The art of "long handles"!!

My list of favorite batsmen in that order are
1. Ricky Ponting
2. Dravid
3. Kevin Pietersen
4. Rohit Sharma
5. Gilchrist

Disclaimer: Leave out Dravid from the crux of this entire article. He is my out of world cricket love.

The Gilly pull


Rohit Sharma, Stand and Deliver!
One common trait that you can find in the rest of them is they lose the grip of the bat quite frequently when compared to other cricketers. You can list 'n' number of times the bats flying out of the hands of all these players. All of them are exceptionally powerful hitters. They stand tall and are terrific pullers. Their long on to deep mid wicket sixes are as gorgeous as the world beauties. Personally, I like Kevin Pietersen's Flamingo and Ricky Ponting's pull. Gilchrist's jabs are equally powerful and effective.

Yesterday's I was watching Harmanpreet Kaur's class. If you can see a pattern in the list above, then you can easily say, Harmanpreet fitting into that class. You lean when you strike on off side and you stand tall when you hit on leg. Where you close your shots are usually high extension of your bat. Your off side shots will be majestic and your leg side shots will be brutal. I could see Harmanpreet exactly fitting to "my taste" of cricketing skills.


I used to be a hitter during my cricketing days. For power, I use the long handle. Long handle is just the extra inch you get to hold your bat high thereby allowing extension of your arms or allowing powerful jabs. Dhoni fits into the power list with his long handled helicopter shots. The hand extension is the dazzling sight to watch when they play their on side shots.


How long handle can support big hitting is nicely dealt by Aakash Chopra in this article. How they tend to lose the grip because of the way they grip the bat is also dealt here. I was awestruck with Harmanpreet for those high flying sixes that she hit yesterday because those shots are very close to my personal preference in the style and for the power. Stand tall and give a bang! She is indeed a punjabi beauty :)

 Wishing good luck in the finals!

The Rohit Sharma_ish hand extension from Harmanpreet Kaur

Harmanpreet Kaur's long handle and hand extension.

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