KEY POINTS:
After New Zealand's unsuccessful tour to England Ross Taylor was told to get a grip.
So he did.
Now batting coach Mark O'Neill rates Taylor's technical progress over the off-season as one of the most pleasing aspects of the batting clinic he held in Christchurch last week.
Taylor
played the innings of the tour when he flayed 154 not out on a sporting wicket at Old Trafford but did not reach 25 in his other five innings, an ultimately disappointing return.
Too often he was found out playing slightly across the line, because of a bottom-hand grip O'Neill believes was brought about by his Twenty20 foray where quick runs are needed from the get-go.
Those flaws were amplified at Lord's when Taylor was guilty of an ugly swipe in the first innings of the first test.
"He'd come back from the IPL with a bit of an issue around his grip. It didn't allow him to play in the areas he should have been through the offside. It tended to force him to hit across the line.
"When he get his grip right the rest of his technique falls into place and he makes it look easy again."
In Bob Woolmer's Art and Science of Cricket it baldly states that "the importance of the grip cannot be overstated", but without wanting to get into the intricacies of the 'V' grip as opposed to the 'O' grip, it is important to note Taylor ticks most of the boxes. O'Neill was at pains to state this was not a case of 'over-coaching'.
"He's a good player, takes suggestions in the way they are meant and understands what coaching is about," O'Neill said of the 24-year-old. "He's made a couple of tweaks. With a player like Ross Taylor all you is a couple of tweaks and the key is being able to maintain those."
Taylor's technique is unlikely to face much inquisition in Dhaka or Chittagong, where New Zealand face an under-strength Bangladesh next month, but it will be tested against Australia at the Gabba in November.
There, Brett Lee and Stuart Clark will probe Taylor's penchant for hitting straight balls through midwicket. (They will also test his ability to withstand Steve Waugh's programme of 'Mental Disintegration').
Taylor, with just eight tests to his name, will be the old head in a middle order that is likely to see his old Central Districts colleague Jesse Ryder and Daniel Flynn join him in spots three, four and five in the order. That would serve three purposes: it has an eye, form and injury withstanding, to a long future; it allows Brendon McCullum and Jacob Oram to fill the crucial six and seven spots for which their games are tailormade; and has a good right-left mix through the order (though New Zealand are still desperately seeking a left-handed opener).
As well as Taylor's grip, O'Neill addressed a technical glitch common to most New Zealand batsmen - the tendency to have the weight going forward regardless of the length of the delivery.
"We tend to live on the front foot because of the nature of the wickets we grow up on here in New Zealand," O'Neill, an Australian raised on the wickets of Sydney and Perth, said.
"One of the things I'm trying to do is help the blokes realise you've got to hit the ball with your weight on the back foot when it's short. It's something most of them have cottoned on to very well and I would expect in the next few years people will notice the difference in the way we play the quicker bowlers on harder tracks."
Again, Australia, not Bangladesh where their mediums rarely get above hip height, will provide the clues as to whether O'Neill's message is getting through.