How to play leg glance?

[hadi123]

When watching cricket, the leg glance looks so easy to play when international batsmen play it. But every time I try and play it in nets or in a match, I always miss the ball and get hit on the pads. How can I improve my leg glance?

 

[Saqs]

It's mostly about balance. You're probably falling to the right and losing your balance. I had the same issue until I figured out it was a balance issue.

 

[Big Mac]

As someone trying to learn how to bat after a decade away from the game I've got the same problem. I can play down the ground and through the offside without too much trouble yet a half-volley on my pads is a dot ball.

Won't be able to work on it now that Ramadhan is approaching but in my own case I think there are two changes that I could try:

The Quick Fix: Open up my stance a tiny bit.

Pros: This will stop my pad getting in the way of balls I should be playing through mid-on and midwicket.

Cons: Doesn't necessarily make the leg glance any easier and if I open up the stance too much it carries the risk of messing up my ability to play the cover drive and square cut.

Getting my head to the ball: AKA learn how to bat

Pros: If your head goes to the pitch of the ball, your feet tend to follow. Centre of gravity and GCSE physics and whatnot. Improves your batting all round, how does it help with leg stump balls? Because getting your head forward makes it easier to play the ball without your pads getting in the way. See Exhibits A & B presented below:

See how, even though he hasn't made a big stride forward he's in a position where he can flick the ball to the legside pretty easily. That's because his bat is out in front of his pads. The danger here is that you might end up driving the ball in the air if you don't get your timing right.

Compare that to:

This gentleman above will be feeling pleased with himself because he's heard all the TV commentators so he's got a giant stride in. Unfortunately for him, he's not in a position to flick the ball to the legside because his pads are going to get in the way of his bat.

Cons: It's hard work to overhaul your technique like this and requires a friend who is generous and extremely patient to come to the nets with you and spend hours throwing the ball at your pads until you get it right.


Of course, as Pakistanis we are also able to adopt a third method to eliminate the ball hitting the pads:

Get your front foot out of the way and swing as hard as possible:

 

[gazza619]

Was watching Pakistan bat this afternoon against SA and could not figure out why do our batsmen do not play the leg glance. I remember this shot used to be the out of jail shot (Ask Miandad). This was a run scoring stroke on tough pitches against good bowlers.

Its not hard to play. You just have to wait for a ball and using your wrists and bat angle can get a boundary or a 2 on balls which are on leg or middle stump.

I wonder do our batsmen even practice this in the nets?

 

[Big Mac]

Ha, I forgot about this. I did end up changing my stance to open myself up more and it helped with my balance and I ended up scoring a bunch of runs off my pads which was never the case before. As predicted, I didn't score as much through the covers but I'm not complaining seeing as I doubled my batting average from the previous couple of seasons.

[MENTION=57506]hadi123[/MENTION] did you have any luck?

 

[hadi123]

Ha, I forgot about this. I did end up changing my stance to open myself up more and it helped with my balance and I ended up scoring a bunch of runs off my pads which was never the case before. As predicted, I didn't score as much through the covers but I'm not complaining seeing as I doubled my batting average from the previous couple of seasons.

[MENTION=57506]hadi123[/MENTION] did you have any luck?

Lol no. I'm rubbish at batting, my highest score this season was 9*

 

[Big Mac]

Lol no. I'm rubbish at batting, my highest score this season was 9*

I was useless at batting my entire life until the grey hairs started to appear and my body became too broken to bowl!

To give you an example of how crap I was I averaged 9.25 in 2016, 10.92 in 2017 and then last year I was unable to bowl so I had to think about my batting a bit more and ended up averaging 24 which included my first ever 50.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret which I discovered last year - batting actually isn't that hard. It's like medicine and law, batsmen have conned the world into thinking it's impossible to try and justify their glory boy status.

It doesn't matter if you have a good technique or not, as long as you understand your own technique and what shots you can and cannot play. A massive amount of batting is all in your head.

I'll make a winter nets/preseason thread later on this week and you and I are going to sort out our batting. This season we'll get you to score 20 in an innings and I'm going to get two or three more half centuries this summer and average 30+

 

[hadi123]

I was useless at batting my entire life until the grey hairs started to appear and my body became too broken to bowl!

To give you an example of how crap I was I averaged 9.25 in 2016, 10.92 in 2017 and then last year I was unable to bowl so I had to think about my batting a bit more and ended up averaging 24 which included my first ever 50.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret which I discovered last year - batting actually isn't that hard. It's like medicine and law, batsmen have conned the world into thinking it's impossible to try and justify their glory boy status.

It doesn't matter if you have a good technique or not, as long as you understand your own technique and what shots you can and cannot play. A massive amount of batting is all in your head.

I'll make a winter nets/preseason thread later on this week and you and I are going to sort out our batting. This season we'll get you to score 20 in an innings and I'm going to get two or three more half centuries this summer and average 30+

That sounds good bro. My highest score is 20 a few seasons ago, and funnily enough that was one of the higher quality sides we were playing against, it was a sunday game against a team that had some First XI bowlers. I have played a few good innings before down the order, but I think it's a mental/confidence issue for me which is why I struggle. Bowling wise no such issues, I had a decent season with the ball, and a very strong finish to the season!

 

[Big Mac]

That sounds good bro. My highest score is 20 a few seasons ago, and funnily enough that was one of the higher quality sides we were playing against, it was a sunday game against a team that had some First XI bowlers. I have played a few good innings before down the order, but I think it's a mental/confidence issue for me which is why I struggle. Bowling wise no such issues, I had a decent season with the ball, and a very strong finish to the season!

Yeah as a life long tailender I am still struggling with the need to be selfish when you bat higher up the order. The key really is to be a proper Boycott and make sure you don't get out, keep telling yourself that you can't trust the other players to score any runs.

I kept thinking about run rate calculations in my head when batting last year and threw away my wicket after getting to 20 or 30 a bunch of times. Inevitably the next 5/6 wicket all collapsed in a heap and we would be bowled out with 15-20 overs left to play.

Go out there singing a catchy song and relax and it's easier to play every ball on its merits.

Although if the bowler ever comes around the wicket and there is a large gap behind point then that goes out of the window, next shot is 100% reverse sweep

 

[FastBowlingAllrounder]

Yeah remember seeing a few Miandad glances (on vid ofc). As a get out of jail shot KP also played a similar glance shot or something which he called "The Flamingo Shot" in which he would move across to the off side and flick the ball of his pads anywhere between mid-wicket and fine leg. According to KP the shot was effective whenever a bowler set a 6-3 Off-side field and was bowling fifth sixth stump. Was also effective to rotate strike in the death of a T20 or ODI...

Why can't our batsmen be a bit more innovative??

 

[Suleiman]

There’s a fantastic tutorial by Bob Woolmer on how to play a leg glance and other basic batting technique on youtube. Great teacher, RIP.

It requires a bit of wrist work since you don’t want to slash the ball and lob it up in the air as you bring the bat down to play it to the leg side. So it’s a matter of practicing timing, wrist work and as said above balance, but I think balance is a separate skill on its own because if you’re falling over playing this shot then you need to work on how you’re using your feet first.