Batting tip

Geez - one hell of a test match shaping up here between South Africa and Australia. Neither side is prepared to give up ground and just when one side looks to be getting on top, the other side hits back.



Been helluva impressed with the spirit the South Africans have displayed in this game.



Two interesting batting tips that I quite enjoyed from the Aussie commentary yesterday which I thought I would highlight:



1. Bottom hand dominance: Yesterday Adam Gilchrist touched on the subject of bottom hand dominance in batsman and came up with a unique way to counter it. Apparently its quite well publicised by Gilchrist but I missed it, so I'm going to touch on it again here. What Gilly did was to put a squash ball inside the glove of his bottom hand (basically around the webbing of his thumb).

This created a 'weaker' grip which was negated by the squash ball and batters focused more on gripping the bat with their top hands.

2. "Shape" of a batsman. We read a lot of commentary about a bowler having 'shape' but I've noticed it is something that the Aussies chat about a bit.

It is a nice way to describe a batter keeping his 'shape' when striking a ball and maybe something for coaches to remember when they are trying to describe a batting technique.