Of all the Indian players who batted in the nets at the MCG on Sunday, Shubman Gill stood out with his unique approach. He took different stances at the crease depending on the bowler. Others were trying to undermine their approach, their stance, either leaning forward or pushing back or trying to undermine whatever little thing they were working on. But fundamentally, the position they stood in at the beginning remained the same. Not Gil though.
At times, he would stand well outside the crease and move back and forth to finish with his back foot at the popping crease. For other bowlers, he would start standing, cutting the crease or even inside, and pushing back near the stumps. With different types of bowlers working the same net, Gill was changing each ball radically. It was quite something to behold.
He started facing throwdown specialists, and even with them, wanting him to bowl to them based on their speed and length, he started to move around. But apart from that, he played a role with the Sri Lankan left-armer Nuwan throwdown-er.
He would press back with both feet standing outside the crease. He asked the thrower to bowl a full pitch. Even if the balls were landing full or full length, from a position behind the crease, he would play them without any leg movement. Just knee-flex and hands.
Was it for Mitch Starc’s delivery, when they pitched up? Gill doesn’t naturally lean into drives, and this time, he wasn’t even trying against those full balls. He pressed back and let his hands line the full-length delivery. In Adelaide, he was indeed dismissed at full strength when he edged Starc over the line, a dismissal that pushed India into crisis mode. These forces he encountered here were of length. He is a batsman who grew up on cement pitches and his backfoot game has also developed since those days. So, fast bowlers all over the world try to mix in full balls every now and then to catch him off guard. Finally satisfied with his batting against those balls, he went to the various nets with regular bowlers – both Indian and local net bowlers – and did his thing.
For the famous Krishna who loved to hit the deck, he would start off the back foot at the crease and push back to punch inside the crease. For a net bowler, he stands outside the crease and leans forward to drive or punch while standing tall. As for Nippy Akash Deep, he would end up inside the crease and try to see if he could punch or tap. Mohammad went back to Siraj but perhaps not as much as to Prasid.
As the bowler leaves the green-grass area of the outfield and enters the turf area extending beyond the stumps, he begins the backward movement. Punch, tap, drive, clip, and the occasional pull.
The net pitches at the MCG were not of the highest quality, it must be said. Pitches with variable bounce. “Think they were made for white-ball cricket,” Akash Deep said later, talking specifically about their lack of bounce. Sometimes, balls would skid or lay low.
One such time when Rohit Sharma shaped to pull the ball from throwdown specialist Daya. He didn’t rise as high as he expected, the ball slipping under the flashing blade and hitting him in the left knee. He screamed in pain, and soon sat on one side in a plastic chair, with an ice pack on his knee. After some time, bowling coach Morne Morkel went to his side, and Rohit got up and replayed his painful sequence, crying in pain.
Rohit was in a very cheerful mood at the nets. At one point, when he got to Akash Deep’s skiddy delivery and hit him to the body, he adopted a Bihari twang and went, “Bhaiya! Humko maroge?! (Brother, you hit me?!) Akash, who hails from Bihar and has risen against the odds from there, Flashing a big smile, the fans watching the training laughed.
Virat Kohli continued the approach he showed on Saturday, trying to shoulder balls as far away from the off-stump as possible; He also called Yashasvi Jaiswal who was batting in the adjacent nets and had a long conversation. And as Jaiswal faced the next ball, Kohli looked at him intently, threw in a word of encouragement and resumed his batting. Akash too had injured his hand while batting and would back off saying it was all part of the game, nothing serious. Neither his nor Rohit’s.
All in all, an interesting training day in the MCG nets, especially the way Gill goes about his batting.
Why should you buy our membership?
You want to be the smartest in the room.
You want access to our award-winning journalism.
You don’t want to be confused and misinformed.
Choose your subscription package