All you baseball fans know what switch hitting is, right? You bat right-handed or left-handed, depending on whether you are facing a right-handed pitcher or a left-handed pitcher. Simple. Cricket is a bit more complicated.
I don’t know of any cricketers who are genuine switch hitters in the baseball sense of the term. However, a standard tactic in the shorter forms of cricket is to place most of your fielders on one side of the field, and bowl the ball in such a way as to make it difficult for the batsman to hit the ball to the side of the field that is open. So today Kevin Pietersen invented (or at least introduced to the international scene) a new batting tactic. While the bowler is delivering the ball, you change your stance, and your grip on the bat, allowing you to easily whack the ball through the less-defended side of the field. He did it twice, both times hitting the ball for 6 (a home run in baseball terms). Awesome.
Update: Sky Sports has a brief highlights clip including one of the switch-hit shots here.
Ah! Is that what switch hitting means? (I only ever understood baseball for one week once, when I was in Toronto and the Bluejays were in the World Series and a nice man took me to a bar with a big screen and explained it all as we went along. Before that first game was over, the whole bar was explaining. It was cool. But then I came home, and left all my understanding the wrong side of the Atlantic.)
That makes me a switch cuer, when I play snooker: equally crap with either hand, but always liable to swap.
I haven’t seen the Pietersen play yet (highlights only, alas – in about an hour), but I remember seeing Barry Richards in his pomp, in the 70s, in a county one-day game. They set an offside field, and bowled accurately six inches outside his off stump; so he stepped a foot outside the off stump and swatted them to leg. (This is fast bowling, you understand, or at least trad English medium-pace, and he had time enough to do that.) So they adjusted their line and bowled a foot outside off, so he stepped two feet over. So they bowled a yard outside, and he stood still and the ball was called wide. And so on. It was just a joyful session, a master at play.
Some of the classier batsmen do that sort of thing a lot in Twenty20 just to break up the line of the bowler. What KP is doing, however, is a whole new order of skill. Simply to be able to play left-handed as well as right-handed is impressive. Being able to hit sixes is left-handed is doubly impressive. But being able to change stance and grip in such a short time and still hit sixes is phenomenal.
Barry Richards was a seriously good player, and it is such a shame he never got the chance to play must test cricket. But the intensity of interest in Twenty20 is driving innovation in cricket like never before.
Clever! Not something you could do in baseball even if you wanted to do so, because it’s against the rules to change sides of the plate during a pitch.
Is it now. That’s interesting. In cricket it is illegal for a bowler to change the arm he is using to deliver the ball, or to change which side of the wicket he runs up, without informing the batsman first. It is not illegal for a batsman to do what KP did today, but probably only because no one ever thought it could be done. The bowlers amongst the commentators are not happy about it. Michael Holding in particular has been complaining that it is most unfair to the bowler. Doubtless someone will have to consider making a ruling at some point. But before that happens I expect a number of young batsmen will get out in embarrassing ways trying to replicate the feat.
Following up: the specific baseball rule (6.02(b)) is “The batter shall not leave his position in the batter’s box after the pitcher comes to Set Position, or starts his windup.” And since the two batter’s boxes aren’t connected, you thus can’t change sides mid-pitch.
Similar to the bowling rule you cite, a batter can change sides of the plate between pitches, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do so.
I’ve just seen the videos – quite amazing.
I have visions of a quiet English village this coming weekend. The gentle clinking of pint glasses on the outfield. Balmy summer sunshine. And endless numbers of not-quite-match-fit portly gentleman hauling their bats over long-on, their stumps in tatters, as this is attempted again and again. Or I hope so. This is what village cricket is about, surely? I’ve been out attempting a reverse sweep myself when I should have known better…
Coincidentally, a similar situation occurred in a Minor League baseball game recently, although it didn’t happen mid-pitch. A switch-hitter faced a switch-pitcher, and a deadlock ensued.
cherl would u please explain the “follow on rule” how it workled out?
Jackie: My answer was getting quite long so I made a separate post out of it. You can find it here.