Rise of batsmen with an ugly technique in world cricket

[Bigboii]

I absolutely hate watching steve smith and labushane bat especially if I can watch babar, Kohli or another stylish batsman bat than the pain becomes unbearable

So what do you guys think is the reason that more and more we are seeing these ugly batting styles dominating the batting charts

 

[Hawkeye]

They are terrible to watch indeed.

Can't stand them.

I don't know why we've got so many of them now though.

 

[sweep_shot]

Blame the T20 format.

Batsman no longer have incentives to be technically correct. They need to be unorthodox in order to score quick runs.

 

[Bigboii]

Blame the T20 format.

Batsman no longer have incentives to be technically correct. They need to be unorthodox in order to score quick runs.

But Steve smith and labushane are both gun batsman in test cricket

 

[sweep_shot]

But Steve smith and labushane are both gun batsman in test cricket

Test cricket is also affected by T20 format. Teams now look to score fast.

Also, Test bowling quality worldwide has gone down significantly.

 

[FastBowlingAllrounder]

Test cricket is also affected by T20 format. Teams now look to score fast.

Also, Test bowling quality worldwide has gone down significantly.

Aesthetically pleasing batsmen such as Kohli can score quickly.

I think the reason is because instead of trying to ingrain the 'perfect technique' that we are taught (head over the ball, weight leaning into drives, etc.) into their muscle memory, players just see what works for them and stick to it.

In the case of Marnus Labuschagne, he had a relatively orthodox technique and scored heavily through covers when he first came out to play in FC. However, his weakness was balls on his stump or something like that. So he went to County Cricket and changed his technique with the sole focus of becoming defensively sound while maintaining his weird stance and now he has the current technique.

Similarly, Smith began that weird back-and-across thing after getting bounced out in Ashes series (I'm sure everyone has heard this) and then ingrained that into his technique (no idea where those lightsaber leaves come from though...).

So it seems to be a case of players just trying to mitigate a clear weakness in their otherwise natural technique or adapting to a certain situation which leads to these weird trigger movements, stances, bat pick ups, etc.

 

[BoomBoomCricket]

As Graham Gooch famously said "It is about how many, not how."

Effectiveness over style.

Mind you, we have seen players with dodgy techniques like Handscomb and Ballance and Fawad Alam struggle to nail down a spot in the playing XI.

 

[gazza619]

It has nothing to do with T20 format.

In every era you would have batsmen with ugly techniques. I can immediately think of Shiv Chanderpaul, Ijaz Ahmed, Shoaib Mohammad.
Even Javed Miandad was not attractive to watch, unless he changed gears which was not very often.

It is just a coincidence that the current king of ugly batting Steve Smith is top of the charts when it comes to run scoring.

 

[ManFan]

Who cares?

It’s about whether a batsman scored or not.

The aesthetic pleasers more often than not fail on the regular and a players loyalty is greater to his team than the crowd.