Thick bats and flat pitches have become the order of the day in modern day cricket. Bowlers are treated mercilessly and a strike rate below 100 is frowned upon. In an age of batsmen, it is least expected that the bowler comes out on top.
Technology has advanced so much that each ball delivered or each shot played is analysed from all possible angles to find a chink in the armour of the bowler or batsman. A whole bunch of new devices are in place in cricket grounds to capture each and every movement of the players. The bowlers have ample resources to plug into and find an area to target the batsmen.
Earlier, it required a sharp presence of mind and good skills to outwit a batsman on the day. Now, bowlers know what length troubles a batsman or what his weaknesses are, before setting a foot on the ground. The bowlers would have gone through several videos prepared by analysts that assess the weakness of batsmen. Don't get me wrong, the batsmen get several insights too. The mystery bowlers are no longer mysteries because they are being taped from every nook and corner of the ground.
With so much information in hand, it is rather easy to assess the strength and weakness of modern day batsmen. Let us peep into some great modern batsmen, who have obvious weaknesses that are exposed.
#1 Shikhar Dhawan and the short ball
The short ball has been Shikhar Dhawan's nemesis. He has failed to master the art of hooking and pulling, two traits considered important for an opener. When he first arrived in the International scene and made headlines with his 187 on his Test debut against the Aussies, he was hailed as a great find. But that was short-lived, as he soon found out.
His woes against the rising ball proved to be his demise. Bowlers from around the globe set him up for the pull shot, which was seen as something he could not resist from playing.
Dhawan is an aggressive batsman and likes to charge the fast bowlers, take them on, with pulls and hooks. Often he is hurried by the shorter deliveries and gets into really awkward positions attempting to hit them. That does not stop him from going through with the shot, and this has proved to be his downfall far too often.
Being a predominantly front foot player, he gets a big stride forward while facing. He has been accused of not moving his back foot when going for his shots off short balls. This means he never really gets into the right positions to pull or hook.
The tour of South Africa in 2014 saw him become a sitting duck to short balls from South African quicks, who would keep a short leg, deep square leg and deep fine leg and get him out hooking. If Dhawan fails to master the short ball, this could become his tormentor.
#2 Martin Guptill and the inswinger
One of New Zealand's most proficient openers has a glaring weakness. He is basically a front foot player, with a strong tendency to drive on the up. With that in mind, he gets a good stride forward to most balls. This makes him vulnerable to deliveries coming back in at him.
Australian opener Shane Watson had a similar problem and was often accused of failing to counter the inswingers. Guptill is a batsman in the mould of Watson and loves to attack from the word go. His ability to clear the boundaries with ease and find gaps have not overshadowed his genuine weakness to inswingers.
He tries to play very straight rather than coming around the front pad, which makes him a serious lbw candidate. Inspite of his limited over heroics, Guptill has failed to catch onto Test cricket, with his lbw woes compounding after each series. He averages a mere 29.14 after 45 Tests.
#3 JP Duminy and off-spinners
JP Duminy has been a mainstay of South Africa's middle order, an attacking finisher in limited overs cricket, coming behind AB De Villiers and Faf Du Plessis. He has languished at the no.6, no.7 slot for too long and most of the time he gets to be in only at the fag end of the innings. In Tests too, he occupies the same position but his record in the longer format, after a spectacular beginning, has faded away largely.
Eight years later, that view - from the Test perspective - has changed drastically. His ODI and T20I records are reasonable considering the position he bats in, but in Tests, he has slipped considerably. After 36 Tests, his batting average has dropped to 32, which hardly does justice to the potential he showed in his early years.
With AB, Amla and Du Plessis strong upfront, Duminy has largely been in the shadows. His weakness against off-spin became evident in a tour of India where Harbhajan Singh had him bamboozled with his off spinners and straight ones. The issue crept up time and again, with off spinners everywhere using the ploy to Duminy, coming around the wicket and mixing the turning ball with the straight ones.
His troubles against the off spinners have seen him flirt with axing in Tests of late.
#4 Hashim Amla and the awkward angle
A modern great like Hashim Amla is expected to have a flawless, textbook technique. However, that is far from the truth.
Amla has a unique batting technique. His bat comes down from almost a fourth slip region. To ensure that the bat comes down with a full face, Amla makes a loop at the top of his backlift while playing.
This means, his bat needs to travel a longer trajectory to reach the ball than other batsmen. This, in turn, implies he is rather late to the ball than others unless he has a terrific bat speed, which he fortunately does.
Amla’s bat speed has almost always covered up for the angle of his bat as it comes down to face the ball. Even then, it makes him vulnerable to inswingers and really quick bowlers.
The flip side of Amla's bat starting from a wider point is that the willow comes down at an angle, creating a hole for the balls that move back in after pitching. Amla has been out bowled or lbw in over 30% of his dismissals against pace in international cricket. The movement off the pitch is something that will continue to trouble him as long as he uses the same technique.
#5 Virat Kohli and hard hands outside off
Virat Kohli, the ODI giant, the Indian Test team captain, the run machine. Sure, he is all of these. But the tour of England in 2014 exposed a minor weakness in his batting.
Kohli tends to go hard at balls on a length in the fourth or fifth stump line. In 6 out of 10 innings in that series, Kohli was out nicking deliveries in the corridor outside off stump.
Kohli's tendency to play in the 'V' region with a full face is perfect textbook stuff. But for short of length balls, on bouncy wickets, with movement off the deck, it easily induces an edge as the master, James Anderson, proved multiple times.
In reality, the weakness was found out in the ODI series in January 2014 in New Zealand when pace bowler Hamish Bennett had him impatient with that line. The drought of boundaries finally got to him and he nicked off-a pattern, familiar right through that ODI series.
Though Kohli has worked on the weakness and tends to mostly leave balls in that line nowadays, bowlers are well aware of this glaring issue. This tendency holds him in poor light in Test matches abroad, where that immaculate line and length is all you get.
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