England’s dramatic win over the host nation in the recent Test match played in Hyderabad, India is fresh in the minds of cricket fans.
In this test played from January 25 to 29, while the winning team is enjoying its glory, the Indian team is on the verge of defeat.
From the captain of the Indian team, Rohit Sharma, to a fan sitting in a remote part of the country, he is asking himself again and again how his land, his ground and the net of spin bowling laid on him can be used. Swallowed.
If Ollie Pope, the hero of this Test and the incredible innings player, is asked, he has only one answer that the reverse sweep has reversed the Test match.
It was the first time in the 76-year history of Test cricket that India lost the match after leading by 190 runs in the first innings on their own soil.
When India took a huge lead in the first innings, everyone from Sunil Gavaskar to Sourav Ganguly agreed that the Test would be over in three days and England would not be able to match that lead, perhaps they were not wrong because India’s pitches fall apart from the third day and the Indian spinners become a double-edged sword.
But in all this scenario there was only one Kevin Pietersen who was saying that England will win the match. Despite the first innings failure and the poor form of the most experienced batsman, Joe Root, they were still Egypt.
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Perhaps he had taught one of his signature shots to Ollie Pope how to play on Indian pitches. Ollie Pope, who can see the ball very closely due to his short stature, understood that the reverse sweep was the best weapon when the Indian spinners used the pits on the pitch and then he did it brilliantly. He took more than 70 runs in his innings of 196 runs through reverse sweep.
Ollie Pope revealed after the match that he considered the reverse sweep to be a better weapon than the defence, as the reverse sweep creates space for the shot and also spoils the length of the bowler.
On his innings and reverse sweep ability, Indian coach and former great batsman Rahul Dravid said that he had not seen a better innings in the second innings. ‘I was surprised by the perfection with which he was doing the reverse sweep.’
Ollie Pope also owes his innings to the reverse sweep.
When did the reverse sweep technique begin?
Most of the shot techniques in cricket are more than 100 years old, but the reverse sweep is not so old.
Most observers of cricket history agree that this technique was accidentally invented by former Pakistan captain Mushtaq Muhammad in 1964 while playing for an English club.
In this match, England’s off-spinner Fred Tuttoms was bowling and Mushtaq was not able to get runs through the conventional shot. He found some space between point and third so he twisted his wrists and swung the bat to the other side and reverse-swept it for a four.
Although Fred shouted at the shot that it was wrong, it was legally accepted and from that day the reverse sweep was added to the lexicon of cricket and has been played regularly for the last 60 years.
What is required for a reverse sweep?
The key to playing the reverse sweep is self-confidence and well-timed decision of the batsman. When a batsman sees that the bowler is throwing the ball a good length (closer to the bat), which is difficult to cover drive, he rotates his wrists at the last moment, rotates the ball with the wrists and a powerful shot. That seems to go over the heads of most offside fielders.
Balance and grip on the bat are very important in this shot, so most batsmen avoid playing this shot.
England’s Ole Pope looks on after his century during the third day of the first Test cricket match between India and England at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on January 27, 2024 (Noah Salem/AFP)
Master the reverse sweep
If the names of reverse sweep batsmen are mentioned, many batsmen will come to the fore but the two batsmen who gave this shot fame and longevity are Javed Miandad and Andy Flower of Zimbabwe.
Both of them were so skilled in this shot that they often played on the first ball of the innings. Javed Miandad considered it his best shot. He ended the career of many spinners with this shot.
Pakistan’s Hanif Muhammad also played this shot a lot. His famous innings of 187 at Lord’s in 1967 saw this shot played frequently.
Jayawardene of Sri Lanka was also the master of this shot. He used to hit sixes on the reverse sweep.
When T20 cricket started in 2003, this shot became an effective weapon. Most of the batsmen used to play this shot against spinners to get boundaries.
South Africa’s AB de Villiers became famous for this shot in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He used to deliver the ball out of the boundary on the reverse sweep in the blink of an eye.
Pakistan’s Younis Khan completed his triple century on the same shot. He and Misbah-ul-Haq were also considered masters of the reverse sweep.
England’s Kevin Peters also used to shoot very powerfully on the reverse sweep.
If you look at the present day cricket, there are Joe Root, Usman Khawaja, David Warner, Travis Head, Ben Stokes and then the best Ollie Pope, who have made the reverse sweep shot an authentic and quality shot of cricket.
In modern cricket, bowlers bowl very narrowly according to their field and do not allow the batsmen to find a gap on the offside, so the batsmen make full use of the reverse shot to break the strategy of the bowlers. are because the reverse sweep goes to a place where the fielder is not.
In the last Hyderabad Test, Ollie Pope was reverse-swiping so frequently that the Indian skipper took a deep third man fielder over the spinners to stop the rain of fours, even though spinners usually don’t have a third man.
No matter how modern cricket becomes and new shots are invented, there is no shot that can match the reverse sweep and whenever the reverse sweep shot is played, every observer and analyst will remember Mushtaq Muhammad, who with his genius It gave birth to the reverse sweep and changed the mood of cricket.
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