This had been written in December 2011, but never saw the light of day. Its been put up since it would otherwise very likely be lost in the clutter of my gmail.
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Sachin Tendulkar has the second-most recognizable crotch grab in the world. And easily the most recognizable stance and technique to batting. Despite him being the most revered and copied batsman since the beginning of time, his batting stride can be easily recognized by anyone within a distance of 38 light years.
The same cannot be said for any of our next-generation, tweet-happy, tattoo-friendly line of modern batsmen. The likes of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwara Pujara, Manoj Tiwary, Murali Vijay all seem to have stepped off the same assembly line of 21st century batting droids. The tight, textbook technique, the big stride forward and the penchant to play in the traditional V all mark them out as very technically correct batsmen. Discounting the slight tilt to his head and the laidback elegance that comes from innate talent, you could throw Rohit Sharma into the mix as well.
The thought struck us as we watched Virat Kohli and Manoj Tiwary put together a 117 run stand in the final ODI against the West Indies in the recent home series. Without a second glance, it was virtually impossible to distinguish between the two and very easy to mistake one’s strokeplay for the others.
This recent phenomenon is a departure from tradition of sorts for a country like India, where batsmen have been renowned more for their individualistic style than strong technique. Batsmen have been, more often than not, self-modelled, and players as recent as Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman and even MS Dhoni have techniques not recognized by any coaching manual in the world. Contrast this with a nation like England which has, thanks to its strong club-and-county domestic structure, churned out generations of well-coached, efficient batsmen. It is hard to recall any English batsman, David Gower apart, popular for a flamboyant or distinctive style of batsmanship. Jason de la Pena, in the post-match punditry session on Day 2 of the Melbourne test, could not have been blunter as he pondered whether Virender Sehwag would have ever even been allowed onto the international stage had he been English.
Interestingly, Sanjay Manjrekar broached a similar subject in his latest blog post, ‘In praise of the natural game’, on ESPNcricinfo. His implications were different, but the point made was the same; that modern coaching techniques might possibly be doing the game a disservice by weeding out the little idiosyncrasies that make up a intrinsic part of genius. And he drove it home for good measure by hinting at how much poorer the world would have been had someone corrected Sachin Tendulkar’s grip in his formative years, taught Brian Lara a straight, checked backlift or berated Virender Sehwag for his immobile feet.
Without doubt, the proliferation of coaching techniques is doing wonders for the game at the grassroots level, and standards are bound to be raised consequentially. Whether the touch of genius will be stamped out as a result remains to be seen as the next generation takes over the helms of the sport.
