Former India captain, as well as current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, has supported the ‘switch-hit’ shot, citing that the ‘game has moved on’. The shot has been in the limelight in recent times ever since Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell hit it in the ongoing limited-overs series against India and former Australian captain Ian Chappell asking it to be banned saying that it is unfair on the fielding team. But Ganguly thinks in a different way.
“The game has moved on, so I don’t see we can take away this popular stroke from the modern-day batsmen,” Ganguly was quoted as saying by Mid Day. “You require a lot of strength to play such courageous shot. Apart from timing and feet movement, a lot of other things are required to play this stroke. Kevin Pietersen was the first to play this shot. Also David Warner’s name should come here. It’s a very good shot if you can hit it nicely.”
Notably, Maxwell too backed his shot and doesn’t see anything wrong in it. On the other hand, while writing for ESPNCricinfo, Chappell referred to the shot as excellent but stressed that it is unfair to the fielding team.
“One of the main tasks of a cricket administrator is to frame laws that maintain a reasonable balance between bat and ball. If the laws or playing conditions favour one or the other unfairly then the game becomes a diminished contest,” he wrote.
Chappell also shared a way to apply the law, saying, “The square-leg umpire is already paying close attention to the batsman’s feet in case there is a stumping, so he’ll notice any change of order. If a batsman changes the order of his feet, then the square-leg umpire ought to simply declare the ball dead and no runs result.”
Meanwhile, former umpire Simon Taufel had said that it’s impossible to ban switch hits as the umpires have other things to do. He said that the game of cricket is an art and not a science and also said that they’re not perfect.
“When we say that we want to ban that type of shot how does the umpire officiate that? It’s impossible. The umpire has an enormous number of decisions – front foot, back foot, protected area, seeing where a ball is hit – it’s impossible to have an official then watch for the changing of the grip or stance. It’s an impossible ask for a standing umpire to make that determination. We can’t make a law that we can’t apply,” the former ICC Elite Panel umpire was quoted as saying by ‘Sydney Morning Herald’.
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