Ben Duckett explains his slog-sweeps against Ashwin, believes ‘superstar’ Jaiswal’s aggressive knock owes a bit to England’s Bazball approach

In the last couple of decades, we have seen a few overseas batsmen play their signature slog-sweeps to great effect in India. Hansie Cronje, Steve Waugh, Kevin Pietersen and we can now add Ben Duckett, whose thunderous slog-sweeps on the second day in Rajkot made even the bowler R Ashwin think of applauding. It will be captured in potential cricket documentaries about the series and definitely ‘gif’fed by the England and Wales Cricket Board’s X handle in the years to come.

It was some sight. Duckett had to extend himself far more than Waugh or Cronje. Not just because he isn’t as tall, but his ambitions were higher. He wanted to hit Ashwin – irrespective of where he was bowling, often turning across him outside off – to the wide midwicket region as “it was a shorter boundary and breeze was flowing there”, as the left-hander would say.

It took some doing as Ashwin, one of the greatest off- spinners against left-handers, tinkered with his length, line and pace. He had the confidence of bowling well in the Vizag chase behind him too. Duckett had had a not-so-good past against Ashwin, troubled by him in the 2016 series and being dropped.

On Saturday, the opener would talk about that series: “It’s obviously a very tough place to come and tour, and I’m not the first left-hander to struggle against him. I was very young. He’s one of, if not the best, off-spinners to have played the game. Obviously, I went away and worked hard at my game and my defence. I’m not a completely different player to what I was back then, but in between the sweeps and reverse-sweeps, if I can get rid of the short leg now, I feel like I’ve got a good enough defensive game now to knock him around and get down the other end. I think that’s the biggest element I’ve worked on. It’s the backing of this team that means I can go out and play with the freedom that I did yesterday. It probably wasn’t the same back then.”

Method to madness

Duckett had to get a couple of elements right for the brutal slog-sweep. He had to stay low and his natural low centre of gravity perhaps helped in that. He had to predetermine but move at the correct time, and not too early. “It’s a predetermined shot, like all my reverse and regular sweeps,” he says.

He also has to drag the ball from outside off but taking care not to top-edge and be beaten by the bounce. Since he was thinking sixes, his hands had to go from low to high with the bat flow. Slog-sweeps are in essence about positioning the body, and can be learnt as in it doesn’t have to be an instinctive childhood shot and can be practiced. Sachin Tendulkar famously trained for his against-the-turn slog-sweeps against Shane Warne.

Duckett would place his right leg wider than normal, well outside leg-stump, opening himself considerably to position his body for the hit to the wide midwicket region. His hockey skills then come into play, as recently told by his childhood coach James Knott to this newspaper. Like a drag-flicker, he would not just drag but absolutely thump the ball, his bat going from ground to air in a thunderous rapid arc.

“I probably went too defensive against off-spin over the last couple of years and it’s only recently I’ve started to put a bit of pressure back on them and I’m very happy I did that yesterday,” said Duckett.

On the third morning, he would fall to the most innocuous ball from Kuldeep Yadav, carving a wide short ball well outside off to cover. “I’d much rather get out putting the bowling under pressure and getting caught on the fence at times, as long as it’s a shot that you play and have practised thousands and thousands of times. That’s why I didn’t run down once and didn’t try to hit them back over their heads. Everything was shots I’ve played for so many years now. It’s a shot I’m at peace with if I get out because I commit to it so often, I rarely miss it.”

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He hasn’t just been practising his versions of sweep shots for a few years at home, but also recently pre-series on especially-prepared spin tracks in the UAE.

In the end, even as he admired Yashasvi Jaiswal’s knock, he added with a smile that England should be given a bit of credit for it.

“He [Jaiswal] seems an incredible player, looks like a superstar in the making. When you see players from the opposition playing like that, it almost feels like we should take some credit that they’re playing differently than how other people play Test cricket. We saw it a bit in the summer and it’s quite exciting to see other players and other teams are also playing that aggressive style of cricket.”

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