Ajinkya Rahane strode out to bat in the 1st
innings of the 4th Test last week in Delhi, his Test figures in
India read six innings for 47 runs at an average of 7.83. His highest score was
15 and his longest innings was 47 balls. Few days later Rahane had bumped his home
average to 39.3, scored two hundreds and importantly batted for 427 with only
one dismissal.
So what did he change technically in between the 1st
Test and the 4th Test.
During the week Rahane stated he had practised for over two
hours after the Nagpur Test. “The idea was to just practise defending the ball”
he told reporters in Mumbai. Second
parameter was that he wanted to be patient at the start of this innings. “I
thought I was playing shots very early in my innings”.
From his two hour session with batting coach, Sanjay Bangar
it was evident Rahane had to firstly get his defence in order to succeed. Take
a look at three important changes Rahane made before Delhi.
FRONT FOOT DEFENCE
Take a look at the six images below. Top row is from the 1st
Test in Mohali and the bottom row is from the 4th Test in Delhi.
Image 1 A Image
2A Image
3A
Image 1B Image
2B Image
3B
From the first column (images 1A and 1B) the first thing
that stands out is that Rahane has a bent his front foot knee. This enables him
to get lower and stretch further to smother the spin on the front foot. From
image 3B it is worth nothing his head is right over the ball, weight is going
forward, well balanced and he bat is at an angle. In Mohali (image 3A), the
lack of flex in his front knee meant he was not able to stretch that extra foot
further which caused him to lose balance and play with an almost a vertical
bat.
Yes, the ball did bounce a bit more in Mohali but the image
also shows had Rahane stretched further
forward rather than been stuck on the crease playing upright and pushing hard,
he could have avoided jabbing the ball to short leg. Rahane was only able to
get a longer stride due to the technical adjustments mentioned before.
The middle column (images 2A and 2B) illustrates what Rahane
had spoken about during the week and that was playing with bad and pad
together. Worth noting how low Rahane’s
head is while making impact with the ball.
In Mohali (image 2A) his head is above the height of the stumps while in
Delhi (image 2B) the eye level and the head is almost below the height of the
stumps.
The ever so slightly crouched stance and the flexed knee has
enabled Rahane to get his front foot across the off stump and play with bat and
pad together.
STANCE AND THE BAT
TAP
After his dismissals in Mohali, Rahane also slightly altered
his stance and also changed his bat tap.
In Mohali (Image 3A and 3B) ,Rahane stance was very upright
and his bat was held up in the air at the height of the stumps as he waited for
the bowler (image 3A). Then as the spin
bowler is running in he simply placed his bat down and then played the ball.
Image 3A (Mohali) Image
3B (Mohali)
This had been his normal stance for the past year and half
but come Delhi he had altered it.
Image 4A (Delhi) Image
4B (Delhi)
Firstly, he was crouched just a slightly lower (image 4A)
with his head position a lot lower at the stance than it was in Mohali (Image
3A). But the big change was in his bat tap. Instead of having the bat in the
air, Rahane had decided to tap the bat three or four times on the ground as the
bowler ran into bowl. The back lift on the taps were also very minimal (not
taking it higher than more than one third of the stump height (Image 4A). Then he continued to play the ball on its
merit.
From speaking to various experts it is believed the small
short bat taps close to the ground enabled Rahane to reduce his bat speed which
assured his hands were not getting too far away from his body and also stayed
low. The lowering of the stance also allowed him to stay lower to the ground.
RUNS SCORING AND
EXECUTION
One other vital point stated by Rahane this week was that he
wanted to avoid playing shots early in his innings. It was worth noting three
out of four of Rahane’s dismissals had come while attempting drives through the
point and cover region.
In the 1st innings at Mohali he tried to drive a ball
that pitched into the rough through the covers but edged it to slip. In Nagpur
he tried an expansive drive through the covers and left a massive gap through
bat and pad. Then once again in the 2nd innings attempted a front
foot square drive out of the rough only to succeed spooning a catch behind
point.
Come Delhi and it was the big drives through covers on the
front foot that Rahane resisted throughout his innings. Rahane did not score
off the front foot through the off-side in his first 20 balls he faced against
spinners. Both his boundaries early in his innings had come short balls of the
back foot.
Despite five balls of those initial 20 balls pitching only two
meters from the stumps Rahane restrained himself from driving off the front
foot through the cover region until he had crossed fifty. In fact he had only scored two runs on the
front foot against spinner through the off side when he reached fifty.
Then even in the second innings and with a hundred under his
belt Rahane persisted with his game plan of restraining himself from driving
through the off-side against spinners. It took him 15 balls to finally get a
run on the front foot from the spinners and like the first innings, he had resisted
the fate of driving the ball through the covers until he reached fifty.
By going back to basics and through astute planning Rahane
had revealed his ability to succeed on his home turf.
