Ripping the manual

Perhaps the purest, the most classical square drive of the IPL came from Misbah-ul-Haq's bat in Bangalore Royal Challenger's disastrous match against the King's XI Punjab. The ball from Sreesanth was on the fuller side of good-length, and Misbah went on his knees to send the ball crashing past point with the bat describing the loveliest of arcs.

However, there was only one vital deviation from the classical. The ball was on the middle stump, and Misbah was a good foot away from the leg-stump while executing the stroke. Elsewhere, Shane Watson takes an off and middle stump guard before shuffling a touch towards off to nonchalantly muscle a length delivery over midwicket. Swapnil Asnodkar stays on the leg stump beside the line of the ball and slashes one on the off stump over point.

These are some of the fascinating batting vignettes emerging out of the IPL. The batsmen are either creating their own room by staying beside the line or creating their own line by shuffling to off.

"I think you have to forget your stumps in Twenty20." Martin Crowe's insight just about summarises the batting approach in this briefest form of the game. "You just got to bat down the line the bowler will bowl. To me, my strength is the on side and so if I were batting in Twenty20, I would create an angle to hit on-side. So there is no point in taking a middle stump guard if a bowler like Glenn McGrath is going to bowl a foot outside off stump. So I would stand on off stump, even outside off. If he wants to hit my leg stump then good luck. He has probably only got three people on the on side and I am strong there." Misbah, perhaps, took forgetting the stumps to the other extreme when he went back and stepped on his stumps in the match against Kings XI Punjab.

Sehwag has teased the bowlers in this tournament by his approach. Many a time, as he would do usually, he would stay beside the line and flash deliveries on the off stump through the off side field. The bowler, as Manpreet Gony of Chennai Super Kings did in a game, would then try to bowl closer to the body when, suddenly, Sehwag would walk to the off stump, get outside the line almost and unfurl a swivel-pull over square leg.

All this hasn't come overnight. The teams have been practicing differently for this tournament. One batsman, not known for his big hitting, revealed the special practice drills. The coach made him hit everything across the line for thirty minutes and it was a huge mental challenge given that he'd spent his entire cricketing life trying to play within the V. "I had to forget everything I had learnt. It was a huge mental adjustment and a nice little challenge. The aim was to unlearn stuff."

The young Mumbai batsman Abhishek Nayar says his practice involved hitting shots to his areas of strength and he picked length as the key to determine which shot to pull off. "If it's short it usually goes over midwicket unless it's well outside off, in which case I would hit it over the off side." The line is not that important to the likes of Nayar. By moving around and at times across, he can either drill through the line or swing across it.

Rohit Sharma, who is currently third on the run-charts, believes Twenty20 batting is not about slogging or playing those risky paddles and reverse-sweeps. "Perhaps, the change is that you don't get too much behind the line but stay just outside it. Then you can hit it over extra cover or straight over the field. So I stay on the leg stump or move outside leg a little, give myself room but am trying to maintain a good head position and hit the balls in front of wicket. Playing late has come naturally to me and so I have just concentrated to stay outside the line in this tournament."

Gautam Gambhir, one of the highest scorers, uses a similar approach and has been very successful in staying alongside the line and hitting length deliveries through off side. He has taken care not to press either his back or front leg across so that his body doesn't come in the way of the bat swing. He has maintained a still head that allows him to maintain balance while driving on the up.

The other approach that has stood out is that of S Badrinath. Often, he has retreated well inside the crease. So what could be a yorker-length ball had he stood at his usual position has become a full-pitched delivery. It allows him to get under the ball and swing it over the infield.

However, there is the risk of the batsman trying to fit everything within his predetermined framework. Ross Taylor, the New Zealand batsman who played a few games for Bangalore, employed smooth swings across the line to his favourite on side. But, on occasions, he was dismissed going for these swipes. "It's a risk but that's my strength [on side] and I was confident of getting the bat in line." Perhaps, for a batsman who has a lovely off drive in his repertoire, he could have deployed that shot to the deliveries outside off stump more often but again, it's the case of the batsmen trying to forget the stumps and trying to hit to their favourite areas.

The interesting thing to watch out for is when these batsmen, who are avoiding getting behind the line, play Test cricket. It won't matter for a Sehwag who tries to stay beside the line in most forms of the game but will the others revert to the conventional form or will they continue with the new approach since they have tasted success. And if they do, will they be as successful?