The art of leaving outside off-stump
By Frank Heydenrych
When Neil McKenzie was named one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year in 2008, it was for something he had not done, rather than what he had done: it was for not playing at the ball in an epic series of innings for South Africa against England, a display which earned South Africa a series win.
Called in as an opener after Herschelle Gibbs had failed repeatedly, McKenzie left delivery after delivery outside off-stump, driving the England bowlers to distraction. At the end of the series, McKenzie had faced 879 balls in the series, the most by any batsman on either side.
McKenzie had simply eliminated risk from his game, keeping it all as simple as possible, in itself remarkable for a player known for his compulsive-obsessive idiosyncracies. He limited his trigger movement and his stride down the wicket, and left ball after ball.
New Zealand and Pakistan have been taken apart methodically this season, losing four out of four matches by wide margins to South Africa. Common to these 40 dismissals has been an inability to leave the ball outside off-stump, as borne out by AB de Villiers’ world record-equalling 11 dismissals in the first Test against Pakistan, along with the array of catches taken at slip.
Geoff Boycott calls the channel outside off-stump the “corridor of uncertainty”, and it has been the ability of the South African pacemen to exploit this channel that has led to their extraordinary success. In roughly a third of a second a batsman has to make three judgment calls based on six criteria: play forward or back, leave or proffer the bat, defend or attack.
It is when the bat is proffered to balls that should have been left that wickets start to tumble, especially when there is doubt as to whether the ball is going to swing in or out; and the final part of the puzzle is late swing, when the ball deviates from the straight fast and late enough to sow doubt in the mind of the batsman.
To watch Vernon Philander at work is to see the good old county cricket two-card trick in action: two in-swingers followed by an outswinger, with no noticeable change in action, as the change is wrought by the wrist, perpendicular behind the ball. That is how Philander takes 5/7.
Cricket and life coach Mark Atkinson offers the following advice http://www.elitecricket.com.au/2008/11/masterclass-the-art-of-leaving-the-ball-outside-off-stump/:
The benefits of leaving the ball outside off-stump.
– You are minimising the risk of caught behind the wicket by leaving ball wide of off-stump and effectively making the slips fielders a wasted position.
– You can pressure the bowlers into changing their tactics and bowling straighter line, which will create leg-side scoring opportunities.
– You are demonstrating to the bowlers that you will be selective in your choice of shots and therefore tough to get out.
– You are demonstrating that you value your wicket.
– You are giving yourself time to get comfortable at the crease.
– You can begin to develop a feel for what attacking opportunities will be available outside off-stump later in your innings by having a good look at the bowling while you adjust to the conditions.
– You can get your eye in and establish yourself at the crease at the most difficult part of your innings, the start. If you bat for long enough you will make up the runs later as your confidence grows and the bowlers tire.
– Technically, the key to leaving the ball is knowing where your stumps are in relation to your eye position and the best way to do this is to match up your body position with the stumps. That is if the ball is coming at you it is also coming at your stumps and if the ball is wide of you it is wide of the stumps. Of course this means you have to play straight, but you can’t expect to play across the line of the ball and score runs anyway!
Additionally, by adopting a front- and back-foot position that covers your stumps you are also managing your risk by giving the bowler a smaller target and as the old saying goes, you can’t score runs from the pavilion.