Renegade back foot?

Hi all,
I've been having trouble playing, well, most front foot shots. Not that I'm unable to do them, because I play most of them absolutely fine. It's just that when I play them, as mostly an involuntary action, my backfoot 'slides' about 50-75cm to my left. While it feels perfectly natural for me, Noone else does it, and I cop a bit of flak for this way of batting.
Any advice on whether this is normal or not and if I should try to stop this from happening.

just let yourself react to the ball coming into you, without forcing yourself to do things, if thats the way that works the best for you then whats wrong wiht that, some of the best batsmen in the world dont go completly textbook

I disagree with the majority view here - although I don't normally like to encourage orthodoxy for the sake of it, because "it's the done thing", what you are describing here does sound to me like a serious fault, even if it's not causing you problems now it might later. If it's the problem I think your'e describing (which is quite a familiar one from observation), it's incorrect at such a fundamental level that it is, or will be, harmfull to your batting overall

Basically (correct me if I'm wrong), it sounds like you are getting in to position to play the drive the wrong way, ie instead of moving the front foot forward you're moving your back foot back, so ending up in the same position but with two key differences - 1) you're not getting as far forward towards the pitch of the ball as you should be for driving and 2) more importantly, your weight is being transferred away from the ball, hence messing up your timing and balance.

As everyone else says, don't be overly keen to be perfectly textbook in everything you do, but if I've understood what you said right then my opinion is that this is one thing worth working to change. It may feel a lot worse to start with, but that doesn't mean it's less effective in the long term. Having said that, if you're still hitting your front foot shots alright you're obviously not doing it to too great a degree so maybe won't be difficult to change. If you are gonig to make a fundamental change like this, try if you possibly can to work on it in a one-on-one session with a good coach.


Edited by Chin Music - 12 April 2007 at 3:05pm

Actually, that's not really correct. I do put my front forward. It's about the time that I make contact with the bowl that my backfoot does it's little slide.

Originally posted by Smack Out of interest, does the back foot slide more to quicker bowling?

Yes, much more so

Originally posted by Smack Often quicker bowlers can cause some batsmen to "back away". They still play the ball but often both feet can end up outside legstump. You might have a slightly different version of the same problem.

This sounds very similar to what I do.

Originally posted by Smack Also is your back foot flat on the ground when you drive or do you raise your toe?

When I drive my bat foot is generally resting on my toe.

Originally posted by Smack I assume we are talking just about the cover/sqaure drive here. I mean if your back foot is sliding outwards then your body must be facing coverish. Its hard to see how your back foot could slide out when playing a straight or on drive.

Well, it does to a certain degree with On- and Straight-driving, but nowhere as near as much as happens when I cover-drive or square-drive the ball.