The sweep spot

The subcontinent used to be a graveyard for so many visiting teams but ever since the sweep shot was seen as the answer to local conditions, the game has changed significantly. Watch these next two series in India (vs Australia and England) and see how regularly the shot is used as an offensive and defensive ploy against the Indian spinners.

Australia’s recent successes against the Asian teams, especially in the subcontinent, rely heavily on their mastery of the sweep shot. Against good spinners on tracks that don’t bounce as much, their use of the sweep has probably been the biggest tactical change in the last decade.

Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist use it as weapon – not just a gentle paddle for one, they employ the shot as a boundary-seeking missile. Because they sweep on length, rather than line, their powerful physiques enable them to hit the ball well in front of square, often finding the boundary at ‘cow corner’. Phil Jacques too sweeps in front of square, almost a slog sweep. Steve Waugh’s legacy lives on.

For Ricky Ponting however, the sweep doesn’t seem to be a natural shot. He tends to paddle the ball round the corner and has been known to top edge the ball to short fine-leg. Perhaps this explains his poor results in India although his record against Sri Lanka is pretty decent. It’s their standard tactic against Muttiah Muralitharan.

The fact that they can sweep over wide midwicket (instead of the traditional sweep to backward square-leg) means that the captain has to now employ two men in the deep, possibly having to dispense with a close-in fielder or someone at square-leg to stop the easy push for a single. It is a deliberate ploy, practised endlessly and used as the preferred way to rotate strike. It is a team tactic and even the tail-enders are taught to play the shot properly.

Not that Australia have been the only team to use this against subcontinental opposition. Graham Gooch played a brilliant innings against India in the semi-final of the 1987 World Cup, sweeping Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri to distraction in a famous victory.

Hansie Cronje used the slog sweep to great effect against Shane Warne in 1993/94 in Australia but inexplicably, the South Africans rarely used that ploy against him later. Jonty Rhodes was born with a broom in his hand but not many other South African batsmen swept Warne consistently. Perhaps the extra bounce on Australian/African pitches made it a riskier shot.

Allan Border was a great exponent of the shot but he tended to look for a single rather than the big boundary hit. England used the sweep shot against Pakistan in 2000 and again in Sri Lanka in 2001, led by Nasser Hussain who favoured that approach against the likes of Saqlain Mushtaq, Mustaq Ahmed and Murali. England won both those series, against all odds.

Indian batsmen however seem to use the shot more sparingly and more as a way to rotate strike rather than hit boundaries. Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag have had their moments when they’ve slog swept Warne and Murali out of the ground but one doesn’t tend to see it so much from great players of spin like Mohammed Azharuddin, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. I wonder why? There must be a good reason for that. All three are very wristy players so perhaps there’s a common theme in those cases.

Left-handers seem to favour the shot more than most. Saurav Ganguly and Gautam Gamhir are good exponents of the shot. Arjuna Ranatunga, Marcus Trescothick, Brian Lara, Andy Flower and Saeed Anwar were regular subscribers to the club. Maybe this is because so many right-arm bowlers seem to be pitching the ball just outside leg stump which takes the lbw out of the equation. It will be interesting now to see if the third umpire referral system changes that bias. Perhaps more lefties will be given out lbw on video replay. It’s a tough decision for the naked eye to give out at first look.

My prediction is that this series, and England’s tour to India, will be a 'sweep-fest'. The batsmen who execute the shot best, including the reverse-sweep (which is no longer a novelty shot) will determine the course of the series. It will be fascinating to see how the bowling captain sets his field to counter a shot that covers so much territory, from wide mid-on to a very fine-leg.