Indian Top Order V/s Left Arm Pacers : Weakness turning into a concern

[Rajkumar Sharma]

India won both T20I & Odi series, but there is huge concern of Indian top order facing left arm pacers.

Nasser Hussain had a take on it
https://www.crictracker.com/history-tel ... rder-woes/

But this issue is of high concern, its all started in 2015 Asia Cup in Bangladesh where Pakistsn's M Amir was first to find the weakness, later it was worstly exposed by Amir again in 2017 CT final, Boult, Starc, Shaheen, Sam Curran, Marco Jansen and latest by Reece Topley. Rohit, Rahul & now VK are getting out frequently by the left arm pacers. Worst thing is that they are getting out both with outswing & inswing deliveries, it seems they are in doldrums in facing left arm pacers when someting is there for the bowlers

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Last 7 years our top order struggle against left arm pacers in crunch matches. Same mistakes repeating every time

[prasen9]

The solution is obvious. Get some left-handed batsmen. And, while we are at it, get some left-handed bowlers. Longer term, we should write articles so that society does not try to change left-handed people to right-handed. And, there is some evidence that if you try to bat with your weaker arm, your technique gets better, etc.

[Atithee]

Is this an Indian shortcoming only? How have the other teams fared?

[prasen9]

Left-handed pacers are more successful against right-handed batters and vice-versa. Generally. I have not checked the numbers but it seems Raj bhai has been saying that we have a problem and it seems we are slightly worse than the other teams wrt this. We have a problem in that we do not have very many left-armers in domestics and we have treated Khaleel, Natarajan, and the Punjabi guy (Sran?) badly and have no left-arm pacers. All this is anecdotal impressions on my side. Will have to check numbers properly.

Here is a statistical analysis of the performance advantages of left-handed batsmen: Article

May be if we could get a left-handed batsman to lead the BCCI, he would pay a bit more attention to this? Or delegate? Thoughts?

[Rajkumar Sharma]

You are correct and to add on it, i will say about quality. We had an era where Zak, Nehra, Irfan, RP were our strike bowlers. Zak at the begining was outswing bowler to the RHB with good pace and had a lethal yorker, he didnt had that inswinger to the RHBs, after his stinct with Surrey & Worcestershire, post 2003 WC he cut down his pace and developed that inswing delivery to the RHB and became more successful, bringing more variety in his armoury. Nehra & Irfan had the natural talent of bowling that inswingers to RHBS in begining of their career with pace, Irfan was best in the world in that 2003-05 slot troubling best of the players. RP had round arm action having the ability to swing the bowl both ways and became one of the best T20 opening bowler in T20Is in 2007-08.Playing such quality left arm pacers helped indian batsman to counter on the likes of Wasim Akram, Vaas, Bracken, Johnson.
Present left arm pacers lack such skills. Sran had good start in Australia bowled lethal spells in Zimbabwe with that inswingers to RHB at good pace, however injury ended his career. Virat had special practice sessions with Aniket Choudhary, as he found some talent in him but he failed to perform in domestic. Khaleel has good pace but has plenty of problem in pitching the ball, neither his ball swings enough, has interest more in sledging then his bowling.Natarajan depends on slowers, cutters, yorkers fully developed himself as T20 format bowler, only Arsdeep to certain extent Mohsin Khan, Arzan Nagwaswalla, promishing under 19 kid Ravi Kumar can give our batters face such quality swing bowling and improve themselves against left arm pacers

[prasen9]

If you just want practice, you can make them bowl from shorter distances, with wet balls or various balls of different shines, use the bowling machine, etc. That can be handled. The issue is real-life practice in first-class games and facing such bowlers growing up. What I mean is that one Zaheer or Irfan etc. is not enough. You need to encourage quite a few of them in the first-class games across the board. Ditto with lhbs.

Baseball is much better with this regard. The numbers are so stark in baseball that an average MLB player (see Austin Slater) hits better than a very good batter when it comes to handedness, i.e., Slater hits a left-handed pitcher say 50% better wrt average than the average MLB batter but is poor against right-handed pitchers. So, you platoon him. Cricket does not have that luxury, in that you do not have one starting pitcher do things but when we choose our bowlers, we need to have a good mix and depending upon the handedness of the opposition, use the right bowler.