Watch: Shane Watson shares two important tips to counter fast bowlers

Legendary Australian all-rounder Shane Watson recently shared a couple of tips for budding cricketers which could help them in facing fast bowlers with more confidence and give them a better chance of succeeding.

Watson played 59 Tests, 190 ODIs, and 58 T20Is for Australia and also represented some of the most successful teams in the various franchise leagues around the world. The 43-year-old is hailed as one of the finest seam-bowling all-rounders to have played the game. After starting his career as a middle-order batter, Watson impressed fans as well as experts with his batting technique and went on to become an opener in all three formats. He was an excellent player of fast bowling as he could assess the length of a delivery pretty quickly and had all the orthodox shots in the book.

Watson, who was the assistant coach of Delhi Capitals in IPL 2022 and 2023, posted a video on Saturday, November 9, where he hit the nets to suggest two ways in which cricketers can counter the threat of the fast bowlers. Before getting into the masterclass, he recalled that Shoaib Akhtar had bowled the fastest delivery he had faced in his career on his 21st birthday during an ODI at The Gabba.

“So I get asked a lot, who’s the fast bowler I faced. Look, there’s actually one ball in particular that was the fastest ball I faced. On my 21st birthday, at The Gabba, against Shoaib Akhtar. It was very fast off the back of a length. Flew over the keeper’s head, couple of bounces for four,” Watson said in the video he uploaded on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter).

“One thing that’s critically important, when you know there is a fast bowler that you’re gonna be facing, there are a couple of technical things that I would do immediately. The first one is, if you normally stand sort of half and half with your feet on either side of the crease, actually go a little bit deeper in your crease. Not too far back because you have more chance to stand on your stumps. But just give yourself that little split second longer to be able to pick up the ball,” the Ipswich born said.

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Keep your backlift a little bit lower: Shane Watson

Watson also suggested that batters can opt for a lower backlift against the quicker bowlers and look to use the pace of the deliveries to score their runs instead of trying to hit too hard.

“The other one is actually just keeping your backlift a little bit lower. Because the ball is going to be coming out faster, you don’t have as much time to go up and down with your bat. So then, it’s more of a punchy sort of swing to start with while you get the pace of that fast bowler, but also cause the ball is coming down faster, you don’t have to hit it this hard. So you can actually deflect it and the ball races away. So those were two really simple cues to be able to just try and clear my mind. Short backlift, slightly deeper in the crease and watch that ball and react as fast as you possibly can,” Watson explained.

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