An interesting incident took place during the 2nd ODI game between South Africa and Pakistan. Suddenly, de Kock was in the news throughout the cricketing world and for the wrong reasons. Was it really his fault? Did he intentionally deceive the batsman? Also, Ponting has revealed some strange Shaw’s preference about practise. Let me try to analyse De Kock in the news and Prithvi Shaw.
Quinton in the news
In the recently concluded ODI between South Africa and Pakistan, Fakhar Zaman was runout in a strange fashion. He was running towards the striker’s end when he was runout. Till that point, Zaman was batting beautifully and was approaching a rare double hundred. That was when de Kock decided to get into the act. He misguided Zaman into thinking that the throw was towards the bowler’s end when the ball actually came to the striker’s end. There were lot of condemnation of Quinton because he was thought to have cheated. Was he cheating? By the looks of it, it didn’t seem like de Kock was cheating.
Did he deliberately mislead Zaman? Maybe may not be. That is besides the point. The point is that the batsman is not supposed to look at the fielder or in this case the keeper for clue as to where the ball is. He is supposed to trust his instinct and his partner to complete a run. If he is incapable of doing either, he must not run. It is better to stop ball watching and run to reach the crease.
Luckily, Fakhar Zaman have himself come out in support of de Kock. This is good to see. He agreed that he was looking for his partner, which by the way is not wrong and failed to get back in crease ontime. Now it is better for the so called pundits to stop criticising de Kock.
Ponting is flummoxed by Prithvi Shaw
Ricky Ponting, the Delhi Capitals coach has revealed a rather unpleasant insight into the mind of Prithvi Shaw. He said that when Shaw is playing well and scoring runs, he does not want to stop batting but when he isn’t scoring runs, he does not want to practise and rectify his faults. This is such a damaging comment.
“He had an interesting theory on his batting last year. When he’s not scoring runs, he won’t bat, and when he is scoring runs, he wants to keep batting all the time. He had four or five games where he made under ten and I’m telling him, ‘We have to go to the nets and work out [what’s wrong]’, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘No, I’m not batting today’. I couldn’t really work that out.
Shaw is young with loads of cricket ahead of him. However, his attitude requires a generational change if he wants to make an impact on the international stage. This attitude of his probably explains the reason for his continued failure in New Zealand and Australia. Especially in Australia where he was nothing but a sitting duck. All Cummins and Starc had to do was just run and bowl, they will have an easy wicket. He must have refused to practise which would have helped him to come out of the rut that he found himself in because he wouldn’t practise when he is not scoring runs. This is so ridiculous.
When I first saw Shaw, I really thought that here is a batsman who will play for India for a long time. After reading Ponting’s comments it is better for the team if he never plays for the team again, lest he will corrupt the other players too.
Ponting further states
“I was going pretty hard at him,” Ponting said. “I was basically telling him, ‘Mate you’ve got to get in the nets. Whatever you think you’re working on, is not working for you.’
“It’s my job as a coach to challenge someone’s preparation if they’re not getting results. So I challenged him and he stuck to his word and he didn’t practice much at all towards the back-end of the tournament, and didn’t get many runs towards the back-end of the tournament either.”
Here is a player who is regarded as one of the great batsman of his generation asking a young player to come over to the nets to work on flaws but Shaw simply refused to follow him to the nets. I seriously hope that BCCI and Mumbai cricket takes note of such a poor attitude on the part of Shaw and ensures that he takes him game seriously and failing which he must be stripped of any comfort.
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