But then New Zealand could face them in a semi or the final itself! Far better from my perspective if Pakistan goes home in the group stage.
After a cricket less day we’ve got South Africa - Ireland tonight. Can the Irish fairytale continue? Almost certainly not, but I’m hoping the Irish make a good game of it and don’t wilt under the pressure.
Anyone know where someone in the US can see some of this for free?
I have been wanting to see real cricket for a while, and this event would be the perfect primer for someone like me.
If you have faith in your antivirus software there are streaming sites. Google should point you to them.
Yeah, about that…
Can’t blame the Irish - another 400+ score from S. Africa and this one not reliant on one heroic performance. The Irish would have done well to chase 300 against SA’s attack, and once they’d got to 48/5 they presumably gave up on the chase and tried to make a decent showing.
I know this thread is about the World Cup, but I hope that no one minds with some of my general cricket questions during lulls in the action.
Are there switch-batsmen or switch-bowlers in cricket, i.e. players that can bat or bowl left-handed as well as right-handed? Is there any advantage to having this ability in cricket, such as with baseball (where right-handed batters have an advantage over left-handed pitchers and vice versa)?
For the person asking about free viewing, I found it very difficult to get a decent feed. Plus, I was hit with many pop-ups or forced to accept plug-ins, etc. I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Plus any streams that I did get were very poor quality. In 2011, I was able to watch the entire semi-final and final round for free using one of the free streaming sites, but this year it didn’t seem to be happening. I finally bit the bullet and paid the $99 for the ESPN US coverage. Unfortunately having trouble Chromecasting it to my TV so will have to watch on the Mac.
I’m sure someone with more cricket knowledge than me will be along in a minute, but you will very rarely see a right-handed batsman completely switch stance and grip (essentially becoming a mirror-image of their normal stance and grip) as the bowler delivers the ball - there simply wouldn’t be sufficient time for them to adjust and this would outweigh any possible advantage. They would be far more likely to get out than score runs. I’m not sure what would happen if they tried to do this as the bowler was halfway through their run-up - is this even allowed? Assuming the bowler noticed, I think they would simply stop and then start their run-up again.
Having said that, the so-called “reverse sweep” is very commonly used these days (less so in Test cricket) whereby the batsman changes their grip and then hits the ball to the opposite side from the expected one. Not really the same as what you’re asking, I don’t think.
As far as I know, there is no particular advantages for left-handed batsmen over right-handed bowlers or vice versa.
At the highest level, no*. There are some players who bat/bowl differently, meaning a left hand bat is a right arm bowl and vice versa, Pakistan’s Wahab Riaz for instance. Some players play opposite to their handedness, England David Gower was right handed who batted left and Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq was a lefty who batted right.
There are advantages to being lefty. The highest score in Tests has been the preserve of a left hander since 1958.
[QUOTE=wiki]
A reverse sweep is a cross-batted sweep shot played in the opposite direction to the standard sweep, thus instead of sweeping the ball to the leg side, it is swept to the off side, towards backward point or third man. The batsman may also swap his hands on the bat handle to make the stroke easier to execute. The batsman may also bring his back foot to the front therefore making it more like a traditional sweep. The advantage of a reverse sweep is that it effectively reverses the fielding positions and thus is very difficult to set a field to.
[/QUOTE]
One of these shots, cost England a World Cup final.
On the “switch hitter”
Thanks. I didn’t mean to change stances while the bowler is already starting his run -up, although that would have probably been the next question.
Why is there a batting advantage to being lefty? Is it because most bowlers are righty? If so, this would be similar to baseball, where righty hitters are better at hitting against lefty pitchers and vice-versa (for the most part). As you might have guessed, righty pitchers would prefer to pitch to righty hitter as well.
For a right armer, especially a fast bowler, the traditional delivery to a right hander, one over the wicket (bowled from the left side of the pitch) ball arriving just out side his off stump (the batsmans left stump from a bowlers perspective) becomes one which arrives at leftys leg side, making it easy to hit. To compansate he has to either bowl across the stumps which is difficult to do, its easy to send one which arrives wide and outside, which is begging to be hit, or bowl from the opposite side which will basically mirror the trajectory of his deliveries.
If there is, it’s very slight, and it’s probably more down to what the bowlers are used to bowling at. A RH/LH combination at the crease is always said to be preferred by the batting side, as this results in constant field changes as they rotate the strike, and the bowler has to adjust his line for each batsman. Not sure how much this matters in the modern game, really, because bowling teams tend to set individual lines and fields to each batsman anyway, regardless of handedness.
AK84 says that the highest test scores have been the preserve of lefties since 1958, which is entirely true, but actually involves only 3 batsmen - Sobers, Lara(twice) and Hayden, so it’s statistically insignificant.
And in fact there have been huge numbers of players who batted left and bowled right, or vice versa - Stuart Broad and James Anderson in the present England line-up, to name just two. Just from gut feel based on forty years of watching cricket, I feel as though right/right is the most common combination and left/left the least.
The buckles/straps are mounted on the inside of each pad.
The only person who requires one pad to be better padded than the other is Shane Watson.
AK84 says that the highest test scores have been the preserve of lefties since 1958, which is entirely true, but actually involves only 3 batsmen - Sobers, Lara(twice) and Hayden, so it’s statistically insignificant.
[/QUOTE]
Bit misleading also. The records may belong to lefties but in the period since 1900 there have been 142 right handed batsmen scoring over 200. There were 44 lefties. (Some did it several times)
If you alter it to over 300, there have been 15 right handed batsmen (17 times) as against 9 left handed batsmen (11 times).
Lately, been pretty even with a couple of batsmen getting over 300 (say since 2010) and not much difference.
In the meantime I believe Australia racked up a ODI World Cup record of 416 against Afghanistan.
Some of the “statistics” being quoted in this thread are amazing. There is a clear and pronounced advantage to left handed batsmen. It is so obvious that some coaches encourage right handers to learn to bat left handed. Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Alistair Cook and Michael Hussey are all naturally right handed but bat left handed.
Cicero in your figures you ignore the fact that only about 10% of the population are left handed but in the records quoted lefties are equal with 9 times as many righties. For the last several years about 30 - 35% of the batsmen playing in the top 6 in Tests are left handed, far above what one would expect if there were no advantage inherent in being left handed. If there were no advantage there would be one left handed batsmen for every two test teams.
As a comparison for example it would be like every third professional golfer being left handed, which just isn’t the case as there is no natural advantage to playing golf left handed.
Also remember, in batting, the top hand is in control of the shot. For a left handed batter, the top hand is the right one…
An article on the advantage of left handers in cricket.
I’m not ignoring anything actually. I was just presenting facts that statsguru gave me before it decided to hate me. I didn’t give any inclination as to whether a leftie or rightie is a better batsman. To do that, as an example, you would have to make some adjustment that a keeper (2/3rds of whom being right handed by your stats) would be moving to their wrong side to collect a snick from a leftie. So it follows the chances are less likely to be taken. I would doubt if those stats are available.
I enjoy watching both batting and forcing the batsmen to adjust. And recently, the advent of reverse shots (mainly in the shorter versions of the game) are getting a little confusing.
One thing though, I really think some of the stats are - if not devalued- at least nothing more than a milestone. When Hayden broke Lara’s record, it was against a weak Zimbabwe attack on a good batting track. Meaningless. Similarly, when Lara reclaimed it, it was on a road when England scored seven million or something as well.
While batting milestones are good on a resume, I think the context of a game means a bit more.
Of course. I had missed that.
This.
Well there certainly players who can bat as well LH as RH, but primarily on the basis they couldn’t bat any worse the wrong way around. 
Of those who bat well, switch hitting is a novelty only seen in limited overs games. I can’t recall any bowler in any form of the game bowling both RH and LH. If Garry Sobers couldn’t bat or bowl both ways then there’s a good chance nobody could.
As the rules currently stand batsmen are unrestricted in their movement or stance during the bowlers run up. But a bowler would be entitled to stop and go back to the top of their run-up. If repeated the umpire would warn the batsman for time wasting.
Conversely at the start of any bowling spell the bowler tells the umpire which arm and side they will be using (e.g. right arm over). The umpire relays this info to the batsman. This is repeated whenever the bowler decides to change side and presumably this would also apply if they wanted to go from right arm over to left arm around.
I’m of the mind that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and if a RHB wants to hit a reverse sweep holding the bat as a RH that’s fair squeeze, but if they want to play LH they need to advise the bowler before the delivery.