheen Afridi hurls it fuller. That Pakan game actually did throw up similar cues. He had no issues with the back of length stuff from Haris Rauf nor the fuller stuff from Shaheen. It was Naseem Shah who coaxed out his cautious self with his in-between lengths, like Henry did. He managed to let his hands out and stab Naseem away. He tried that against Henry but couldn’t.Story continues below this ad
“As a player you should know what things you need to work on, and where the opposition is looking to get you out. If you know that, it becomes easier to tackle,” Gill had said. “I don’t make any big changes to my technique without talking to my father… In cricket, there is no technique that can be termed ‘out-proof.’” Clearly, he does see the weight transfer as an issue as he has tried to offset it reducing his back-foot initial movements. Also, for a brief while in the past, he would stand with a noticeable lean-in of the front shoulder. So he has tinkered around.
Walk down the pitch
And in the recent months, he has often used the walk down the pitch against such bowlers who hit that length. It has often worked, not just in those particular balls where he has walked, but the approach has put off a few bowlers who then have changed lengths in other deliveries. But on days like this, before he has got his aggressive instincts up and flowing, especially when very new to the crease, it’s a delivery that most good pacers should and often do go against him.
Undoubtedly, it’s a ploy that would be tried in the semifinal too. One can assume he would begin the walk-down-the track sooner there or try to get that front shoulder lean in that much more pronouncedly at the crease. It will come down to the first few overs, mostly within the first five. If he can hoodwink the seamers into thinking he has that area covered on the day, he will prosper.
