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Barack Obama, Brian Lara and Cricket

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White House Image

American President Barack Obama’s visit to the 34-nation Fifth Summit of the Americas has been the main content on the front pages of newspapers and news websites and blogs after his friendly handshake with the anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But they all missed the real news which is of importance to the entire English Commonwealth community, i.e., the meeting with Brian Lara. Luckily for us, some news reporters did their job.

Caribbean News reports:

Lara gave the president some batting tips and took photographs before presenting him with a personally-autographed bat which read: ”To the President of the United States, Barack Obama, in appreciation of your visit to T&T – Best wishes.

Rediff:

Obama seemed keen to know more about cricket and the West Indies legend showed him the proper batting stance and gave a few tips regarding the forward defensive stroke as well as the classic cover drive.

Cricinfo:

Obama greeted Lara by saying that he “always wanted to meet the Michael Jordan of cricket”. [...] “It was beautiful,” gushed hotel manager Ali Khan. “You could see the expression on [Obama’s] face and his daughter’s. He was truly emotional and touched as were all of us.”

DreamCricket USA:

President Obama, however, will be remembered as the first president to attempt a left handed cover drive. On second thoughts, Obama may also end up as the first president to be banned from cricket by Lalit Modi for taking lessons from an ICL player!

Buth Yaar and Well Pitched:

However, it’s interesting that Obama personally asked to meet Lara, who he called the “Michael Jordan of Cricket”. Seems like Mr. Prez knows a thing or two about that good ol’ British colonial sport!

Don Bradman’s Stance

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bradmanOne 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.