One interesting peculiarity of how Don Bradman stood at the crease was to place his bat between his feet rather than behind the rear foot, as most players do. If I am correct, the only other batsman I have seen doing that was Mohammed Azharuddin. Most cricketing manuals seem to always show the behind-rear-foot stance. And since most players also follow that, they teach youngsters to follow the same way.
One site I read suggests that the reason for using the rear foot is to avoid hitting the pad during your backlift. This would be true if you stood the same way, sideways and lifting the bat straight backwards. However, the way for playing with the bat between the feet is different:
- You have to use a open stance. Instead of aligning both your feet at right angles to the pitch, your front foot may be slightly turned.
- You will bring your bat backwards towards the slips. This will obviously affect the ball placement differently.
I have tried this stance in matches and it is extremely convenient to play both front-foot and back-foot shots easily, as you have a greater balance between both feet. Keeping the bat behind the rear foot means an earlier commitment to a shot.
Raising the bat towards the slip means a longer travel distance for the bat, which makes it much easier to time powerful shots along the ground. It is riskier to attempt skied shots as the bat is probably hitting the ball at an angle which can put a spin on the ball while in the air, creating a greater chance of getting caught out. To explain that in clearer terms, a spinning ball stays in the air longer and travels shorter. When you want to hit a six, you want to hit it flat so that it moves as quickly out of the ground as possible.
Brian Lara is another person who uses a high bat to hit extremely powerful strokes, though he keeps the traditional stance of keeping bat behind feet. Notice how he raises his bat to almost touch the back of his head.