Cricket: Clever touch, cool nerves

Peter McGlashan hits out for another four, this time with conventional drive. Photo / Getty Images

Anyone pondering the T20 game's biggest contribution to cricket got their answer this week.

Last summer Brendon McCullum showed what a dash of innovation, and an absence of fear, could bring with his exhilarating 116 off just 56 balls against Australia in Christchurch.

On Tuesday, New Zealand wicketkeeper Peter McGlashan gave another, albeit briefer, example of batting possibilities for players with an inventive touch and cool nerves when he belted 26 off 10 balls against Pakistan at Seddon Park.

Where McCullum's ton, which included 12 fours and eight sixes, is best remembered for his scoop shot off Australia's quicks, Shaun Tait, Ryan Harris and Dirk Nannes, McGlashan opted for what he called a reverse pull off Pakistan's fast-medium Umar Gul.

McGlashan hit 24 in one Gul over, which included a four flicked off the front foot over short fine leg and two balls whipped flat over the boundary rope at backward point.

It's his variation on the McCullum idea and it is another example of batsmen trying to stay one step ahead of the bowlers in the shortest game.

To play those two reverse shots McGlashan turned his body around to swing the ball over the infield. It's a high-risk manoeuvre.

Get it wrong and you can look a chump. A few days ago a player tried a dinky ramp shot and the ball clunked into the front of his helmet.

McGlashan recalled the last time he faced Gul, during the world T20 in England last year. Gul was reverse- swinging the ball and had the Northern Districts gloveman lbw for eight attempting a sweep.

Gul was en route to taking five for six, still the best figures in T20 internationals, as New Zealand were rolled for 99. So Tuesday could be termed a spot of revenge for the 31-year-old.

"The idea is really to look where the gaps in the field are and try to find them," McGlashan said.

"Then if they shift the fielders there you try to find the gaps where they have been."

Sounds simple but given that T20 is a game where the batsman has about two balls to get his bearings before pressing the foot down, he needs to be switched on to the possibilities from the start of his innings.

"It's all about trying to find tactics to counter the opposition moves. Fortunately he [Gul] wasn't reversing it this time," McGlashan added.

Bowlers can appear the punching bags in T20. After all, it's a game designed to be entertaining for the masses. Big hitting is essential to that; put it this way: a game with totals of 160 v 155 is better value than 97 v 82.

In T20 the good length ball is prone to disappear into the outer.

Batsmen simply hit through the line and there is a greater degree of tolerance from captains and coaches to seeing a daft shot being unsuccessfully attempted in a 20-over innings than in a longer game.

The key for bowlers is variation, changes in pace and being able to shift the target area in a blink as he sees the batsman on the move. The yorker is the desirable delivery, but get it a fraction wrong and those batsmen with an eye for the unorthodox will cash in.

Shots played by the two Macs are spectacular and carry a high degree of risk, not only of dismissal but also injury. Don't expect to see Ross Taylor playing something similar any time soon.

"That's crazy," the New Zealand acting captain quipped of McGlashan's reverse shot.

"I'm never trying those. But that's his [McGlashan's] shot and I hope he continues to work on that, and people back him to do it.

"Hopefully no one gets on his back. That's the way he plays."